one day trip to chitradurga fort

                      Hey guys.....Do you like forts??..best historical forts in Karnataka & wanna know one among them?..really!!..then here it is! ...chitradurga fort.. 

                           Chitradurga fort is one of the largest forts in karnataka, situated in the middle of chitradurga city. It is around 215 km from the Bangalore. This is the one where most of the people wants to go & enjoy....age group doesn't matter! I am also one of them & planned to visit chitradurga in last week of DEC 2014, where we had Christmas holiday & long weekend. We (me, my wife & kid) started our journey from the Bangalore railway station (SBC) at 10:15 pm, expecting to start exploration of fort next day early in the morning.

                   



                        You might be thinking that, "yaar...this chitradugra is just 200 km from the Bangalore. It will take only 3-4 hours by bus, then why this fellow travelled by train to waste extra 6 hours"... right..ha..ha..?... you are not only one, but I got same question from few of my friends too. Let me tell you in short about this.

Mode of transport 

                      There are two modes of transport to chitradurga from Bangalore, BUS and RAIL.

By Bus:- Plenty of the buses are available from Bangalore and  it takes 3-4 hours by ordinary bus and 3 hours by AC luxurious (like Airavat) bus. But long route luxurious buses are mostly available in the night and leave from the Bangalore in between 8 to 11 pm & reaches chitradurga early in the morning before 4 am, which seems inconvenient for most of the people. In case of ordinary buses, you can have lots of options and you can start your journey by 6 am from the Bangalore and reach chitradurga by 11 am, But the idea to see fort in afternoon is not so good, especially during summer. Instead of enjoying, you will be frustrated due to hot sunny day and may beeeee....that frustration will account on someone else...ha..ha .

By Train:- Frequency of trains is very less to chitradurga  railway station. When you search in rail info site for train availability to chitradurga, it shows two different station codes JRU & CTA. Check image given below for more details.

                   CTA is correct code for chitradurga railway station, whereas JRU is for Chikkjejur, which is 40 km away from chitradurga. While choosing train option please make sure to book ticket with correct code CTA.  

                       We travelled by train no. 56909 Bangalore city- hospet pass. We left Bangalore at 10.15 pm and train reached to chitradurga station next day morning by 7:15 am. It was delayed by 1.5 hours as we already considered, but this delay was good for us otherwise. What we could have did if we were reached on time 5:45 am!!. Train journey of 8 hours was ok but not so good. Because of cold we could not sleep properly, except our kid. Once we got down to the station, we asked for the waiting room to take some rest and make ourselfs ready.

                   By 8 am we were ready and searched for hotels to have breakfast, but unfortunately we found nothing nearby railway station. We thought, ok yaar....as it is a famous fort, something will be available near the fort and hired a auto for the fort. And guess what...situation remained same at the fort also. Our hopes for the breakfast were almost went off...god!!...finally we found a hotel nearby but surprisingly, only tea was available...see its 8 :30 am and there is no good option for the breakfast, finally we managed with biscuits & tea only & entered the fort by paying entrance fee of Rs 5/-  only.....felt great..!!

                                                                     Entry gate of the fort

               Entry in the fort was quite interesting with  high, stiff walls, which was really difficult for the enemy to enter into the fort, as you can see in the above picture. Fort itself is a master piece of architecture and construction, built in multiple layers, making it almost impregnable. One main attraction  in the fort is Obbavana Khindi, secret opening  to enter into fort. 

 click here to know history of the obbavana khindi.

Obbavana Khindi

We spent almost 3-4 hours there and again came to the entrance of the fort. It was a great experience to see the fort in fresh morning with soft cold waves and mild sun rays. It saved our energy. Below are the few pics of the fort. 

                                               

                         One more thing I was expecting to see was 'monkey man'!!  A stunt man, Jyoti Raj from the chitradurga itself, recognized by the name of monkey man. I was expecting to see his real stunts in fort, but unfortunately he was not available that day. But guys, he is truly a monkey man... why...want to  know? then see this video.

              As per our plan, our next destination was 'Chandravali cave'. It is almost 5 km away from the fort. There is no specific transport or share auto from fort to cave & viceversa. We were already tired with walking inside the fort without any breakfast. So instead of wasting time for looking best alternative, we hired auto, which took us to cave. It was supposed to wait there for 1 hour and finally drop us at govt. bus stand. We convinced driver for 200 Rs. & moved to Chandravali cave .

                  Chandravali cave is almost 60-80 feet below the ground, but not so much interesting. '60-80 feet long below the ground' word always attracts people, at least for first time. Don't expect that the cave would have maintained properly, you will find light inside and you will find interesting things inside...ha..ha... There are no lights inside, you need a powerful torch (LED) with you to go inside. Cave is spread in 3-4 direction, not sure about exact figure! & it is difficult to remember the ways to come out. If you want see complete cave, I would suggest to hire a guide. Don't expect  much from the guide that he will tell every thing about the cave, like it's history, importance of the places etc..., He is with you mainly for your safety, so that you can easily came out without confusion and any injury. 

                I have not taken any photo inside the cave, even if I had took it, it was of no use, because  we cant see anything except darkness. Below is  pic showing the entrance of the cave.

              After spending 1 hour around the caves, we finally came to the Govt bus stand near about 12:30 pm, had lunch there, took rest for 10 minutes and started our return journey to Bangalore by ordinary bus, which I don't prefer for such long routes. But we did not have any other good option and even couldn't wait for good one, as we didn't wanted to reach the home in late night. Finally at 9:30 pm we reached home with good memories. This is all summary of our one day tour of chitradurga.

wish you happy journey...