Belum cave - part 2

..continued from Belum Cave - part 1.

Another high speed tunnel. Its hard to imagine clear water carving stone. I think these grooves must be a result of muddy water flowing through at high speed. Natural color of these stones is whitish grey, matt surface. 

I love this particular block. Probably long time back it had straight edges, flowing water must have formed the rounded corners.

Yellow light forms a lovely shadow behind Gurudutt. It looks like meditating Buddha.

Of all pictures I liked this one most. We have a inverted key hole here. Notice the flat surface in the ceiling, a concave dome. Guru is on the right and our Reddy on the left.

This chamber must be the Dhyaana Mandir, I think. Notice the stalactites on the ceiling. To my eyes this chamber looks like its formed by a pair of cupped hands.

We have a false ceiling here with a holes. The false ceiling seems t be of the same material as stalactites.

We reach Kotilingalu Guha ~ Cave with countless Lingas. The ceiling is covered with thousands of small stalactites resembling Linga.

A closer look at the stalactites, they are tightly grouped together. Looks like an inverted ant hill.

Cross section of a stalactite; crust is of light colored matter, filling is dark and core is hollow. Concentric circles can be seen which is evidence of matter accumulating over thousands of years. They look like a sweet snack with sugar coating :)

Here we have stalactites resembling elephant trunks.

The hour glass arch.

Lines and grooves seem to intersect at right angle in most places.. how is that possible? Check out three surfaces of this rock; intersections are at right angle. Amazing!

This picture looks like a map, upper half is land and lower half is sea. Also, I can see a face... a face from left side.. a nose, small mouth, an eye and long hair. Got it?

Not finding the right word to describe this picture. Any suggestion?

Another grid. There's has to be an explanation for how these perpendicular grooves got formed. Vertical folds add beauty to this grid.

Our 1 hour 15 minutes tour as a rushed one, time was a constraint as always :( Time to leave.

These are the two holes I'd mentioned earlier. Through one descends the stairway into the cave.

A tourist group assembling at the hall, waiting for its guide to start the tour.

As mentioned earlier, in 1982-84 a team of German speleologists headed by H Daniel Gebauer conducted a detailed survey of  Belum cave and mapped its passages and chambers.

This map is a copy of the map displayed at the Belum Caves ticket counter. Since the paint had peeled off at few parts and unreadable, some parts on my map haven't been marked. I want to visit Belum Cave again and during that visit I'll carry a print out of this map and mark the spots properly.

Gautama Buddha statue at Belum caves

Approximate distance of Belum Caves from few cities.

• Gooty - 65 kms
• Kurnool - 110 km
• Hydrabad - 320 km
• Bengaluru - 330 km
• Hubli - 360 km

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