Raigad - July 2014

Hello F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Shriket - Planner 1

Namrata - Planner 2

It’s time again that I jot down the fun filled moments,we all had during our trek to Raigad this monsoon. July 2014 was welcoming heavy rains, especially in the Sahayadri range and Mumbai wasn’t spared either. Statutory warnings from many caring sources were pouring alongside the rains. Most of them advising not to venture for treks at this point of time. I won’t blame their genuine concerns, but they were based on too many inflated news in the papers and on the idiot box. I say inflated because most of the incidents flashing across the media were more of human errors/misadventures. But my AAOO group is full of responsible, caring and safety loving creatures ;) :P :D. Although most of our parents were skeptical to allow us for the trek, we still got 20^th July weekend fixed for visiting our beloved Raigad.

Shweta - New comer 3

Rahul - New comer 1

Yogesh - New comer 2

Trupti

Swapnil

The excitement started building almost a month back with the exchange of emails on planning, responsibilities and dos and don’ts for the trek from our planning committee. Finally TGIF. We all started with our journey on Friday itself. We had booked a bus staring 11:30pm from Bombay central to Mahad. We all gathered near Trupti’s house at around 10:45 with three new faces (for most of us) in the group. Rahul (naam toh suna hi hoga :P), Yogesh and Shweta were coming with us for the first time. Shriket being the center of the circle, most of us knew them by their name and ‘kaarnaamas’ :P. We took a taxi to the BC bus depot, where a shower of heavy rain was planning our welcome. The excitement started from the depot itself, when we came to know that one of our super heroes (read Swapnil), who had been given the responsibility of the food bags, had forgotten the bag of the delicious theplas, which Yogini had got for us. The bag included her windcheater. We were not sure whether it was left in the taxi or at our initial assembly point. Veins on her forehead were about to pop, when Trupti’s brother went down the place and confirmed that both things were intact as they were left :) Thanks to him, who also got them to us at the depot before our bus took off.

 

Yogini - pro photographer

This ST journey to Mahad reminded me a bit of our Pu La’s Ratnagiri journey. The twists, the turns and the bumps of the road, the passengers around (including myself) trying to grab their share of sleep and the blurring site of the running world around the bus reminded me of the starting stanzas from his play 'Mhais'. I can’t sleep in journeys, especially with vibrating buses. So till 4:15 Saturday morning, when we reached Mahad depot, my knees were bumping off the front seat and my head off the window glass. To add to the fun, the bus had its own alarm system for me. After every 45 mins or so, the water clogged in some secret compartment above the luggage stand used to drip over my neck. Getting off at Mahad was such a relief. Fortunately we got a connecting bus from Mahad to Paachad, which we understood was waiting for us from 3 am. There was another trekking group in that bus with us. They were such a loud chatter box. The girls in our group were convinced that we guys are really not that bad (and vice versa ;)). Finally the bus dropped us at the Paachad bus stop at around 5:30 am. There is a small tea stall adjacent to the stop. The stall is attached to a small but a beautiful house of the owner. Fortunately he was awake and offered us the best of his hospitality and a room to freshen up. The kaanda poha with the garam chaay with some biscuits at that moment of the day (mid night for most of us) was heaven. We were fresh and ready to begin for our trek at around 7 am.

Dipti - our Sita mayya

This stop was approx 2 kms away from the Raigad base and right at the junction, where the other road goes to the Jijau samaadhi. We started walking with our heavy bags, which not only contained food and water but also set of clothes for almost 4 days (considering we would get wet at least twice a day). Dipti's bag was a little heavier for her. Shriket, being such a dragon heart, took some of her load in his bag :) Here I realized my grave mistake. I couldn’t find a back pack big enough to carry my stuff, so I had carried a shoulder hanging bag. This penalized me throughout our journey :( Moving along the U-bend road, we reached the base and decided to visit the man made ancient caves called “Waagh dolay. They look like two eyes of a tiger when seen from the base and are right in the middle of the hill. These caves are simply two through and through holes made in the mountain with few carvings inside them. They are at a climbing distance of just 10 mins from the base in opposite direction of the Raigad. The way goes from behind the small tea/snack stall. The windy caves were amazing and cold. Digi cams, mobile phones and DSLRs made their way out of our bags. Our (IT) professional (part time) photographers were at work. We just couldn’t resist the magnetism of the place. We returned back to the base at around 8:30 a.m. The returning slopes were a little tough (rather the toughest part of the whole trek).

Yours truly

With the coconut breaking at the first step of the hill and the chantings of Jai Bhavani Jai Shivaji, we began our trek with a sense of pride in our hearts. The lush green mountain and the dark grey steps embedded on them just mesmerized each of us. We began our journey to halt at our first stop – khub ladha. It’s believed that most of the battles for acquiring the fort started here (many even ended at this point). It's almost at the base and thus the name. Beyond that we just kept climbing the stairs, halting at each waterfall and clicking pictures. One of the falls with water falling from almost 50 feet above was simply awesome. The force was strong enough to resist you from raising your arms in the air. ‘Just Soaking’ under the fall relaxed most of us and we were fresh as we were on step one. This was the place where we got hungry and tried eating some of theplas and puris we had got in our bags. But unfortunately, there came a fierce monkey trying to break in and take away all what we had got. Being a big group of 10 wild animals against just one small domesticated monkey, he did not dare to come too close. But waiting there would have just served as an invitation. Plus there were a group of other trekkers, who were enticing him for more action. So we hurried our way up and closed the lunch boxes to proceed further. Slowly the gravity was working on us and our stop intervals started increasing. More clicks and more fun. The enthusiasts of our group were pushing the rest to move forward. The ‘15 minutes to go’ distance to the main entrance was extending again and again. Finally we reached the huge main gate to enter the fort area. It was almost 12 when we reached our Zilla Parishad quarters (Thanks to Namrata and her State government ID Card :P :D). This whole journey, we were piercing through the thick fog and strong winds. Thus taking the last step, which led us directly to our rooms was a sense of achievement and relaxing. The Zilla Parsishad quarters are immediately next to the Ganga Sagar lake. 

Although it was not raining continuously but the wind current and the water falls had us fully drenched till the end. The second adventure began when we understood that the place had no lights and thus no water from a long time due to some MSEB repair work going on around the base and the nearby villages. There was no choice but to bathe with the freezing cold rain water, which we collected in the buckets from the flowing roof tops :). The first two pours on our head in such a weather really requires guts. Being the only room available, boy and girl took turns to rule over the room and get ready for a heavenly zundka bhaakar and daal bhaat at around 2 in the afternoon from our housekeepers.

We could not move out immediately. The taste of the food and the climb up was taking toll on each one of us and we were in a full zombie mood. But we couldn’t do so because the fort itself is so huge that even two complete days on the top, would not be enough to see each and every point. So we moved from our room at around 3 p.m. Shriket and Namrata had a very interesting idea. They had T-shirts printed for all of us with our group logo (Shivaji maharaj's pic) at a very last moment. The planning committee had planned so much for us to see, that we tried covering most of the points on that day itself.  But the fort is so grand that we may have covered only almost 60% of the fort. We were able to cover only the grand statue of shivaji raje, baajar peth, takmak tok, jagdishwar temple, shivaji maharaj Samadhi and waghya Samadhi (now fenced from all sides). Few enthus wanted to visit more points on the other side like the Bhavani tok. The locals suggested that it’s not so safe at this point of time and we won’t be allowed to go beyond its gate. A few sparks ignited among the group over this decision. But thanks to the cold weather and the frequent showers, the sparks were put off faster :P :D. Thus instead we visited the closest point to us. The queen’s palaces and the grand darbaar which has such acoustics that a low tone voice from the other end of the place could be heard easily at Raje's Sinhaasan and vice-versa. We returned back to our quarters by around 7:30 planning to finish off the remaining points the next morning. Even after 7 p.m. and with all the fog around the fort, there was enough sun light for us to walk back without the use of batteries. We freshened up a bit and were really hungry. We placed the order for the dinner and started going over the day’s pics on the cameras. We were a little tired but our enthusiasm levels were high as usual. A lot of dumb sharads after the delicious hot dinner and the usual Kawla udd, popat udd had the clock ticking 2:30 a.m. and we began ‘trying to sleep'. The fun during the games and the punishments couldn’t be explained in any blog. You have to be there in those moments. We had broken the ice with all the new members completely. They had already started teasing the usual target members of our group :). The so called 'saadhi saral mula' started showing their true colours. All the conceptions were broken and now they are no more the new members of our group.The girls, as expected, had invaded the beds and we were finding our peace in the mattresses on the floor. The wind was so strong that the ‘whooooooozzzzzzzing’ sound from the window panes couldn’t let us sleep. I think it must be around 3 – 3:30 when the room was drop dead and we let the sleep take over all of us.

It was almost 7 am when we started waking up, planning to move out as fast as we could so that we could finish off the remaining points from the list. We had our food packets opened up for breakfast with the hot tea from the housekeepers. But we were so lousy that it took around 10 a.m. for us to get over our laziness, packing our bags and stepping out of our rooms. Me and Swapnil had a bus booked from Mahad to Pune at around 3:30 pm. So doing the math backwards, we were supposed to start the downward journey at around 11 am. Even the Mumbaikars had to catch a bus around 4. Thus after a lot of thinking and discussions, we decided to skip the rest of the points as neither we could have enjoyed the points in rush nor would have reached the base in time. So we started directly from the quarters to the way down. We thought we would drench again because of the rain but surprisingly we did not encounter heavy rains. It was a light dripping all the way. We were obviously faster to reach the destination this time, as we reached the base at around 12:30 p.m. This time we took a ten seater Mahindra cab from the base itself. We booked the cab till Mahad bus stop but visited the Jijau Samadhi on our way. Its just a kilometer away from the paachad stop junction, where we had halted on our way up. The place is beautiful with a copper made bust of jijaai (al teast it seems to be copper). We returned to the stall again and changed to dry clothing. From here we could see the Raigad rope way very clearly. There were two dots going up and two coming down over a distant rope way clad with fog. They couldn't be captured in even a DSLR. We decided to have lunch in Mahad itself so that we won’t get late for our bus. The Mumbai team had to book their tickets too. So finally most of us entertained our taste buds with non-veg food at the near by restaurant. We had cautiously decided not to eat non veg on the fort. It has already been banned in few forts like Sinhagad but yet to be implemented on Raigad. But we paid our respect in our own ways and that includes no littering over the fort. We made sure to carriy our plastics and papers with us till the dustbins. The Mumbai team had got the tickets for the 4:30 return bus, while we two (myself and Swapnil) started our journey at 3:30. For me the malshej ghat and the greenery on the way back was the only positive thing to board the return bus. For Swapnil it was his arrears of sleep all the way :P. With heavy hearts we parted ways. With boards like Garudmachi on the way home, I am waiting when we would start exchanging mails for the next trek this monsoon itself.  

Till then enjoy the pics of the trek from the link below:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114702086921512698045/albums/6040334480582027201

The photographer's link :)
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=107872696776724158893&target=ALBUM&id=6040219958889105185&authkey=Gv1sRgCOqhlpmrqMmx6AE&feat=email

Regards
Amol Potdar