Lohagad Conquered.

"New post before new blog"

Yet again I had a wonderful trip; yet again it was after endless, sometime meaningless discussions through mails. But this time, to make sure that we really go somewhere, we (me, virus, bulls and anna) decided to meet at dinner and discuss it out. Venue and time: Bala’s (restaurant on FC Road), Saturday evening. Till then nothing was decided, not even destination. But even before order for dinner was placed we came up with destination, Lohagad!! Other candidate was purandar fort, but no one knew where it was. It hardly took 5 -7 minutes to decide on lohagad, rest of the time, yes throughout dinner , was spent on discussing the list of eatables that we should take for trek. Ridiculous!! Isn’t it? Answer will be “No” once you realize that you have two gujjus (Virus and Bulls) in team. So we came up with long list; Bread (2 family size packets), butter, lot of farsaan, bun maskaa , enough magiee packs – we decided to make magiee at fort, so for that one paatela (utensil), forks, lots of paper, match sticks… Probably now you realize that discussion went throughout dinner. All tasks were equally divided among us. Oh! By the way Manali (Mans) also decided to join us; she ditched her team mates who were to start some new VC++ project. She seems to be most enthu girl among the lot we have (not talking about the one who is in Bangalore :) ).

Next morning we (we + Mukul (mukyaa)) met at shivajinagar station at 6 am, train was at 6:30. We started our day with kurkure, lays and tea. After lot of control bulls gave up, he eat his share of bun maskaa, which was meant to be eaten later. Train was on time and within an hour we were at Malavli Station (one stop before lonavala). This was most beautiful station I have ever been to; in background there was a huge hill, between that hill and station ran a high speed Pune – Mumbai express way. If I have correctly imagined, in monsoon with a lush green hill in background, this station will resemble to a Swiss railway station shown in DDLJ, a scene where Shahrukh and Kajol wait for train. Sounds like I have exaggerated the point. Well, I will surely describe it when I revisit Lohagad in monsoon. Lohagad is 9km. from this station. We crossed express way through over bridge and headed towards bhaje village, approx 2km from malvali. We enquired for some kerosene in this village that we thought would be required for burning woods, we didn’t get any. Somebody came up with idea to get ‘gaoriyaa’ (dry cow dung- a kind of pan cake of cow dung which can be used as fuel!! Easily available in village like bhaje). We got two such pancakes. Lohagad was very much visible from here, yet its main gate was 7 km away. With a mid march afternoon this was going to be a gruesome trek.

It took many breaks and short cuts to reach the main gate of fort. Lohagad is one of the majestic forts in this region. It has some 2000 years old history and is 3400 ft high from sea level. The huge balconies, (facing awesome panoramic lake) and huge gates reminds you the importance of this place during its active years. History says that during his era, Shivaji Maharaja, used this fort for keeping war prisoners. For detailed history of lohagad click here, for breathtaking images of lohagad click here. Mine was first visit to any fort, what fascinated me about lohagad (may be true for all forts) was its well planned construction. It took enemy to cross four gates before reaching the top; all these gates were quite strong and were located on the serpentine ascent of the fort. The tough part of the trek was its last leg. It led us to Vinchu kata (Scorpion’s tail). Braving steep slopes and monkeys we reached this place. It was breathtaking view, whole of the lonavala city was visible from here, and the atmosphere was serene, I was really overwhelmed by the silence, calmness of that place, something I was missing before coming here. Being addicted to city life it was unusually soothing experience for me. Too good!! This place must be a heaven in monsoon.

From here we started backtracking, En route Mans and Virus collected dry sticks for fire, and we found a place free of monkeys where we can safely sit, cook and eat. It was a man made cave like structure, must be an armoury room in those days... just a wild guess. Guys somehow (too many brains at work) managed to get properly shaped stones to create a stove like structure, everything was ready papers, ‘gaoriyaa’, sticks. We were even successful in setting fire, an achievement in itself, but something just bulldozed our plan…. Monkeys!! Suddenly they appeared from nowhere. In no time we collected our stuff and were out of that place. Thanks to these monkeys we decided to outsource this project to restaurant at foothills. Our downward ride was more painful (I can still feel pain in my legs while writing this post). We had good lunch at that restaurant, bulls and anna prepared magiee (not without funny arguments on how to prepare).

Around 6:00 pm we reached to Malavli station, got into 6:30 local to pune. It was really really killing trek (18km to and fro), but everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, it was hastily but well planned trip (as far as eateries are concerned :) ). With so many more forts around pune, I hope this is the first post in ‘conquered’ series.

Some ‘next day’ comments from guys who were involved in this trip:

Bulls : "kal ham log lohgad jake aye hai. bhayank exp tha. total buri haalat hia pairo ki. aur skin bhi puri red ho gayi hai. all in all good start for the outing season."

Mans: “Jinda Hu Main !!!!.... :) . trek was too good.....bahot maja kiya n bahot khaya.”

Virus: “i m alive as wel.. TREK/HIKING was awesome.. agar kisine "forest gump" dekha hai to woh samaj sakta hai main kya kehna chahta hu.. it was like.. we woke up in morning.. and just kept walking..and walking.. and walking.. we stopped wen we thot.. we have had enuff.. sab ki skin laal ho gayi hai.. bulls.. unexpectedly.. kept this stamina up and completed trek without n e cribbing manali ne bhi bhayanak effort daale.. gerl who is not comfortable climbin little slope.. came with us to the TOP of fort..”

Anna: “Meri tu ful vat lagi. I could not walk properly today. But all pain is less than the enjoyment we had yesterday.”

“GADH AALA PAN AAMHI GELO” :)