The remnants of history

Sometimes you get to feel like you’re living in Lord of the Rings. At least Kyle thinks so because he was in New Zealand for two years. Here in Hyderabad, that same feeling happens at Golconda Fort, a massive edifice that is left over from the fourteenth century. It’s a sprawling fortress that is crumbling and decaying, but the biggest single-day adventure we’ve had so far.

The first time we saw Golconda we were just driving down the road, and all of a sudden this massive castle on a hill came into view. It was so alarming, like going back in history or perhaps into Narnia or something. It also helped that the actual road you're driving takes you through the main gate of the massive outer wall, which is 11 km in circumference and so thick it feels like you drove through a short tunnel. It's another kilometer or so from the outer wall to the inner wall and the actual fort itself. It was amazing.

Approaching the outer wall gate - it appeared after the wall itself opened up and had you go through a gauntlet with two towering walls on both sides... So cool.

If Golconda was in the US, there would be a million little signs that say “please stay on the marked path” and little forest rangers to warn you not to go to far from the main road, and little museum guards to tell you not to touch anything. There were none of those. You’re as free as can be. We climbed all over the place, eventually making it to the top of the hill and into Golconda’s main keep, only to find there really was an easy path that could have taken us straight there. We liked the rock climbing, fortress scaling approach better.

"Coooool! What's around the next crumbling staircase?"

From the ground level - looking across the fort. You can't even tell how far it stretches from here

Looking up - towards the top and how high you gotta climb. Kyle wasn't looking at the fort though...

Also, bats. Hundreds of them. The place is so vast that in broad daylight you can walk into different cavernous rooms (like the old camel stables) and hear screeching… We decided to investigate, poked our camera up, took a picture, and then started running. The flash illuminated thousands of bats just staring down at us with their beady little eyes. So awesome.

Walking into the old camel stables - nice place...

Many, many little eyes! Thanks to A.R. from the team for braving the photo!

There were so many nooks and crannies that we could have spent days just exploring and having adventures there. It would have been the ultimate place for a scout campout, capture the flag, paintballing, marshmallow gun warring, and the like. It was splendid. Then, the sun went down while we were at the top, and it was beautiful. We never did learn much of the history of the place - until latter when we had to look it up online. But we did get to steal a kiss on top when no locals were looking. :) Thanks, India, for the ultimate time!