The Weekend Trip : Lohagarh Fort, Lonavla

A quick starting tip: Visit this place in the monsoons, its magnificent. Now, well as I was planning for a day trip out of Mumbai where i could be back in my home by evening, Lohagarh fort came as a good suggestion and sounded fun. I ran into google for sometime & this place sounded cool.

Just to give a background about this fort which i read in some descriptions available in a sign near the fort. This fort, unlike many others in Maharashtra was not built by Shivaji but was made by the Moughals while they were ruling Maharashtra. While Shivaji had to surrender this fort to the Moughals in a treaty later on, he again won this fort in a hard fought battle with the Moughals. Finally, the British captured this fort by bombarding it from the Visapur fort which is very strategically located on this opposite hill.

With this dose of history, it was clear to me that i had to be here! The good thing about Lohagarah fort is that if you want, you can avoid the trek and land up directly by a ride(though if you don't trek, you miss all the fun). You can ride from Lonavala to Lohagrah, its around 30 kms. I found company in one of my other friends and we found it more suitable to travel to Lonavla by train and trek our way up the fort.

We took the 8 a.m. train from Thane station to Lonavla. The general compartment wasn't that crowded, though we din't get a place to sit it was quite comfortable in there. We reached Lonavla in about 90 minutes. Well, the trek started from a place called Madvali which was the next station. Pune trains don't stop at Lonavla so we had to change from Lonavla & get in the local which is available every 15 minutes. Ofcourse, we had our share of vada pav with tea at the station. Somethings taste really good when you are hungry. The vada pav was excellent and the tea was a perfect warmer since it was drizzling and was kinda cold.

10 minutes as all it took to reach Madvali & without wasting anytime, we asked for the directions to start the trek. Well, i overheard three guys moving infront of me discussing if Mount everest was a mountain or a peak and one of them telling them that he is planning to go to Mount Everest with his bulging tummy & dirty shorts(and as if this trek today is a warmer & the next peak they would scale is Mount everest).

Anyways, with my friend P...well about P, Mr. P is a very enthusiastic guy and a very good friend of mine, and has always loved to see places. Well, why he likes to go to places? To get his picture shot against every backdrop, i am sure had the camera not been invented he wouldn't have come with me. Thanks, Kodak! Anyways, we got two water bottles & started the happy trek. The photographic P started almost instantly clicking almost everything. A man making tea, a drain which P thought is a beautiful waterfall, a hut, a cow...! However, we reached this place where there was huge waterfall and thousands of stairs leading to the caves we could see in the distance. These caves are beautifully carved out of huge rocks and look really inviting. Get up the stairs, and see them. We din't see them as our destination was the fort(we later realized that the caves also lead to the fort and we could actually have avoided the route we took..bugger P!). I am sure thats why somewhere in the middle he slipped, din't fall. Again slipped and crash! Poor P, his super clean jacket & jeans. Man, i love to see someone slip and fall.

Anyways, the caves must be really good, even if they are not, its always good to see an extra thing while you can. Anyways, nonetheless, our route too had lot of good places in between. Clicked a lot of pictures and as we moved up the mountain the planes below came out clearly. There are a lot of places in between which are really beautiful. I remember this place clearly where we reached a hilltop of sorts with a big plain field infront. Fully covered in wet grass with few trees in between. Now this is something i have seen in the movies. The place was simply amazing. And that is the whole point when you trek, to see places which otherwise are not talked about (also you might find lot of places to makeout, carry your girl around if you want). We reached the foot of Lohagrah fort in about 3 hours. The trek was a very simple one, kids & ladies allowed, i am sure the Everest guy would have been disappointed. At the foot there are lot of food stalls, its basically a village and as i said before you can travel directly to this place.

Its full of monkeys, so keep things safe. We took the stairs to the fort and from the starting itself i could see loads of canons lying everywhere. The top of the fort is really worth the trek, is extraordinary. It is more like a fully fortified mountain. The mountain opposite is the Visapur fort which cannot be covered on the same day. The were clouds all over due to which the visibility was poor. In between the clouds cleared and it gave a view of the whole valley below. Clouds floating , fog, tiny buildings, and a big lake was visible for sometime. In the fort, there are many ponds. Thats once more speciality about this fort, not many have ponds on the top of a mountain. Someone said the queen used to bath here....ooh i am sure it must have been fun( for the soldiers guarding this ). There is also a dargah built inside which was a remnant of the Moughal rule. We spent sometime walking around, seeing girls and ya, seeing other things. In the rains, there is grass all over and small flowers blooming around. It is beautiful. We came down from the fort & after spending sometime found it wiser not to trek back to Madvali but to move to Lonavla in a vehicle. Well, as i said there is a road leading to Madvali but unfortunately, not many vehicles. We traveled to Lonavla on the back of a tempo which i am sure would otherwise be used for carrying cows and buffaloes. A group of 14 French guys found if amusing to travel this way and took on the ride. Once in Lonavla, took the train back from Karjat back to my place. I reached home at around 9 p.m. One whole day of outing...good to remember!

Places Around Mumbai - I : Tungareshwar, Vasai

It was just another Friday of a week filled with work and office hooplah, when we decided to have a small day trip somewhere around Mumbai. With a lot of ideas generated by some of my friends, the decided place was Tungareshwar, which happens to be at Vasai, a village on the outskirts of Mumbai. Its very well connected by Local trains to Mumbai. Its hardly a 45 minute ride by road or through the ever glorified local train if you start from Andheri. Since Mr.B in our group supposedly worked out the car from his sister, we had no problems reaching Vasai by 10 a.m. Thanks to Mr. B's driving skills. The only pain which i suffered was that i had to getup at 8 on a Saturday and meet the other guys on the Mumbai-Ahemdabad highway near Borivali.

Well, all set we reached Vasai at around 10, had some tea with hot Samosas. It had been raining quite heavily since the last night and my newly bought windcheeter dint help me a lot in keeping myself dry. I was soaked to the bone and a quick change helped me feel comfortable. Its so good to be dry... man! At around 10:30 we started walking from the village, the road was quite good upto a certain area after which the tar started to fade out into the mud and we entered the area which could be safely called as a forest area(This is a part of Sanay Gandhi National Park by the way). Well, the trek or walk, whatever you call it(i would hardly call it a trek, its more like walking on a kuccha road) was accompanied by heavy rains. It didn't seem to be the perfect weather to actually walk the way. I later on found out that vehicles actually go upto Tungareshwar, but a few metres of walk and i found out that the vehicles couldn't cross the river due to the swelling of river by the heavy downpour. To continue the trek further, we had to cross this same river which looked dangerously swift and somewhere in the middle of this rain, forest and a cautious" cross mat karna" warning by the bhutta wala, my adventerous streak to cross it faded out. However, there was this adjoining track(lets call it loser's track.who cares!) which we finally took. It allowed us to reach where we wanted to without getting into the water. What followed was a beautiful walk admist the forest area, wild flowers to be seen, numerous pics to be taken collectively by Mr. S, V, Su, B and well, me. We would have walked for around an hour before we reached this place where lot of aunties(a.k.a. devotes) were chilling out in, lets say..ankle deep water. Keeping the fantasies for the later part, we moved on and reached the temple. The temple is quite well maintained with things like Chips, Tea, Gola, Bhutta and what not in this whole damn world available in the adjoining shops. Quite a decent place to have tea, and thats what we did.

We were told that the waterfall is closeby to the temple & we headed straight to the waters. A few meters ahead there was another water channel which was quite a good place to actually take on water sports like trying to swim in knee deep water. Well, puns apart, the water is not deep at most places but its swift. We found a decent spot to have same water fun & we found one. The place was quite abuzz with some 10-15 family guys but as soon as we took on, the numbers started to reduce and in 30 minutes, all that was left in the wilderness were we guys. Quite an achievement, eh! It was almost 2 hours we were in the water before we planned to move on. The waterfall at Tungareshwar is quite amazing, but equally dangerous. We were not directly beneath the waterfall but further downstream. The rains had made the waterfall all the more large as we found out later. There are a lot a of rocks in this whole area and when mixed with swift currents, things do become a bit dangerous and you need to take care. Well, as we were moving up the waterfall, i realized a guy actually was taken away by the current. Well, lucky him that he din't hit a rock and ended up safe!

There is nothing more to explain about this trip as the water and the forest wilderness are the only things to look out for. We trekked down, drove back & ended up stuffing ourselves with chicken, mutton, veggies at one of the food joints on the highway.

Well, I had read a lot of things about Tungareshwar on the internet, I read in a few blogs things like "Heaven on Earth" or "Best places in India", I would rather not agree to them, as i saw for myself, its a nice place but there is nothing adventurous about it. It is a decent place where you can arrange a small day trip even with family members. If you are not going to the temple & looking out for fun, rains are the only time you can be there as thats the only time you will find water. Without it, there is nothing to look out for apart from the Lord Shiva temple.

The trip was what i wanted, a small no frills trip on a rainy day with good friends. The small trek admist the forest, which happens to be a part of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a beautiful one where one can forget the honking of vehicles or the chatter of the Mumbai crowd. Its an amazing getaway from the hustle-bustle of what Mumbai is. The best thing about the place is that it is so close to Mumbai that you can round up the trip replete with travel, trek, fun in just a day. Definitely suggested for a monsoon weekend trip!

Some things to take care:

1.Don't try to ride a bike on the alternate jungle route, you might end up breaking your mirrors as what happened with an idiot. Is it easy to ride bikes on slippery rocks(not roads...rocks)? Take the road, if you cant take it..simply trek!

2.Take a camera alongwith you, there are good things to be seen and remembered.

3.There are monkeys to be seen on the way, take care of your mobile & purse.

4. If it isn't the rainy season, avoid this place.

5. Avoid plastic. If you can't, then avoid littering, the forest area is clean, lets maintain it that way.

6. Most important..dont use a shoe in this rainy season(or use a waterproof one)! Ur feet would start smelling and you would make shrieking sounds while you walk once the water is inside them! Its damn uncomfortable!!

TAWANG, heaven unexplored as they call it.

These days there is a lot of word doing the rounds about Tawang, the small town in Arunachal Pradesh at the India-China border. I understand the fuss has been generated due to the visit of the Dalai Lama. China is staking claim over this place since the time India lost out on the war. Anyways, whose interested in politics here! Definitely not me.

In one of the newspapers today, there was an article about Tawang. My roommate got typically interested in this place on reading this article and since i have been there, i made sure i tell him things to get him more interested, maybe sometime he might take me along free of cost. I can be the guide!

Tawang is a small town in Arunachal Pradesh very close to the China border. It has always been in the news because when Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet, he had taken this very route to reach India. This place has Asia's second largest monastery for Buddhism. Now my dad was transferred to this place for around 2 years and i visited this place twice during that time. My dad at times has been transferred to very very obscure places and i have visited most of them in my holidays. But now when i look back and think, these places might not be the most talked about they have been a great experience. Now i will talk more about this Tawang!

To reach this place you need to catch a flight to Guwahati. You pick up a ride to this city in Assam called Tezpur which would take around 5 hours. From Tezpur, it would take you around 2 hours to reach the border of Assam & Arunachal Pradesh. This is where the journey starts. Winters is the time to be there & I promise that if you havent been there before each and evey mile is going to be the most awe inspiring. As soon as you enter the gate on the road which reads " Welcome to Arunachal Pradesh" and "OM MANE PADME HUM" in Tibetan script, the width of the road suddenly halves so that only one and a half vehicles can cross at a time. So if you see a vehicle coming from the opposite direction of the mountain you need to stop your vehicle where there is some space & let the opposite vehicle pass. Well as you enter this mountainous stretch you look out the window to see river Dirang flowing and if you are lucky enough on the opposite side you can see some elephants. I did't see them however. You see a waterfall running from a mountain high up and your driver tells you that we have to travel up this mountain. Its getting cold and you just close down the windows. They get instantly frosted.The nearest petrol pump would be around 150 kms away so it has to be taken care of. Forget a petrol pump, there would be no houses for long stretches. Here it is highly advised not to travel in the night. At every kilometre you see two or three signboards reading " To the loving memory of.........who lost life at this point". Its frightening. You realize this only when you look out of your window & see a wide open crevasse. For most part of the journey first time i was praying with my eyes closed. It gets colder as you move higher and you feel the cold Himalayan breeze which seeps open through that open jacket button and you are chilled to bones. The trees have gradually changed from the wide leaved ones to conifers and pines. It gets really foggy in the winters up there and i am not able to see my brother who is standing 10 feets away. We stop and i am having black tea in an unusually large mug. Feels warm! There is the only place till you reach Bomdilla where you can get good tea. Its a shop cum house made up of black wood, stones with black chairs. Inside a lady was making tea on firewood. Its been almost 5 hours since we started this journey climbing up the hills. My mom was staying at a place named Tenga Valley in the Army quarters with dad. We would be reaching there in about two hours. Its already evening, the sun is setting and now all i see is Army camps and very few shops. I can see local people in some really heavy dresses smiling everytime you look at them. The people here are really content, they have very few needs and they are always happy to help. After around two hours i reach home. This place looks like just another place with lots of people, a small market. There are no mobile phones available here and the only place where you can go and talk is the STD ISD PCO shop inside the campus. I had to call up a friend, so i went there. There the shop owner tells me that the telephone lines are down. Its because its raining, the telephone lines are down most if the times. You have to be really lucky if you need to make a phone call. Anyways, the mobiles started working there after 2 years & now people are seen walking & talking. The real personification of Walk when you talk!

Tawang is still 8 hours away from this place. My dad is already there for some work and i would be leaving for Tawang after a week with mom. It was after a week that me and my mom started the ride early morning at around 6 a.m. My mom had already made some tea, put in in a flask. She did so because most of the people eat beef here ans she wont even touch the glasses and cups from these people..forget drinking in them. Holy Cow! We had already booked a Tata Sumo. 30 minutes riding, there is a big bump and something shatters. What was it! The windows of the sumo look perfectly alright. However, as i had taken out the flask and out in the back seat, i am told my mom to check it. Well, i just shake it and a voice comes as if the tea has been crystallized into small pieces and they are jingling merrily. We ask the driver to stop and throw away the flask ..well, the tea goes with it too. I feel bad that because of me mom is not going to get any tea till the time we reach Tawang. As we ride along, it starts to get colder. The roads start getting wet and in a distance i see a mountain filled with snow. That is Tawang i am told. We move and move endlessly, now i am able to see some snow on the roadsides. As we move, the snow covers the roadsides, then the road. The vehicle gets slower and slower. I am told that you can easily skid on snow while driving. And skidding here meant only one thing! At times, whole vehicles with people have been untraceable. They are never found in these mountains. There are no trees to be seen now. Only white snow & deep gorges, the types which girls feel dizzy on seeing. There are huge rocks on the sides of the road. After sometime, it starts snowing and we have to stop due to a huge landslide. I hear people are working to get it cleared. Its cleared after an hour and we move ahead. The weather has become monstrous. Its snowing and the fog has made everything go invisible. I feel i am floating in the clouds in a Tata Sumo! The fog clears after sometime and we reach SELA pass. This is one of the five mountain passes India has. A pass is a very narrow road between two mountains. This place is probably the best i have ever seen. I saw a hollywood movie where the Branden Fraser asks " Is this Heaven". I repeated that line. There was a gate saying " Welcome to Sela Pass". Standing at 15,340 feet above sea level this is the highest i have ever been. I see two big mountain bases on both sides of where i am standing. The ground is fully flat. No more gorges, no more trees. Its like a snow desert. There are two lakes on my sides and they are fully frozen. First time i can see yaks eating snow to glory. Inside the snow there is frosted grass i am told. To picturize a yak, just wrap your woollen cardigan over a buffalo. Yak's milk is yuck! I will realize it in some days.

Sela pass is truly something you need to see in a lifetime. Ever wondered how a frozen waterfall will look like? Or how it would be if a drop of water falling from a leaf got crystallized midway? Its unbelievable right. This is the place to see that. Untouched by humans, this is real nature as god made it. Tourists do not come to this place just because they are unaware of it. Maybe thats also the reason for the worthiness of this place. Being in the North Eastern India, these places are considered to be some of the most backward and uninteresting. But the wonders they hold are something which cannot be described. In my consequent posts I am going to talk more about Tawang. Remember, i still have not reached Tawang!!

The First Writeup

I always wanted to write about places i have been to. The reason being that i think having seen numerous places, the special thing about these places has been that i got an opportunity to stay in these places for quite a long time, know the people there, experience their culture. India is a big country with more than a thousand indigenous cultures with each one having a different way of life. All these places have had a special effect on my life. I feel travel not just gave me an opportunity to see new places, but it also helped me recognize the small things that otherwise are not visible and these things affects your life in a very special way. The human nature is all about learning new things and travel is the easiest and the most interesting way to do it. Till now, i have only seen only India and its interiors and going by the amount of variance in cultures and people, it has been an amazing experience. These writing of mine are basically a way for me to put my experiences in writing and also help enthusiastic people find a place to hangout far away from the fast & random life of the big cities. And if someone here, does go to a place reading from my blog do let me know. I would want to know whats new there.