Visapur Trek

I along with six of my friends went for trekking yesterday to a place called Visapur. Its near Lonavala, you have to get down at the station called Malvali which comes just after Lonavala (towards Pune). The trek was not as long as Rajmachi but it was good. There were some parts where I chose to climb on pure rocks instead of the usual steps. It was amazing. It would have been impossible to climb like this during monsoon since the rocks would be slippery. The weather was sunny and very comfortable, slightly colder than Bombay. We left the IITB campus at around 5 am in the morning and went to Thane. We boarded the Indraini express, the general compartment was worse than hell, it was fully packed and reminded us of our journey back from Pune to Bombay after our NET exam. May be trains from Bombay to Pune are always like this. We probably did not feel as much tired after the trekking as we felt after the pathetic journey. Since there is no village near the Visapur fort (at the top of the mountain) we took food and water with us. After reaching the fort we had lunch there. After having food and taking some rest we tried to find out the way to go down (different from the way we went up). In between we were scared by a herd of monkeys and three buffaloes (wild probably). The buffaloes gave us such a dirty look that we got scared like anything. But thank god they did not chase us, we would have been in real trouble if they did that since we were at the top of the mountain and there were hardly any options to escape other than going down in a hurry. Anyway finally we found the way back which was very steep (almost 60 degree slope) and hence very enjoyable. We reached the train station at around 4 30 pm. We came to Lonavala by a local train and then boarded some express train coming from Bangalore there. Overall it was a great experience. I will miss such trekking in the next six months since I will be in Ahmedabad :( .

Trekking trip to Rajmachi...08-09 August'2009

It was the best as well as the longest trekking experience in my life...the trip to Rajmachi fort was simply awesome and will always be as fresh as it is today. We were six people altogether from IIT Bombay. I always prefer to go in a group of less than ten people and six was perfect for me. The trip was fun from the very start..we had to walk almost four kilometres from our hostel to Kanjurmarg Railway station to catch the 0455 hrs local train to Karjat. We walked like anything to reach the station just in time. I wanted to sleep in the train itself since I took a very small nap that night, but that didn't happen. The beautiful landscape on the way to Karjat did not let me sleep at all. We reached Karjat at around 6:30 AM. Then we took auto rickshaw to reach the place which was at the bottom of a hill, in fact that was the place where we started our trekking. The way to Rajmachi from Karjat is not like a normal road..it was just a narrow strip which sometimes become invisible and you may feel like going nowhere. But that's where the fun part of trekking is ;)

We kept going up and up..got lost also in two three places, found a dog as our guide for some part of the journey, got some hints from two-three local people whom we met on the way. Finally at around 11:30 AM we reached the village which is around 100 metre below the fort. We were so tired that we decided to stay there overnight. Since there were no hotels there we approached a family in that village if it would be possible for them to give us a room and food for one night. Fortunately we got a "yes" from them. After taking a little rest and some food we started the second phase of our trek to the forts. There we found lots of other people who had come through the way from Lonavla which is like a proper road. The forts namely Manoranjan and Shree Vardhan were truly amazing. It's hard to believe that people built such huge forts in early days at such a location. We came back from the fort just before nightfall to the house. There was no electriity in that village, they have a solar power system but that operates only in sunny weather. We had nothing to do other than having dinner and then sleeping.

We got up very early in the morning next day since we had to cover the longer route to return from the village. We took the way to Lonavla from the village which was a very easy one with little fun. But the view was superb with lots of waterfalls, rivers in between. We took a bath in one of the rivers, it was really amazing. I never took a bath like that in a river and that too inside a forest, with hills in the surroundings. We kept moving on the way to Lonavla with another dog this time as our guide :D. We reached Lonavla around 1 PM. We were very hungry as well as tired, had lunch there and then took a train back to Bombay. Lonavla was a little scary as we could see lots of people wearing masks ( as a preventive of swine flu). Finally we reached the institute at around 6 PM. I was not being able to make any movement after that..Although it was damn tiring (My muscles are still paining a lot..:( ..) yet the memories will remain evergreen...:)

Mt Abu trip

After around two months my stay in Ahmedabad, India I could go outside the city for a small trip. Life in Ahmedabad is like in a prison for me since I have to be in the institute from 9 am(breakfast time) to 9 pm(dinner time). Anyway thanks to Dr Ramesh K Singh (Professor in ME, IITB) who made our dream trip a reality. Believe me if you are planning to go for some trip please include him in your team. He is such an enthusiastic and energetic person that he can make anything happen. Anyway, we went to Mt Abu, Rajasthan. We were six together in the trip; me, Brijesh, Ramesh, Vishnu(Professor in IEOR, IITB), Subrata( Lecturer in Chemistry,IITGN), Abhijeet(lecturer in Economics, IITGN). We started from Ahmedabad on 21st Feb(Saturday) and reached Mt Abu at around 2 pm on the same day. We hanged around the town that day and in the evening went to the sunset point. I had lots of junk foods there which fortunately didn't make me sick.
The next day morning we went for trekking which was the most interesting part of our trip. We chose the so called "Tiger Path" for trekking. Thank God we did not see any tiger there!!! According to the local people there, that wild-life sanctuary has some bears, tigers also. It was an 8 km long trek and was really awesome. I did not even feel tired. We went to some tourist spots after that (e.g. Guru Shikhar, Dilwara temple etc) and came back to Ahmedabad. We reached around 8 pm. It was an awesome trip. Ramesh was really amazing. Now we are planning a trip to Leh in May-June with Ramesh and Co. I hope he will make it happen once again. Leh is like heaven on earth...if this trip happens my dream of going to Kashmir will come true..