RAJMACHI!!!
This is one of the most wonderful treks I ever went for and also the one that I shall never forget as it was a day before mumbai recorded "the record" rainfall..... imagine a group of 30 students out for a trek just a day before their city was hit badly by the sudden cloudburst.
Well it all started by an idea to give a good head start to the coming semester and what could have been better than a trek to the mighty sahyadris during the awesome monsoon season it is blessed with. As a usual trek exercise some of us woke up at about 4:00 am in the morning and woke up the entire gang by 4:30 and we were all set for the ordeal.
The team was special in the sense that there were many who were trekking for the first time and that it was raining ;). The scenic beauty after the local train rips through kalyan was as usual spellbounding. Soon the ghats started emerging as giants dressed dark green challenging the mere mortals through the heights of the skies ... the whole experience was very exciting and evoked a thrill experienced never before. In about 2 hours we reached Karjat and now we had to take six seaters to the base village "Kondivade". While we were in the vehicle the driver warned us against going close to the river that was flowing nearby as it had already taken a life.
Rajmachi is connected to Lonavala through a pass and while ascending you can see the express trains digging into the tunnels and coming out time and again ..... We had an option to trek all the way to lonavla provided the constraints of enthu, time and energy permitted us.
So the actual trek started .... we managed a decent distance in to the green and soon a local village boy said he would guide us to the peak ..... Though we were enough in number and a small contribution from each of us could have earned him a fortune there were some who refused to budge and he had to accept a meagre amount to his utter dissatisfaction.... soon he realised that he desreved more and started demanding extra bucks .... his proposal was put down ... though he showed signs of frustration he was ignored and this led to his leading us to an unknown path and abandoning all there.... having realised our state a bit late we had to fight our way through dense bushes to make our own way to the correct path ..... thank god that we managed to find one..... so again we were all together geared to scale the heights though some skepticism started creeping in a few minds most of us were too determined to budge. The path lead us to a small village on the mountain where we had a light breakfast and from there one could see the pass to lonavla. A little more effort took us to the base of the RAJMACHI FORT which in itself was a beautiful piece of arcitecture and engineering.... given the time it belonged to it was difficult to imagine how people carried such heavy boulders all the way to this height, carve and engineer them to such preciseness to make an unpenetrable fort that still stands the lashes of the weather boldly after hundreds of years.
This was just the base of the fort and before we could proceed futher a dense cloud rising from below separated 3 of us from the entire crew and within no time we were separated from them all. As it was obvious that they would take the same path down we preferred to wait at the village. In some time the ppl arrived and we started the descent. This wasnt an easy task for one of us and we had to manage him in turns till we reached the base.
It started raining heavily when we were at the base and the small waterfalls turned in to strong currents ..... with chest high water we had to cut our path through them by making human chains ..... this was one hell of an experience ... ones that i always die for :D.
The return journey was very dead .... all were waiting to hit their beds .... the local dropped us at kanjurmarg ... me and some friends walked all the way to Harish's and had a dinner .... then walked all the way back to hostel.... and thus ended the awesome trek.
Newspaper headlines the other day read "Massive landslides during the heavy downpours ...... village kondivade among the worst hit by landslides in the area"!!!!
Time: Third year just the begining of the first semester.
Gang: H4 thirdies 2005-06
This is one of the most wonderful treks I ever went for and also the one that I shall never forget as it was a day before mumbai recorded "the record" rainfall..... imagine a group of 30 students out for a trek just a day before their city was hit badly by the sudden cloudburst.
Well it all started by an idea to give a good head start to the coming semester and what could have been better than a trek to the mighty sahyadris during the awesome monsoon season it is blessed with. As a usual trek exercise some of us woke up at about 4:00 am in the morning and woke up the entire gang by 4:30 and we were all set for the ordeal.
The team was special in the sense that there were many who were trekking for the first time and that it was raining ;). The scenic beauty after the local train rips through kalyan was as usual spellbounding. Soon the ghats started emerging as giants dressed dark green challenging the mere mortals through the heights of the skies ... the whole experience was very exciting and evoked a thrill experienced never before. In about 2 hours we reached Karjat and now we had to take six seaters to the base village "Kondivade". While we were in the vehicle the driver warned us against going close to the river that was flowing nearby as it had already taken a life.
Rajmachi is connected to Lonavala through a pass and while ascending you can see the express trains digging into the tunnels and coming out time and again ..... We had an option to trek all the way to lonavla provided the constraints of enthu, time and energy permitted us.
So the actual trek started .... we managed a decent distance in to the green and soon a local village boy said he would guide us to the peak ..... Though we were enough in number and a small contribution from each of us could have earned him a fortune there were some who refused to budge and he had to accept a meagre amount to his utter dissatisfaction.... soon he realised that he desreved more and started demanding extra bucks .... his proposal was put down ... though he showed signs of frustration he was ignored and this led to his leading us to an unknown path and abandoning all there.... having realised our state a bit late we had to fight our way through dense bushes to make our own way to the correct path ..... thank god that we managed to find one..... so again we were all together geared to scale the heights though some skepticism started creeping in a few minds most of us were too determined to budge. The path lead us to a small village on the mountain where we had a light breakfast and from there one could see the pass to lonavla. A little more effort took us to the base of the RAJMACHI FORT which in itself was a beautiful piece of arcitecture and engineering.... given the time it belonged to it was difficult to imagine how people carried such heavy boulders all the way to this height, carve and engineer them to such preciseness to make an unpenetrable fort that still stands the lashes of the weather boldly after hundreds of years.
This was just the base of the fort and before we could proceed futher a dense cloud rising from below separated 3 of us from the entire crew and within no time we were separated from them all. As it was obvious that they would take the same path down we preferred to wait at the village. In some time the ppl arrived and we started the descent. This wasnt an easy task for one of us and we had to manage him in turns till we reached the base.
It started raining heavily when we were at the base and the small waterfalls turned in to strong currents ..... with chest high water we had to cut our path through them by making human chains ..... this was one hell of an experience ... ones that i always die for :D.
The return journey was very dead .... all were waiting to hit their beds .... the local dropped us at kanjurmarg ... me and some friends walked all the way to Harish's and had a dinner .... then walked all the way back to hostel.... and thus ended the awesome trek.
Newspaper headlines the other day read "Massive landslides during the heavy downpours ...... village kondivade among the worst hit by landslides in the area"!!!!
Time: Third year just the begining of the first semester.
Gang: H4 thirdies 2005-06
posted by SaiK at
12:57 PM
5 Comments:
Hello from New Zealand. I was searching the blog world when your blog popped up. You have some really great photos worth sharing so I have mentioned your blog @ #474 on my blog 21 21 21 Blogs
thats cool :)... thanks kelvin
WOW...the photos are exquisite!!
tht was a wonderful narration...those tiny details made a nice read..sply that chest deep water...sounds pretty adventurous!!
Cheers!
he he ... thanks ...well it was quiet an adventure.... infact it could have been better if it were a day or two later :P
In my current state ( jittery n frustrated n all) i rlly want to screw u up. i long t get to such places far removed frm the campus n u keep delayin the plans citing ur darned busy gs cult schedule. BTW Mr photographer u r getting world wide recognition :P
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