Naneghat

Monday 28 July 2008

The Roadway to Heaven

The Diversion to Naneghat

Beauty!

Heaven on Earth!!

Vivek and I just had an easy and smooth trek to Naneghat on the June 29. Truthfully speaking, our trek to Naneghat that Sunday almost got cancelled as many friends backed out at the last moment. It was on Friday evening that Vivek and I decided to cancel the trek. The same night, Vivek was watching ‘I shouldn’t be alive’, and he remembered our previous experience of Lohgad (lol). He called me and gave a green signal for the trek. Ready always that I am for a trek, I was happy that we were going despite the low headcount. It was just the two of us this time.

We were supposed to go to Prabalgad, Kalvantin Durg and if possible Irshalgad but since we were just 2 and Kalvantin is slightly difficult, we decided to go to Naneghat.

Vivek came to my place at 4:40 and we left for Dadar Station. We got the Indrayani Express at 5:50 and reached Kalyan within an hour. From Kalyan, we were supposed to get a bus to Murbad. The bus journey started at 7:15. The road looked incredibly beautiful with green cover on both the sides. It took us nearly 45 mins to reach Murbad from where we got another bus to Tokavade. We got the bus at around 7:50 and reached Tokavade by 08:40. At Tokavade we asked the locals how far Vaishakhare was and how far was Naneghat from there. We were told that Vaishakhare was at a distance of 4-5 Kms from there and so we decided to walk it. We knew that ahead of Vaishakhare we would find a diversion to Naneghat which was impossible to miss as there was a direction board there. We reached the diversion at 10:00. We didn’t stop here either as we weren’t tired owing to the continuous drizzle.

So it was from here that our trek started. I had made sure I had got chalk on this trek to avoid getting lost, keeping my past two experiences in mind. As we started walking we realized there was no way one could get lost here, as there were arrows painted on certain rocks to guide the directions and also the road right up to the top is pretty prominent. Still to test if chalk worked in the rains I kept marking our way down. The weather was simply brilliant, it didn’t get tiring at all even though we didn’t stop, it was calm pleasant and rainy, the perfect trekking climate. We reached the top at around 12:35, we saved 25 mins by not stopping.

Vivek was the entertainer of the day, with accent like ‘Niggars’, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a banana leaf looking thing peeled from the mid-rib used as a prop to show a shotgun (lol). The whole trek was wonderful.

There was a huge crowd of people at the caves above. Foolish people who had got plates of food which they washed there, alcohol bottles and plastic bags which they all dumped there and ruined the beauty of the place. KINDLY DON’T DO THIS WHEN ON A TREK. LEAVE NOTHING BUT MEMORIES AT THE PLACE. Vivek and I were irritated at this and decided to go atop and have our food there, away from the crowd. We finished our lunch and started roaming around exploring the place, mostly staying aloof from the crowd. We wandered for a little over an hour and a half. Once again, the weather was simply amazing; there were times at which we could not see a thing ahead due to the clouds passing.

We started climbing down at around 2:15. Just as we started climbing down it started our descend it started raining heavily, I was having a little difficulty due to water on my spectacles, but since the heavy rain was short lasting, it wasn’t that big a problem. We reached the diversion at around 4:15, surprisingly even faster than the climb. It took us 2 hours to reach down, again without any stops.

It was at this at this point that we finally stopped for the first time in the day. My toe was hurting a lot, mainly because my shoe size had become small. We had some fruits and cucumber, filled our stomachs, and started walking towards Vaishakhare. At Vaishakhare we stopped at a hotel for some food and chai. I just randomly told Vivek that our way back I didn’t feel like travelling by ST bus, I would rather get a lift on a truck or something; he too was in for it. It had always been my desire to travel in a truck while on a trek. Initially we couldn’t find any trucks to give us lift, after walking back ahead of Tokavade, we got a lift from a 3-wheeler good carrier rickshaw, the back of which was open. We stood at the back and were enjoying the wind; there was heavy rainfall with small time spans when it started drizzling. But the wind, sitting at the back of a rickshaw, the rain and the fact that there only 2 of us, made our day.

We got off at Kalyan, paid the driver Rs.40 each, for the enjoyable drive. We reached Kalyan at around 7:45 from there we got a local train at 8:00, got off at Kurla, and were back at our respective homes by 9:30.

The trek had several aspects to it which made it magnificent, Vivek, shotgun, non-stop way up and down, the drive back in the goods-carrier. Overall, it was a pretty steady and an enjoyable trek.

Rajmachi – A Mind’blowing’ Trek

Saturday 26 July 2008

The Khandar

Waterfall

Manaranjan

Mountain Yoga Lesson II

Ohk!! Right, now this post is going to be a long one, as there is a load to write about it.

For once we (Ashish, Govind, Jaishankar, Kanha, Viresh and I) planned for a trek for over a week; else most of the treks we go to are planned within a matter of hours or a day to consider the most. We decided to go to Rajmachi from Lonavla (mainly because Viresh and I have been to Kondana Caves from Kondana Village, so we didn’t want to take the same route again) and return from Kondana. We decided to cover the 2 forts, Manoranjan and Shreevardhan and Kondane Caves in two days. (13&14-06-2008)

So we left our respective homes at around 4:30 in the morn, to get the 5:40 Indrayani Exp from Dadar. The 4 of us met near Viresh’s place to head towards Dadar Station, where we would meet Kanha. Viresh told us that Jai was still asleep and we had to wake him up. I suggested that 2 of us go to Dadar and buy the tickets in order to save time, Ashish and I did that, while Govind and Viresh went to wake Jai. On a personal note, I never really approve of waking up someone (in case we leave early) or convince a person to come, on the day of the trek, but since Viresh wanted him to come and I didn’t want to get into an argument, and so I kept mum. There were chances of Govind, Jai and Viresh missing the train, but they managed to reach just 5 mins before the train arrived.

We reached Lonavla at around 08:00. We started walking towards Tungarli that was the first village on the way where we could go to a dam and a lake. As we reached Tungarli Dam at around 9:00, we found something of which we had not heard and read about. A Khandar (An abandoned, destroyed structure).

The Khandar was extremely beautiful, so we decided to explore it and halt for a short photographic session. The short halt turned into a long one. We waited there for an hour fooling around while Govind and Ashish went for a poop (lol). We left the Khandar at 10:00.

There was mild rainfall to cool down the temperature, in short, great climate. We walked for another 45 minutes, saw a small waterfall, decided to clam down here for a while, since we were in no hurry, we were stopping after each hour. We chilled at the waterfall for 10-15minutes after which our walk resumed.

Here we met three other trekkers; one of their names was Jignesh. We walked along with them for a while after which we left them behind. Nearly half an hour later we halted for a water break. Jignesh and gang caught up with us here, this time they asked our names, and asked who Jaishankar was. They said his wallet had fallen, they had found it. We thanked them; this was the first time Jai’s wallet had got lost in the two days.

We restarted walking, and didn’t halt till noon, which was when we found a beautiful waterfall at which we could walk right upto the end from where the water fell. This waterfall was actually a product of two other waterfalls from the hills which joined and came from under a bridge. The landscape was spectacularly scenic.

This place deserved some photos and some peaceful time, so we took a half hour break. It was Ashish’s desire for long to get wet under a waterfall, which was finally fulfilled.

The way was pretty decent, nothing exceptionally good except for the scenic views, the 17 km patch from Tungarli to Udherwadi had different parts, some parts are just walk, and some, inclined while some are muddy patches. The main problem with this walk is that while walking if you tend to get frustrated thinking you have walked long enough and the village hasn’t come, it can be a problem, simply because there are no villages between Tungarli and Udherwadi (Rajmachi). This can be a problem mainly for beginners.

Continuing our walk, after around 45 minutes we came across a river. Crossing the river can be tricky in the monsoon as the mud at the river bed get swampy. Later when we came to the other side of the hill, we could see the waterfall we earlier halted at and another one due to the force of which there was a naturally cut c-shaped rocky region.

We finally reached our destination, Udherwadi – Khandu Vare’s (KV) place where we were going to stay for the night at around 2:30.

We had lunch, rested for 1.5hrs and headed towards the village talao. Viresh had come completely prepared for a swim, with his costume, towel etc. Viresh, Jai and Ashish swam in the talao while we stayed out and relaxed for half an hour. Believe me putting your legs inside the cold water of the lake was amazing. I envied Viresh and others who swam (Why haven’t I learned swimming?)

We left the talao, went to the temple narby after which we headed towards Manaranjan. It was nearly 5:15 when we started our climb. It took us not more than an hour to explore almost every nook-and –corner of the fort. There was nothing overwhelming about the fort apart from the wind which could almost blow one off the feet, but being at the windy fort in it was relaxing. The most irritating part here was when Ashish and Viresh just vanished from behind us, without informing us, just to roam around a little more. The remaining gang was all annoyed, not because they vanished, but over the fact that they didn’t tell us before leaving.

Anyway, we came back down by 7:00, went to explore the village and were back at KV’s place by 7:30.

Over dinner, KV told us an incident of a person who was walking on the wall of the bridge of the waterfall; he slipped and was washed away by the force of the water. His body swirled around in the c-shaped region for days. Thumb rule while going for treks – NEVER MESS WITH NATURE. HER POWER IS MUCH GREATER THAN OURS. RESPECT HER POWER.

We had a good 7 hour sleep that night. For the first time in my life I slept well on a trek. We woke up at 6:30 and tea, and were off for Shreevardhan by 7:00. We had our wind-cheaters and raincoats on, as it looked like it was going to raining pretty heavily, but what did we know wearing them will turn against us. As we gathered little elevation the wind-cheaters were getting filled forming a balloon and pulling us down. So when we came to an open area, we decided to leave them there under a stone and continue. The wind blew so hard that due to it balancing was difficult. Some of us were getting second thoughts about going further up, as the visibility was negligible. But still we continued. Going a little further, we found a den there. We waited there for a while; it was warmer in there than the outside, felt comfortable. Resuming our climb, we went further ahead and right to the top. Exploring every nook-and-corner, feeling cold, due to the breeze, and also felt like a 1000 pins were poking on our face, due to the rains we had blast. In fact we almost felt like soaring with the wind, flying like an eagle. Shreevardhan become slightly difficult due to the wind, but i think it was 'mindblowing'.

We came back down to KV’s place by 10:30. We rested there for an hour, and this was when Jai thought he had lost his wallet for the second time but he later realized tht by mistake it had gone into Kanha’s bag. We had breakfast and tea and were off within an hour. After this we completely lost track of time.

We started our climb downwards towards Kondana Village from where we were supposed to go to the Kondana Caves. But habituated that we are, to getting lost in the jungle, we manage to do it each time we are on a trek (lol). Instead of reaching Kondana Village, we somehow managed to reach Thakurwadi Village. Anyway we asked at the village and when we came close to Kondana Village I could recognize the route towards the Caves even though Viresh couldn’t, and I was confident of it. We walked a little further, and rested there. Here, Kanaha and Jaishankar refused to go further, as Kanha had already seen it before and Jai’s shoulder was paining.

The four of us decided to go ahead while Kanha and Jai would wait at Hotel Dream Land. Viresh and I knew the place so we could easily meet them there. As we went further even I couldn’t recognize the way, since the last time we had come was in December, and by now the whole map of the region had changed. With assistance of some other group we managed to reach the Kondana Caves. While going up I made markings on mud with a stick to guide our way back down.

Kondana Caves was familiar to Viresh and me, but new for Govind and Ashish. Ashish was more than happy to bathe in the waterfall there. After a short shower Viresh, Ashish and I decided to go a little further ahead, to the place where we had rock-climbed earlier. Looking at the same place, we were thinking to climb or not, even though we had done it before, but this time there was a waterfall coming down from the rocks. I told Viresh not to go, since we didn’t even have ropes and equipment, and going against the waterfall could be risky, and the climb wasn’t that simple.

Just when this conversation was going on, we saw 2 cute girls (can’t remember their names, I am bad with names) coming from ahead of us. Now that was a change for the eyes, you dont often see just 2 girls off on a trek. They had lost their way to the cave. We guided them and continued our climb down with them.

We all climbed down, led by me and guided by the markings, reached Hotel Dream Land where Kanha and Jai were waiting for us. After half an hours rest here, we started our walk towards Kondivade. Half way through our walk Ashish suddenly remembered that he had forgotten his umbrella at the hotel. He and Viresh ran back to the hotel and fetched it. We got a rickshaw from Kindivade to Karjat from where we got a train to Dadar and were back home by 10 in the night.

It was a great trek, two days of hardcore fun, may it be because of the climate, the landscape the wind etc. It was simply mindblowing.