The Sivasamudram Falls is one of the places in Karnataka that everybody visits once in their life time in Bangalore. Same happened with me. I was very eager to visit this much heard about waterfall and so we finally made a plan.

The Sivasamudram Falls is on the Kaveri River. A common misunderstanding about these waterfalls are that the left segment is called Gaganachukki and the right segment is called Bharachukki. In reality the Bharachukki falls are a few kilometers to the south-west of the Gaganachukki falls. This is due to the Kaveri river itself splitting a few kilometers to the south into western and eastern branches. The western branch results in the twin waterfalls of Gaganachukki, whereas the eastern branch results in the Bharachukki falls.

Enough of the facts, let’s talk about the journey, shall we?

We started our journey from Bangalore at 6:30 am so that we reach the falls before the sun hits hard. It was a 4 hours journey which went by listening to music in our Ola Outstation cab. On road, we took only one break for drinking Coconut water at a spot near by the dam where people were taking Coracle rides. On reaching Bharachukki falls, we realized that they have closed the path leading to the base of the falls where people use to bath few years back. I cursed myself for not reading the reviews of the falls before coming here. None the less, we took our fair share of selfies and groupfies from the viewpoint. 🙂

Since we could not soak our feet in the waterfalls, we proceeded towards the Kaveri river bank at Talakadu.

Talakadu has over 30 temples, most are them are buried in the sand today. Some of these temples have been excavated and are open for public. Currently there are five temples dedicated to Lord Siva – Pathaleshwara, Maruleshwara, Arkeshwara, Vaideeshwara and Mallikarjuneshwara Temple.

It is 30 km away from Shivasamudram falls. When we reached here, already the sum was at our heads. We took an exciting 30 mins Coracle ride here[which was amazing] and relaxed in the sheds at the river bank. After a while, we went to have our lunch and came back to Bangalore. We didn’t go to any of the temples in Talakadu, now I wonder why.

The traveler in me thinks, this trip was futile but the blogger in me thinks, every experience is worth telling.

If you are planning to visit Shivasamudra Waterfalls, please do visit Talakadu as well. You can plan a family picnic, enjoy Coracle ride and swim at the river bank. And if you like visiting temples, you would not be disappointed here.