Thursday 12 March 2009
The Valmiki AshramOne of the most pissing off treks so far (25-10-2008). Mainly because we wasted the morning trying to wake one of our friends who was supposed to come but was peacefully sleeping at home. I personally HATE the idea of waking people in the morning to go for a trek. If the person is truly interested, he/she will wake by himself. NO OFFENCE TO ANYONE, BUT THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE.
From the time we (Viresh, Govind, Suraj and I) left we wasted nearly 1.5 to 2 hrs trying to wake Harish and also waiting for Jay who didn’t come because he got an upset stomach.
We left from Kalina at round 07:00am. Reached Asangoan by around 8-8:30am. Before even starting the trek we were late. I had to make sure my anger didn’t burst out else it would lead to an argument and make the trip worse than it already was.
We reached the base village, Dehne at around 10:15am. From here we hired a jeep which would lead us to the diversion from where our trek would start. Owing to all the delays, we started our trek really late at round 11:00am. It took us nearly 2 hours to reach the Valmiki Ashram from where we had to trek further to reach the top. Here we took a half hour break and then continued.
The climb further was difficult; it was through the jungle where in several times weird and scary at times as huge spiders would appear right in front of your face. We reached a place at round 02:15pm; here we decided to have little food. All through the break we were discussing if we should continue further or not. If we would, chances were we would probably miss the last bus back, also the way was through dense jungle and it would be scary if it got dark. We started climbing down at around 03:45pm
So, post lunch, we started our descent. We reached the Valmiki Ashram, here we decided to take a longer break and since all of us were hungry (yes!! hungry yet again), to cook Maggie. Maggie is the favourite food for almost every trekker. We (Suraj and I) made Maggie on firewood while Govind comfortably decided to shoot the whole process. After we were done filling ourselves, we randomly started dancing like tribals around what was left of the fire, singing the ‘jingalala ho, jingalala ho’ the so called tribal song. This break was long enough for us to be late and miss the last bus back. We left the Ashram at around 05:20pm and the last bus was at 06:00 from Dehne.
We missed the bus. So we called the Jeep driver who had earlier dropped us to the diversion from Dehne. We convinced the Jeep driver to take us to Asangaon.
We think village people are not smart as city folks, this situation said otherwise. The Jeep driver knew that we had missed our bus, and that we didn’t have an accommodation for the night, so he tried to exploit money from us. He did succeed in his venture, partly for the reason that when Harish and I were trying to get the guy cut down, he could see the restlessness that was in some of us, and could judge how badly we wanted to get back home. We decided on Rs. 500/-, booked the jeep to ourselves, to be dropped till Asangoan.
To add to the frustration level and the fatigue, the Jeep driver smartly taking local folk for some minimal fare. At that point of time we were too dazed to argue. When we got off at Asangoan, Harish and I argued with him once again over the whole matter and to the dislike of the Jeep driver paid him Rs. 450/-. From there we got a train back to Kurla and were back home to end a very provoking trek.
To sum it up in short, it was the most frustrating treks I’ve ever had, despite the fact that it had bits and pieces of fun. The trekking part of it and the nature surely was fun, but on the other hand it was also arduous ‘cause sue to the delay the sun was at its peak when we started. Apart from that, owing to the delay, we couldn't reach the top and see the Luv-Kush caves and the other sites to be seen atop.
To conclude I can say ‘Leaving on time for a trek is of utmost importance if you truly want to enjoy the experience’.
