महेन्द्र गुफा

Mahendra Guffa - Mahendra Cave

Useful Information

Location:	Pokahara. 10 km north of the city center of Pokahara. 207 km from Kathmandu. (28.271670, 83.979535)
Open:	All year Mon, Wed-Sun 9-18. [2023]
Fee:	Adults NPR 150, SAARC NPR 80, Nepali NPR 50. [2023]
Classification:	Karst cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System bring torch.
Dimension:	L=242 m, VR=15 m, A=1,100 m asl.
Guided tours:	L=120 m.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Mahendra Guffa, Tel: +977-, Fax: +977-,
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History

1950	discovered by a couple of shepherd boys and named Adhero Bhawan.
1953	visited by Senior culture expert Satya Mohan Joshi who wrote an article about the visit in a Newari newspaper.

Description

Mahendra Guffa (Mahendra Cave) is the most popular cave of Nepal, named after the late King Mahendra. The cave is noted for its extraordinary speleothems, but unfortunately they have suffered from vandals who broke them off as souvenirs. The cave is lit with electric light. At least that is the legend. In reality, it is probably popular, but does not have speleothems which are notable. And it is very dim and visitors are recommended to bring their own flashlight.

The cave is located in a layer of conglomerate, granule to pebble sized gravel fixed by a matrix of fine sand. This conglomerate is capped by a much harder and more resistant rock, so the cave is restricted to the conglomerate. The cave is entered by going down into a sort of depression, the entrance is located at the deepest point, at the foot of a cliff face. The passages are devoid of speleothems, often rather rectangular, a result of the layer of cap rock which forms the ceiling.

After the cave had been discovered in 1950 by sheperds from Pokhara it was named Adhero Bhawan. In 1953, it was visited by senior culture expert Satya Mohan Joshi. He wrote an article about the cave which was published in a Newari newspaper. King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev read it and eventually traveled to Pokhara to visit it personally. As a result the cave was renamed after him.

The cave seems to be small and a little dull. We did not visit this cave personally, but both, the Lonely Planet Guidebook and our caver friend Franz Lindenmayr have the same description for the cave: "simply not worth the effort". We guess it is not bad to visit if you are there, but you should not drive far to get there. And if you are there, also visit nearby bat cave.