4500 feet experience!!!

4500 feet experience! One of the best treks so far. Kulang! Not many groups opt for this trek since its in a very remote area where PTS is not available very easily.
Fri-10:30 PM We started @ around 1030 Friday nyt from Dadar station. It was my first trek wd Urja group, and that too coza Shantanu. Thanks Shantanu. But it was very unfortunate that u dint turn up. As a result all the faces ver new to me and vice versa. The plan was changed @ the last moment. Instead of Dadar-Amritsar express, Yatin (65 treks- the Lead) surprised us by telling that weel be going to Ghoti(Igatpuri) by ST. We waited for bus @ Dadar TT for an hour but cudnt find a vacant bus. To travel standing was not an issue but we dint want to loose our enery ryt from the first hour.
Sat-1:00 AM So we moved to Bombay Central ST depo and tuk a 1 o'clock ST to Nashik. By that time everyone had become familiar wd eachother and guys who already knew eachother were sharing their past experiences. We purposely opted the last seat, so by the time we reached half way mark over ass had got a very gud massage. Courtesy : National Highway's :P.
Sat-5.45 AM Reached Ghoti. It was very dark and quite cold out there. Yatin knew all the shortcuts. We followed him till Ghoti bus depot. But unfortunately we were late by few minutes and we had missed our bus to Ambewadi which is the only bus early morning. A local chai-tapriwala told us that the next bus will be @ 8am. But everyone knew, if we wait for this bus it wud be pretty difficult for us to hike in the afternoon. Luckily Yatin managed to pataofy (convince) a goods carrier to drop us till Ambewadi. Thanks to him! He took us through the shortcuts and man! i tell u it was so foggy out there and these local drivers are gr8! They have amazing skills driving in such a climate. That Schumi dropped us as much close to Kulang fort as he cud.
Sat-9:00 AM We then started marching to Kurangwadi through the tiny tops. We hired two local heroes (Kashinath whom we called Tere Naam for his Sallu ishtlye haircut and his brother from Kurangwadi) to guide us till the top. It was a very tempting view from the bottom but a tough one too, i must say. We started following them. They were moving really very fast. There were couple of reasons for that. Firstly they were from the same village and quite often go to the same forest to get fuel. Secondly, they dint had heavy hump(sacks) on their back and these light-weighted kids had amazing stamina. I am sure they must have got pissed off coz of our regular haults and drink-breaks and must be laughing at us. Anyways, it was fun walking through the forest. After some time we unknowingly got split up into two groups the under 25 and over 25. thats wat we named our groups. :D :D Even after walking and climbing the small patches for about two hours the top was still @ the same height it felt like. Still a long way to go! baby!.. keep moving.. throat had dried up. Biscuits, glucose powder, apples. we tried to keep up the enery level high. After around three hours of marching, we cud see rocky steps and i sighed with relief that its closer now. Those 3 rocky patches gave us a lead of around 500 feet in few minutes. We cud see a gr8 view of Kurangwadi and Ambewadi from that point. Those patches were bit difficult since if one looses his balance @ that point he will straight away fall into the valley and even Tere Naam and his brother wont be able to find out the remains :O
Sat-1:30 PM : It was 1.30pm we reached @ the top. Every fort in Maharashtra has a special Maha-Darwaza (Entry Gate). But this fort was missing the maha-darwaza. I think it must have broken down and someone might have removed it. We removed our tiffins and finished it ASAP like hungry dogs. Those kids who guided us till the top ate few chapatis and returned to their home. We promised them to pay their balance amount when they return the next morning to pick us up.
Sat-2:30 PM : v finished our lunch. It was a pleasant atmosphere on top. And most of us opted to take a short nap. Few of us moved out to check out the scenes around the fort. Me too accompanied them along wd my cam hoping to capture few clicks for my photoblog. Yatin told us, this is the only fort in Sahyadris from which you will be able to spot out maximum forts in Sahyadris, yes offcourse on a clear day with clear atmosphere. You need to have a gud binocs wd you for that. Yatin did show us Ratangad, Harishchandra gad, Kalsubai, Alang, Madan and Harihar. Actually Alang and Madan are right next to Kulang. There is a route to climb Alang but as per Yatin's information the only way to reach Madan's peak is using a rope way since the base of Madan was destroyed by Britishers and this is not only wd Madan but many other forts in Sahyadri region, since they were skeptical about the Maratha Empire might use these forts to attack Britishers and re-establish its dynasty. It was an amazing experience standing @ the top of tallest fort in the Sahyadris. After we finished exploring the fort and view of its neighbouring forts we started returning to our base camp. We had reached around a km away from our base camp. Our expectations of a sunset cudnt be fulfilled since the blackies had already gathered around the fort and were about to burst. yea.. the rain-clouds. The sun-rays were still piercing from these black snow-balls, portraid an amazing view in the sky. We ran to the cave as fast as we cud. But it neva rained. the clouds just passed away.. leaving back an orange-reddish shade at the horizon. Yatin and Prem started preparing the dinner whereas few of us started collecting fuel for our campfire. It was justa matter of few hours and the blue sky had turned into a dark with twinkling stars which looked a bit saddy saddy since their friend moon was on leave. yeah! it was a no-moon night.
Sat- 8:30 PM : our dinner was ready. The main topic of camp-fire was non-veg jokes.. :P. I too attempted one. But no one laughed on it.. Succha big popat.. :(.. Everyone busy eating the common dish-dinner except Kiran who was trying hard to keep the fire alive. Thanx mate.. :P ...
Sat-10 PM : We decided to go to bed early. The weather becoming more and more cold as the night became younger... Even one slept lika dead body. I was second from the entrance of the cave so you can imagine my condition. Glad that Sharad was the first one. But i remember throughout the entire night Sharad was very uneasy. Continuosly changing his positions and trying to cover his body as much as he cud.
Sun-5:00 AM : Yatin's alarm started ringing. I covered my ears with my bag and again went back to sleep. Suddenly after few minutes i heard someone shouting "Guys come out, Its beautiful view outside." I thought i m dreaming but someone stepped on my hand and tahdaaakk!!! i woke up.. and saw everyone running outa the base camp with their digicams.. My nose had become an ice cream cone. I too ran wd my digicam. Clicked as many clicks as possible of the beautiful sunrise.. But the clouds which had gathered over the Ambewadi village for their morning meeting was a treat to watch. Simply fantabulous... Slowly slowly as the time passed the clouds disappeared.. We had our morning tea and hot Maggi breakfast and prepared our body for the day ahead.
Sun-10:30 AM : Started down hill. The kids dint turn up. Now it was really risky since, now we cud actually see the valley whereas while climbing, the valley was behind us, so we neva noticed that @ what height we are from the base. After reaching the half way mark, we met those kids, they came to take us downhill.. These kids dropped us till the (so called) main road which connects Kurangwadi to Ambewadi.
Sun-2:30 PM : After almost 3-4 kms of walk we reached Ambewadi. waiting for 3 o'clock bus @ the bus stand. Managed to get a glass full of tea from a local villagers house, which was very sweet. But reminded me of tea made in houses in konkan region. As soon as the bus reached the stop we ran towards the bus, which was unnecessary actually coz that was the starting point of the bus so no one was gonna get into the bus apart from us.. :D .. Lil bita of photo session and keeping intact the memories of Kulang in our mind we left Ambewadi and reached Ghoti depo @ around 5 pm..
Sun 5:10PM : Ankush and Yatin managed to arrange a jeep till Kasara. Man!! these guys had amazing bargaining skills.. ;)... that jeep had a broken back door which opened with remote control i guess or with a swipe card as Sid said. :D The handle was missing.. The driver opened the door for us. He touched the jeep @ kasara station @ 5.45pm..
Sun-6:12PM : Kasara local.. By the time Yatin brought vadapaav and bhaji paav as snacks. since we were feeling very very hungry.. Every one got down @ their respective stations starting wd Yatin @ Kalyan, few @ vikhroli, vidyavihar and Ghatkopar, Rohit and i got down @ Dadar. Kishore and Sharad were going till Byculla and Curry road. Reached home @ 10pm. This was one of the best treks in all of my trek's till date. Thankyou all and special thanx to Shantanu. But missed u a lot dude...!!! Waiting for Kulwantini.. somewhere in October.. Rock On!!!!

Photographic day

We tend to overlook things which are closer to us. Thats what i realized when i saw SagarUpvan @ churchgate. This place is a storehouse for photographers, nature lovers; ppl who need peace; love to spent time @ sea shore, who love silence, etc,etc... Friday we planned to visit this place about which we had heard lotta things and experienced it when we actually spent nearly 3-4 hours there. It is located just opposite to colaba bus stop behind BPT dockyard, Colaba. I was lil bit reluctant to go there since i dint had my cam wd me but thanx to megz that she had brought her canon along wd her and i could try my hand @ it. Though i love photography but i m more of a galli ka photographer who dont bother much about the focusing, the aperture and composition :O and blah blah blah. Well meguzu taught me lotta things this sunde and now i can spell these words more confidently :P. There were many small insects, different species of two medium sized hens which quack like a duck but are not. They keep on roaming around the garden with their quack quack sound. U wud feel that they might bite u but they wont. There were tiny grasshoppers who gave us quite gr8 poses so that we can capture those. There ver quiverring butterflies which dint even give us a single chance to capture their beautiful n delicate wings. There ver fluoroscent colored mosquitoes and bees, there ver snails which had a rounded shell on top of their plasmatic body. There were flars which u wud have neva seen and each of them had a placards next to it which displayed its name which was so difficult to pronounce that we might lock our tounge between our teeth :P. The best experience for me was that i learnt lotta thing and look @ any object closely meaning, have u eva seen tissues on a snail's body? have u eva seen how does a spider actually weaves it web?? Yeah, we saw these things over there. A must must visit place, especially if u bugged up wd ur busy schedule and boring office work, this is a gr8 place to experience the silence of nature. We left from there @ arnd 11 and went to a wild photography exhibition @ ravindra Natya Mandir. Wow! it was! This was the first time i have been to some photography exhibition. Since m a newbie, all those stills captured by Vilas, Kaustubh, Gaurav were very encouraging for me and making my interest in photography a more rigid one. Megz keeps on giving me pointers offline a-w-a online and i keep on trying implementing em. All this diggaj photographer mandali are doing a gr8 job since they do it not only in their personal interest but they have a noble cause behind it. They run an organization names "Jungle lore" which conducts trekking camps, weekend hiking, fort cleaning activities, etc. The fund that is raised from these activities is used for fort maintenance. I dont know exactly what they mean by fort maintenance, but i m really interested to know more about it. The exhibition mainly displayed their best captures from wild life of Ranathambore forest. Deers, Langurs, Tigers, various birds which i dint even knew exists! Butterflies were wow! This exhibition is open to everyone till 13th of september from 11am to 8pm. Moreover, if you wish to register yourself and stay updated with the activities of Jungle lore group, simply fill up a membership form and they will mail u, or give u a call wheneva the next activity is planned. I was curious to talk to one of the photographers. And thanks to Gaurav that he shared with me all this info when i told him, i wud love to write about this exhibition. I m pretty excited about the events these guys organize and appreciate their love towards the nature and our historical monuments. Whenever we go for a trek we crib about the government not doing anything for the renovating the old forts. At the max what we do is we dont loiter place and tell others not to do so. But hats off to Jungle lore team that they have gone one step ahead and showed that, if we wish to do something then we can do it; dont need to wait for others. Gud work guys keep it up. Moreover, when i asked him abt any training for photography, he replied "No formal classes as such, but informally we keep on giving pointers and suggestions". Well it was a gr8 experience overall. Please do visit this exhibition if u are a nature savvy or even if u r nt..

SagarGad : 13-07-2008

Hands and legs are aching. I am literally dosing. But dont have any other option to stay awake than writing this post about my yesterdays' trek. Right on the first day of my new job i m sitting idle on my desk with no work since my TL is onleave today.

After a long break of 7 months, we managed to go on a trek. The monsoon drops have already hit the floor last month and have gone for a vacation now. Even though the Mr. Bright was pouring heat and rays over the entire week we were hoping for heavy rains
atleast on this Sunday. Unfortunately, it dint turn up. Started early morning 630 am we gathered with old memories of last Harishchandra gad trek but as fresh as a rose. Every one was excited to meet eachother and more than that about the trek. Every
one turned up on time. We took a Dadar- Panvel ST from Dadar. Few of them were first-timers out of the total bunch of 13 with only 2 girls :((... Neways, neva mind.. We got down @ Panvel stand @ around 8 am. Just to fuel up the engine we did lil bita
nashta-pashta @ the Visawa hotel opp. Panvel ST stand. The best item was KANDE-POHE. it was too good. But i cud jus eat couple of spoons from my frnz plate since i dint want ti have the weekly sunde special breakfast on this trekky sunde. But i regretted
after i tasted it. The canteen guys took out as much info from us as he can about where we are going and when weel be returning back so that he can have a pretty handsome bill in the evening as well but unfortunately it dint happen for him, u l come to
know the reason later. From there we took a local Panvel-Alibaug bus to continue our journey After loads of maara-mari and smartness of reserving our seats by pusing our bags inside from the bus windows we managed to reserve around 10 seats. BTW, this style of reservation is call as Desi booking that too on current ticket. lolz... You just kwwp any of your belongings on the bus seat thro the window and that seat is wours before you get into the bus. THere is another way as well, u can also get into the bus using the emergency backdoor. Cool isnt it?? One of our teammate who was the last person to get into the bus told everyone that "Khandale" our destination is just 20 mins far. So few of our smarties gave their seats to other ppl who were standing.. But that was a sheer misunderstanding since he mispelled "Khandale" as "Karnale". "Khandale" is 2 hrs from Panvel. So all those smarties had to travel standing. At around 1030 we reached "Khandale". The road from "Khandale" to base point of Sagargad was a typical village road which is half concrete and half mud. You notice this when start heading deeper into the village. With my Sabbon ki tikiya (digicam) in my hand and along wd two photographer frnz of mine we started clicking snaps of the local kids, the farmers in the field along wd Sarja-Raja (Cow-pair) and their wife assisting them. It is a delight to see this view. Apart from this, there was a lot in that village to click... beautiful butterflies hoping around from one flar to another collecting nectar. Some of them were ready to pose for the photo shoot, some shy and some of them very proud of their beauty who made us run behind them to get thir best pose. There were crabs (tiny one) trying to get outa the mud. All we were hoping see a big one so that we can have a big round of photo shoot over him and luckily Atish found one big yellow crab. All of three of us (so called pohtographers) clicked as many stils of that crab as we can and his killer looks were cursing us as if why the hell did u catch me and how dare u to do that?? Enjoying the nature and trying to percolate it in our eyes we kept on moving. After walking almost 5kms we reached at the base point of Sagargad, where the steps start. This point actually is the base of Siddeshwar temple which is around 1000feet high from sea-level and there is a big waterfall @ a height of around 700 feet from sea-level. We started marching but Sun was shining so bright that he had decided to pull out as much glucose as he can from us with the support of these monsoon clouds who have taken bribe from Sun and have gone for a vacation. Since it was almost 7 months back we had went for a trek all out stamina had gone for a toss! Initially i thought its happening only wd me. But everyone started feeling it slowly. Somehow taking small halts we reached Siddeshwar temple. That temple was looking like a dharmashala or a pre-primary school of secondary students. Yep around 100 ppl of all age groups had made it as their base-camp. They had come for a picnic . We did a lil bita photosession even over there of the almighty God who was quitely sitting inside his cabin with no electricity. Load Shedding had affected God as well.. Huh!! I didnt know this.. ;) Shekhar took three bananas from there and came out. He said its "Prasad", but guess what our ancestors (monkey family) saw this and snatched those bananas from his hand immediately and started teasing him. That moment was hillarious. After a small break, we started our rest of the journey. Marching through the tiny tops and small(Adivasi) villages we started getting closer to our destination. In those villages, we saw a different life. Those kids did not have teddies, remote control toys to play wd but still there was 100 times moew happiness and contentment on their face. Their toys are grass, trees, goats, dogs, hens. I ma sure these kids must not be knowing there is a world outside their village. Their faces had a charm which we cant have even after applying the costliest of the cosmetics or having everyday the best of the tonics. These people dont need anything they are happy with what God has given them.
Finally we managed to reach at the topmost position of Sagargad we did our lunch over there. By that time it was 3.30pm. We were already late by an hour and half. At Sagargad, there is a point from where you can stand at the tip of the mountain and you can see another spike which is actually part of the same hill but its slightly isolated. Its a delight to see that spot. We did lotta photography at that point. No one of us was willing to leave that spot. But there were ppl waiting for us @ our home and more importantly our boss in office after the weekend.
While returning, right from that point we got split into two groups unfortunately. I was in the first one. Singing along, pulling eachother legs we reached at a point where we noticed that we are moving in a wrong way. Just to get everyone together we called the other group. Yhanks to the mobile networks. The groups told us that they are near Siddheshwar temple and will wait for us. We didnt wanted to inform them that we have lost our way since they ight go in a panic mode. With the help of village people, we somehow came back on track. Everyone met @ Siddeshwar temple. After a halt of 20 mins we started marching towards the waterfall. Few of us also tuk a bath under it. We were late by 2 hours by then. It was already night time. Sun onccle had signed off for the day. Thanks to moon uncle who was showering his limelight over us and guiding us. At 2020hrs we reached at the Panvel- Alibaug road. Everyone was worried since none of the vehicles were ready to drop us @ Panvel. ST buses were crowded and none of them stopped. We went to Alibaug so that we can catch the bus from starting point itself. Few of them decided to stay back at Panvel at their relatives place. Some went through other buses. I took a Bombay Asiad bus. Lucky enuf to get a seat in the crowded bus.
Reached home safely @ 01:15hrs. Ouch! my legs are aching like hell. But now finallly i have got some work to do right from fresh installation of XP. Guys wish me luck on this first day of new job.