Lohegad Fort – FULL MOON Trek …. 19/20 April 2008

It started with Nidhesh informing me about some trekking trip to some place being planned by his company…. “Full Moon Trek”…. Sounded great…. We don’t have anything more important than sleeping to be done on weekends so going for a nite trekking trip sounded fun and adventure…. We had to report at 4.30PM on saturday (20April) to Mr Saurabh Soni of his company (Ansys Fluent) who lived nearby…. They were expecting 20/25 people to participate in the trek…. Pretty fine figure…. My friend forwarded me the email about the event…. We were expected to get some goodies with us… The important ones of the list were
1) Dinner for himself/herself
2) 2 Liter of water per person
3) Torch
4) Bedsheets etc. (Tents were supposed to be brought by the regular trekkers )
hmmm
me and Nidhesh sat down thinking about what all we have…. i guess torch in my phone was pretty ok so that covers up the torch part…. bedsheets we had…. clothes too…. now 2 liter of water per person was something of exorbitant price…. 20 Rs. to be precise… as we guys are a little too casual to fill water ourselves…. We had gone to Pizza Hut that day for lunch so that atleast if we don’t have a good evening we have a good lunch to bank on …. After lunch we went to More Super Mkt. but unfortunately couldn’t find something that we could take there or rather we were looking upto the senior members to organize dinner for us all we took after 30 minutes of surfing the store was a packet of Haldiram’s Khatta Meetha snacks

We reached Mr. Soni’s place at 4.30…. He had a red Swift which was probably of the highest version… nice leather seats… good stereo… the guy it seemed was a little frugal with petrol so he had the AC off… but nevertheless the climate outside too was pretty pleasant…. our car was the pick-up car for Aundh guys – Soni, Amit, Nidhesh and me we reached the Hinjewadi flyover which was decided earlier as the meeting point for all the cars…. there Mr. Kishore too joined us…. Mr. Kishore was 5’6″ tall i guess….. looked proper tamil…. and had all the elements to be the different one…. he came in and sat in the back seat with Nidhesh sliding in between….

We started from there around 5PM…. and Picked up the normal highway (not the expressway) towards Mumbai…. to my amazement that highway too has been very well kept and we were driving at an average speed of maybe 80kmph with Mr. Soni experimenting all the stunts of Rally racing done my Peter Solberg It was a zig zag zig drive by him but was fun…. it was after a long time that i was breathing the highway air in daylight…. We reached Malegaon (some 60km from Pune) in one hour and having crossed a desi railway crossing we came to a village which had everything to be qualified as the Indian Village of Imagination…. we guys parked our cars where the pakka road ended and waited for others to come…. not all zoom past bullockcarts at 100kmph there was a grocery store and we took a bottle of water with ur…. we thought lets have atleast one requirement completed…. did’t want to be totally parasitic although we completed the bottle in 5 minutes…. but we got assurance that others were not like us as we had quite a few who had come with loads of stuffs….

We started trekking by 6.30 or so i guess…. by that time it was already sunset and we were walking in twilight along a kachcha road which kept on inclining as we moved ahead…. it was maybe me Nidhesh and Kishore…. i cracked some mundane and tapori jokes along the way as usual taking fun in seeing people getting bored and irritated by the pathetic level of my sense of humour…. along the way i found that Kishore was interested in photography and i was obliging him with some of his snaps…. i also wanted some for me to be put on orkut…. don’t know when i’ll go for Trekking, forget Midnite trek …. it started to get quite dark and we would c Moonlight being shed on the adjoining hill…. actually we were trekking in the valley and the moon was rising behind the hill so from 7.30 onwards it was really dark but we kept on going clinging to our instincts….

We kept on going and going…. Along the way we kept on munching what others had got…. Juice from Amit, Some mouthfreshners from others, water from kishore, etc. etc. it felt good till it kept coming We reached some village by 9 PM where my one of the worst enemies were in big number – dogs…. i tried to be away from them as much as possible…. once the village was crossed it was stairs that we had to climb…. by that time we were really tired…. i was thinking that its a better idea to stay in the village and enjoy the desi khana…. mast khatiya and aish we kept on the stairs’ riser’s height got on increasing and it was becoming quite a bit task in the end…. we kept on and on…. thinking about the target… the goal…. the fort that we had to conquer…. on and on and on…. finally we reached the top to find ________________________________________ (nothing but flat barren land)

The top was completely flat with no structure other than a big mausoleum there…. first reaction – was it a shivaji fort or??? who knew…. chalta hai…. it was really nice place (as u can c in the picture) windy as i like it…. and nicely moonlit… we could c the Pune highway in distance…. the cars running on the zig zag roads as a small point of light trying to make some random figures…. We sat down trying to rest our ___ which had taken a beating…. The guys who brought something to eat got together and started to arrange for dinner…. Kishore i guess brought curd rice or something…. Nag made good corn chat…. and someone else too brought a tiffin full of biryani…. me and the other bhukkads finished all biryani in no time and i was thinking like the person who brought biryani needs special thanks…. he cooked it so well…. brought disposable bowls….. brought it all the way to top…. man nice commitment….

After dinner it was turn for some Dumsharad (or whatever it is called) i was feeling quite tired but with nothing 2 do and tents not prepared i had no choice…. surprisingly there was CellPhone coverage at that height too…. pretty impressive… it doesn’t come in all corners of office but surely does in ‘viraniya’ and ‘khandars’ (reminds of the airtel advertisement where the plane crashes in dense forest and the girl still manages to call her family) So we played it and it was fun as it started…. I did it for two movies – Aabra ka Dabra & Kabuliwala…. luckily i managed to have my team figure out the films… there were some like Aalam Aara and others which brought the hell out of the people It was sheer fun which went till 1 AM i guess…. it was getting chilly but we all enjoyed it…. Then was the time to conquer some tent…. there were 5 tents with around 18 members (including 3 children and 2 ladies) i m not sure how all was organized but we were forced to be 5 huge guys to be in one tent trying hard to sleep without our legs extended (ie. being bent as there was no place we could extend them) no wonder the tent was named ‘Garib Rath’

The next morning i woke up to the pains in my leg… the 3 guys sleeping towards the exit had already woken up…. it was only me and nids inside…. i woke up to my amazement…. this was the pic that i saw

it was awesome sight…. some of the other pics are at

Orkut Album

Having roamed around for 30 minutes we started the climb down…. it was pretty fast initially but i knew that my leg might backfire as it did during Naval’s wedding…. it did…. it was terrible coming down with the guys who were with me had been down near the parking with me some 20/30 minutes behind them…. still i fought on…. and reached down…. it is amazing that when u know that there is only one way out u somehow get that strength to do it and thats what happend with me that day…. i somehow fought on thinking that only way i m gonna go down was by walking down even though it is with the pains…. Nag’s Kneecap surely helped but still there was quite some pain…. finally we managed to come down and i surrendered myself to the plush leather seat of the Swift…. Again a zoom zoom drive back to pune…. Kishore promised to share the pics but unfortunately he deleted the pics that were mine/nids and we got some 40 odd pics out of 150 taken…. didn’t expect that from him… but i guess thats how people r…. i was wondering what prompted him to do it as he had nothing to gain from it but still… chalo its his thinking… his mind…. i regretted not taking some pics via my phone…. chalo anyways good trip…. great fun…. next target Mahabaleshwar (26/27 April 2008) till then cya

Kailash Giri…. 17 June 2007

A perfectly beautiful afternoon…. a bit cloudy and breezy…. nice temperate climate…. conditions were perfect for burning the rubber down on the national highways while exploring new destinations…. but thanks to bihari that destination was missing…. with senior members of his team joining us on the trip I imagined bihari to plan it out atleast a little but…. it was all our mistake to have trusted an asshole like bihari and it is a lesson learned the hard way….

Anyways after picking up Rohan from his place (as bihari was supposed to be stuck in traffic) v circled around the Manipal hospital 2 Diamond District stretch just to be together…. but Avinash let the car escape and v were left stranded with little information where v were going…. technology coming to our rescue with bihari smsing some vague english letters clubbed together to form words…. how to pronouce them? god knows…. one definate location around was something called Chickmanglur which was some 50 kms from bangalore and the route was more or less known….

When v were passing by Palace Grounds Rohan realized that there was some bungee jumping event being organized in nearby place…. v looked here and there around us that v can find the place…. but frankly the effort was so minimal that v would have been dumbstruck if v had found the place…. no one made effort to ask someone around or get down from the bike and inquire…. even didn’t call a friend to know more about it from newspaper…. Well i guess that showed the desire in us to do bungee jumping

Finally after some 40/45 minutes of crawling between traffic v reached the highway…. the sight was a dream for any bike driver…. a never ending stretch visible upto a couple of kms…. 6 Lane highway and mostly free…. i wanted to hear the roar of my karizma but i thought it wise to have the helmet when driving over 100 kmph…. and those 20/25 Km of driving over 100 kmph touching 120kmph at couple of places was awesome…. Rohan, who was sitting behind me was trying his best not to cry but he couldn’t help his emotions and had his cheeks washed with tears

All the doubts regarding the performance of my bike were cleared…. My karizma roared through while conquering the road with an ease even at this much high speeds…. My dad had taken the bike to 110 kmph previously but it was before the 2nd service so the engine couldn’t go full throttle at that time…. but this time the bike performed at my will…. i didn’t go for full accelerator as at 120 kmph even a small drift of wind was a little dangerous to tackle…. i wanted to know the full speed of my bike but i guess it would be wise to do it after a service….

After the main 6 Lane highway was done v entered a stretch having only 2 lanes and thats where v caught bihari’s car…. i was amazed to find only Tim & bihari in it…. well the plan was made that v’ll be having 2/3 bikes with moti and bill also accompanying us…. v were supposed to be going to “SKanda Giri, Kalavarahalli betta – via Chickbalapur “- a place suggested by moti….

V reached Chickbalapur around 4…. had little snacks…. offered britannia’s cake & a packet of the simplest of Lays to Firangi which he munched gleefully…. it was very difficult to ask people about the place as none knew about it or pretended that they didn’t due to language issues…. v had a unique driver who instead of helping us out used to ask us as what info v could get…. anyways after a bit of asking here and there someone showed us the way towards some xyz betta…. which was supposed to be a tourist spot…. just a road which might lead to the place…. no kms no direction…. that was the time when the doubts were confirmed that bihari’s plan was no plan we were completely stranded…. anyways with karizma around exploring new places was not a problem…. specifically when the climate was supporting so much it was not a big deal…. and truly the road was one of those which transfered me back to those school days when i enjoyed the beauties of nature with a little more simplicity and wholeness…. it was Malgudi days revisited…. simple villages…. green fields with distant hills…. cloudy blue sky…. there was calmness and happiness in the eyes of the cattle that v crossed unlike those in the city which might bully anyone who came near had it not been the chain to which it was tied…. Grandmas playing with the kids…. Children playing simple games with full enthusiasm…. Smiles on faces of the aged…. Don’t know but simple good images around bring in joy and happiness in me…. i loved driving on that road….

We were again lost a bit where v had to take a right turn into a ‘gali’…. and that was the gali….. perfect place to be with your spouse if u have one unfortunately i had Rohan behind me and both were lost in those dreams – had v got one bas ek hi ….there came an opportunity to steal mangoes too but we decided to do it while returning…. unfortunately it didn’t happen

But after around 1 hour of driving i was left questioning where v were headed…. it was almost 5 and still v couldn’t c any hill around…. myself and rohan finalized on 2 distant hills to be something worth going…. forget the names finally someone told that there’s a place called Kailash Giri worth going which was around…. well like Gogo in Andaz apna apna…. “Aaye hai to kuch to lekar jaayenge”…. the driver of cab was so pathetic, everytime the road split into two he would enter one blindly and then that one would almost everytime happen to be the wrong one v could say that it was highly probable that the road that driver didn’t take was the correct one…. after lots of twists and turns on a single lane road which would hump at will v reached the place…. luckily v were just in time around quarter to 6…. a bit of climbing and then there was a series of cave temples…. inside everyone started flashing the cameras here and there…. all getting into that weird funky modes

Had a bit of rock climbing too and the view from that place was awesome…. never ending plains…. bits of hills here and there with trees…. golden sky and sun setting behind the adjacent hill…. view reminded of Age of Mythology graphics…. Avinash babu were busy making full use of the digicam…. so was firangi…. suddenly we could here someone shouting frantically and then v realized that trekking or rock climbing at the place was strictly banned…. v got down asap…. there prasad was being served in form of a light khichdi…. myself and mala had it…. prasad in any form shouldn’t be neglected – thats wat i believe…. finally v had some DCH style photo session after coming down the hill…. finally the driver did something that he should…. he got the info of how to reach Bangalore by a shorter route…. the road wasn’t that good to drive but i guess driving on any road apart from proper National highways at night is difficult…. lots of bumps here and there and v were left shaping our asses when we got down from bike…. had a decent dinner which i felt good…. but i guess when one’s hungry everything tastes tasty….

v were on Old Madras Road so it wasn’t difficult getting back home wasn’t difficult…. also had a cool F1 race that evening so it was all action that day…. and Hamilton peeping ahead of Alonso was the cherry on the cake….

The trip that was completely unplanned turned out to be a decent adventure and i guess everyone was fine with the outcome…. personally i was thrilled at the afternoon drive that i had on the highway…. bangalore traffic rarely gives scope to take my bike to the limits and with helmets on i just couldn’t experience the smooth firing of the bike….