Spectacular Varandha Ghat

As i was taking pictures, I told one of my friends, if I label these pictures as pictures from kashmir valley people are going to believe me. Fog covered streets, lush green mountains, waterfalls at hiatus of every 500 meters, heavy rainfall, yet people were few and far between, what else do you need to spend a quality time outside the hustle-bustle of the city. Shivthargal, a place 120 kms away from pune, turned out to be the perfect monsoon outing. It all started when I saw some pictures of the Varandha ghat ( considered as the entrance to konkan). Somebody described it as the must-ride monsoon ghat, must-ride indeed. We decided that unlike our earlier outings, which started late in the day, this time we will be out of the city by the time Sun God starts showering his blessings on us. Everybody (a very very very rare situation) got ready by 6:30 AM. Just as I thought my stars were aligned, the tour operator had other plans. At 7 we were supposed to be out of city, instead at 7, I and abhijit were looking for alternative arrangement for travelling, as the tour operator we had decided upon had betrayed us ( quite a heavy word but thats exactly what i was thinking) by switching off his mobile and the vehicle had not arrive yet. "We don't have a good risk mitigation plan" I thought. This tour planning is no less than a project planning, rather difficult.
As we were having tea at a street tea stall, we made contact with the tour operator ( seems he might have awaken late), after lot of justifications, he assured us that the vehicle was on its way and would be arriving at our place in another 15 minutes. 15 minutes, not quite, it took 45 minutes for it to arrive at my place, with santosh and mahesh already aboard. We picked up all the other members, with preetam's brother giving us instructions not to let her drench in rain. Unlike our earlier outings, this time the driver had a good idea about the route to our destination. We reached city outskirts at around 9. As we were traveling, we noticed a lone banyan tree in a lush green field, and thought of giving it a company. This was our first stop, after a brief photo session and hanging on the tree we resumed our journey. The next thing we saw was a waterfall and within 10 minutes I was under the fall, having my hydro-power-body-massage. With wet clothes we continued our journey till we saw a tea-stall, the streets were covered with fog, we spent some time eating hot "kanda bhajiya's" and taking pictures of the fog covered valley. we could hardly see vehicles on street untill they were really close ( a visibility of 5 meters only). Seemed like time was lost somewhere.
We moved towards our next destination, ShivtharGal, a place where Swami Ramadass ( Guru of the Shivaji the Great) had written the famous "Dasbodh". Its a place covered by forests and hair pin turns led us to this place. I was in no mood to repeat my purandar-like adventure, so we were at places where most of the people were. A cave partly covered by a big waterfall, hosts the statues of Swami Ramadass and his shishya kalyan swami. We decided to have our lunch there and move towards the kavlya fort. We were told by the locals that the fort is difficult to trek in this rain as the way is too narrow and there is a fear of slipping and falling of. They guided us to a rather unknown place, after a small trek we reached that place. We discovered a new "Elephants point". After descending from that place we had tea ( Again!!!!) at the stall.
On the way back to the city, we had a rain dance ( first time in natural rain). There were no restrictions, no body watching us, no conscious feelings, everything seemed so under "our" control. These memories are indelible.

Lonavala Trip

"Whats the count?" my friend asked me, when she called me late in the evening. "Well as of now me and abhijit, only two" I answered. " Rupali and I will come" she said, aggravating my worry. I and abhijit had decided that we will go at any cost, we had decided to go on bike. We had two bikes too, so one may ask what was the reason for worry, well for all those who don't know I reveal an embarassing secret, "I don't know how to ride a bike", **correction " I don't know how to ride a bike when i have other vehicles around me", correction " I don't know how to ride a bike" ( this is final). We called up all the 6 to 7 travel agencies that had put up their adds in the news paper. We found one who was offering us a good deal ( real good deal ), and even promised us a good car ( one with good audio system, relatively new car). I called up my friend and informed her about the expenditure, " It could be around 600 bucks per head, is it alright?" " Yeah, kya karte ab" she answered in a true hyderabadi style. So 2 became 4, just the figure needed to fit into an Indica car ( non A/C).

I got up at around 6:30 in the morning, with the alarm in my mobile( which turned out to be nightmare for parents and friends, as it ate away all the charge in my mobile, and I could not switch on my mobile for the rest of the day). To my consternation, i found the car to be really good, good seats, nice music system, the car was shining ( literally). Off we went, to pick up abhijit, and reached his house at about 8:40, picked up some good CD's ( Bryan Adams, Kishore kumar) and started from his home to pick up kirti and rupali, by the time we all finished our breakfast and reached the express highway ( Pune- Mumbai express highway) it was around 10:30, it was a clear whether, and we thought the weather is going to be the spoilsport in our tour.

But as we started going closer to our destination, we could see why this place was so famous. Mountains covered with clouds, drizzling rain, greenary everywhere. Cars tachometer was reading 140 now, the express highway is beyond description.

We reached "tiger valley", our first unintended destination. As i stood there, I realised that this was something i had never seen before, a big waterfall thrusting water with a speed that could crush the stones, lush green mountains, with small waterfalls coming out as tears of the mountain, clouds covering the mountains, and to add to all these the drizzling rain. We had a quick "Photo Session" there and started searching for our next destination, the dukes nose.

After going round about our intended destination, we got to know ( from a well learned man, who also suggested us not to go alone there, which generated a sort of curiousity amongst us) that its known amongst locals as "nagphani" or the snakes fang. Finally we reached our destination, a small village ( hardly 50 homes) covered by lush green hills. "Thats the way you are supposed to walk" a local guided us his finger pointing towards a rather rustic road ( or no road), we started walking and reached at the bottom of the hill. We started climbing and rupali gave up after some walking, after lot of cajoling she agreed on climbing with us. Slowly but steadily we climbed the hill. Climbing through the rocks was tough, but weather God was not maligned and hence it did not seem tough, the greenary around helped us get the oxygen that we lost while climbing ( though it was about a 100th size of the everest). One step mistake and it would have been fatal, nevertheless, it proved worthwhile after we reached the top. After spending some time up there, and finishing our "photo session" we started descending. Just when we reached the bottom, it started raining and in a while we were standing amidst fog. The clouds covered the mountain that we had just descended, "@!$%#" we thought, "Should have waited there for some time" abhijit said and everybody nodded.

A cup of tea in village refreshed us, and we moved on

Purandar Adventure

12 July 2008, time 1:30 PM, I called up my friend and told her "I am safe now". Tarun asked a bidi from "kaka" ( a local shepherd), kaka took out the packet of tobacco, "this is all i have got". Mohit was busy with tommy ( kaka's dog, mohit had rechristened it to tommy). We had just spent an hour in a place where there were, crabs of size of the great khalis palms, water oozing out of mountain rocks, possibly some dangerous reptiles, but we did not come across any ( I again thank God for this), and we were told by locals that there were some wild pigs in there, and that place is used by hunters for hunting these pigs.

It all started with mohits thought of going "out-of-the-way" to climb to the fort, we took a route, which i think was not taken by anybody in the past ( atleast not our kinds, trek loving Software Engineers), we climbed a hill and started following a path, which we thought would lead us to the fort. We could see the fort, covered with clouds now. Everything was fine, and all of us were marching along cheerfully. Untill we suddenly found ourselves amongst bushes. I thought returning from here would be a better idea, but mohit and tarun thought otherwise and started moving forward, I followed them, just when i thought nothing is so dangerous about this place, I slipped and fell on to the rocks, I don't remember how i got hold of some of the bushes and stood back on my legs, I was bleeding at hand now. Nevertheless we continued, thinking we would soon find our way up to the fort, but we could see only bushes around. 20 meters forward and we were again stuck, no way to move forward. Mohit by now was tired and could not move swiftly ( and my shoutings of "Don't stand in bushes" was just exacerbating the situation). We were now moving through bushes like animals, even holding cactus to prevent ourselves from slipping down ( I don't remember when was the last time i was so desperate).

Now, we decided to go back along the way we came. We slipped, we fell, the thorns in bushes were tearing our skin apart, we cared less. We took a halt near a small waterfall ( not exactly a water fall, but water flowing through the rocks of hill). We got a thought that, if we follow this water , we might reach the bottom of the hill. Bingo!!! we thought, the only problem was, water ofcourse, we knew that we would slip, but everybody was fine with that now. One step forward and mohit slipped and landed on his bums, tarun's one step forward and bang he too like mohit landed on his bums, it was my turn and i was not spared by the water either. We decided that this could be the only way we could reach the bottom of the hill and continued our "water rides", till we came across a sharp dip.

We climbed up again with great difficulty, and continued our "voyage" through the bushes. Few steps forward and mohit wanted to have rest. While mohit and tarun were resting, I saw a some long trees. I saw that the distance between those was less and estimated that if we reach somewhere near those trees we would reach the bottom. It took a lot to convince mohit and tarun, but finally we decided to go for it.

As we moved forward, we were cheering. The moos of a cow got relief to us. And we saw a group of people sitting there, kaka was amongst them.