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.