Monday 2 June 2008
Vivek, Viresh, Ashish and Kunal. (From Top)
Lohgad Fort 
Mountain Yoga!We started walking towards Bhaje Village from where we could go to Bhaje Caves, where we could spend the night. On reaching Bhaje, and asking the villagers, we found out that resting at the caves was not possible, as it was banned by the govt. One of the villagers invited us to his residence and allowed us to stay for the night at his terrace. We left our bags there and went to look around the village. On inquiring further, we found out that we could go to the base village of Lohgad Fort, Lohgadwadi, by trekking for an hour and a half. So, we got all geared up, took our bags and headed out to open forest. We left Bhaje at around 9:30.
We walked, and walked some more, Kunal's stamina was giving him a real test. After nearly two hours we were getting the intuition of being lost as the village lights were nowhere in sight. The moon hidden behind clouds, hardly emitting light, making the night very dark and creepy.
A little later we saw a fort pillar, and we all got some encouragement. On walking ahead further, we came across a dead end, but the thing that was driving us ahead was the fact that we could see the fort wall adjacent to the path we were walking on. After going further, and being unable to find the fort, we decided to go back find some open area where we could rest and make some Maggi and fill our stomachs. We walked back, for nearly 20 mins and found a small shed, which none of us remembered passing.
Some villagers probably made the shed; it had a c-shaped stone for making food on firewood. Just when we were breaking down the firewood we had been collecting for making food and were about to cook, we saw a fire at the distance. We decided not to go to check who or what was there. Shortly after that, we saw some torches coming towards our shed. Initially we thought it might some patrol troops to check if someone is lost or something like that. I went out of the shed and flashed a torch at them so as they would know where we were. As they came closer, I was scared to death. I saw 3 of them, one had a huge gun in his hands and the others were carrying pistols. When I saw the pistols I was like 'Oh fuck.' The others had a similar expression when they came out and saw the sight. At that point of time, none of us knew what to do. We asked them who they were, they were hunters. We told them we were heading to Lohagadwadi and might have missed some turn to get lost in the forest.
They volunteered to guide us to the place. Despite the fact that they were helping us, we weren't at ease around them. We were all terrified. In fact Viresh was even planning for himself what we could do to defend ourselves in case something happened. The night was dark, we were lost, didn't know where we were and we had people with guns for company. Now scale that for a scary night. Yes, it sounds filmy but believe me it was frightening.
They said they would take us to the village, which according to them wasn't far. Just when we were walking with them, the guy with the big gun dropped back. Hell! Like it wasn't scary enough already. Vivek wondered why the guy dropped back and so did everyone else, but then after some minutes (which seemed very long) he rejoined us.
Within 5-10 minutes we could see some lights and were at the village. So the hunters actually were helping us. We breathed a sigh of relief. We thanked them for their favor. But, believe me, the 35 minutes that they were with us, a thousand thoughts were going through each of our heads, and it was scary as hell.
We stopped at the village, made Maggi with the little firewood that we had (thanks to Vivek and Ashish, who had forgotten their collection). It took us 20 mins to make 2 min noodles, but to make it on firewood was fun. After finishing dinner at round 02:00 a.m we decided to rest for a while under a shed of a hotel.
We woke up in the morning at 05:00 met the owner of the hotel, it was then that we found out that we had ended up in Visapur instead of Lohgad. We asked him for directions to Lohgad fort and told him we would be back for breakfast. We climbed up, mostly taking unusual paths, with Ashish climbing the fort wall like Spider-Man (lol), rock climbing and making our own way up. We reached up at around 6:15. The fort was amazing; a cool breeze was blowing across, giving us the feeling of clouds passing through. All of us didn’t feel like moving at all. We explored each and every nook and corner of the fort, clicking snaps in all possible angles. Exploring the huge fort itself took moer than an hour.
At around 08:30 we started off towards Lohgadwadi and reached at 10:00. We were discussing over breakfast to go to Visapur Fort or not. Kunal refused to go, while the others were charged up for Visapur too, in fact he even refused to come to Bhaje Caves. He wanted to rest at Bhaje village while we went to the caves. We started walking towards Bhaje Village at 11:00. It took us not more than hour to reach Bhaje, since we took n-number of shortcuts, in fact we didn’t at all take the road. We reached the destination at 12:00.
From Bhaje, Kunal stayed back to rest and we headed to explore the caves (like throughout the trip, again making our own way up). The architecture at the caves was simply spectacular. We roamed around for an hour at the caves clicking snaps. After we were done walking around the caves we took a long short cut (Yes!) back down.
We walked back to Malawli Station and got the 2:35 train to Lonavla, had lunch there and got an ST bus back to Mumbai.
The trek might have been 'risky', and in the words of Kunal, there were chances of us being 'extorted' (lol), but it was an experience which will not be washed off from our memories with ease. Cheers to all of us. Hope you and an enjoyable experience.
