Since more than a month before beginning of 2010, Pulak has been talking about plans to celebrate beginning of 2010 at a place away from civilization in the lap of nature. As usual, we didn't plan until Abhinav, Pulak and I got on a 15 minutes call on 28th Dec and decided to go to Sandhan Valley for camping. We discussed other alternatives like Tarkarli, some tiger sanctury, Rayling plateau etc. Bachelor for this long weekend, Pulak had to welcome 2010 without Ashka's physical presence. "Five point somestuff" left on bikes on 31st - Abhivan, Pulak, Abhishek, Fati and I.
Our resources including human were 4 male, 1 female, 2 owned and 1 borrowed bike, 2 tents, 2 sleeping mats, 2 large and 3 small rucksacks. Rucksacks had our food and clothing related stuff and the extras. With an mutual agreement on starting the ride at 9 am on 31st, we didn't actually gather and leave together until 11 am. Fati was my companion and we of course had the best bike of the 3. It was a 200 CC Pulsar with relatively comfortable seats, only 10K kms on it and I touched my highest speed on a bike - 120 kmph for a couple of seconds. Abhishek was sitting behind the slow rider - Abhinav. Abhinav had recently bought a bike, which Pulak was riding and this was probably his first long ride on a national highway. For the sake of Einstein (relativity) and Newton (relative speed), in the first 75 minutes, he was more than 25 minutes behind me. When I read Nashik - 37 km, he read 73. Pulak was the "hammal", carrying all the weight in two rucksacks and two light weight sleeping mats.
We had our lunch at Siddhu da Dhaba, a small place 40 km en route. Main diversions to remember on our route were at villages named Gothi, Bhandardara and Ghatghar. From Ghatghar, we had to do a survey of perfect spot to camp. It was around 5:15 PM when Pulak stopped the bike roadside and said that this is a right spot and we should stay here. My instant reaction was negative because I had a fixed destination in mind. However, we stopped and surveyed the place. After going a couple 100 feet further, Pulak saw something that he wanted Abhinav and me to see. There was a nice little isloated island, connected by land via a small strip. It was a perfect spot as our bikes and us would not be visible from roadside. With Fati around, safety was our major deciding criterion. Mumbai alone consumed from than a million litres of alcohol; there of course were lot of drunk people supposed to be driving the roads of country.
We checked with an old man who was out on a walk with his bull, who advised us not to stay there and suggested a place few minutes down the road. However, we were not happy with the advise as he didn't sound authentic. At that moment however, we decided to validate what he suggested.
Within 100 metres of that place, we met Nandu who gave us a positive advise. He suggested us to stay on another similar island on the other side close to his hut. He also offered us shelter in his house, food and taking care of our vehicles. We found isolation and he offered us security; there was nothing more to ask for. Everybody made a U-turn and parked the motorbikes. In a straight line of sight from the road, we could see Nandu's hut, few fields, a narrow passage that had opened up recently, the island where we stayed and the Bhandardara lake. To Fati's excitement, it wasn't a long hike either. Its nice to be back home. I wouldn't have dared to camp outside a designated campsite in US.
Nandu's kids came running to us in excitement and made inquiries. Their father explained that we were camping overnight. Nandu told me that the hamlet's name was Murshet, whcih was approximately 160 kms from my house in Navi Mumbai. There weren't more than 2-3 huts in the area and those too were scattered. India's population density for once seemed to be miscalculated.
After a quick survey, we decided to put the tent on the farther flat end at around 10 meters from water. By the time we reached there, it was time for Sun to go to bed and for us to take pictures. Sunset behind the mountains and over the lake was one of the few panoramic views that we captured. After sunset, we started putting the tents, while enjoying the different shades of sky, mountains and water. It was also a a full moon night or at least close. There was also a eclipse between 10:35 PM and approx 1 AM, visible only 7% from where we were.
Sun was gone, tents were set and we were not running behind time. Hunger was the call of body. Abhishek was the junior most enginner and our resident cook as well. Fati always get VIP treatment on such trips and more this this time because of her eye infection! Abhishek has this quality of observing the likings of people and remembering them as well. He started playing favorite songs for each one of us one by one. In the meantime, he also set up his kitchen and made "Bhel" and "Chai" for evening snacks. He called the Bhel with some Bihari name that I don't remember. He had also collected wood from Nandu to cook the dinner, breakfast and lunch. Wind and Water remixed the music and gave all of us our first few refreshing moments of solitude! Moon was so bright that we didn't need any light to roam around. Moon's reflection in water was another reward for the place we accidenatlly chose. With a full moon, 5 of us on a lonely island, great music playing and fire buring on the side, water and wind talking a different language, it was a perfect night!
After evening snack, it was time to prepare dinner. We all contributed one way or the other by igniting the fire, washing the utensils, filling water bottles from the lake, keeping the fire alive, preparing the dough for "baati", cooking the "Daal" or entertaining others after a few sips of "Old Monk". Our rest of the evening passed in discussions, preparing dinner, drinking and eating. Dal-Baati didn't turn out to be the best but it certainly tasted great in that environment.
Of the two tents, Fati got the preference and hence I also got the master bedroom tent with open toilet all around the tents. The only difference was that we were wearing extra, unlike a normal night in Ghanosli flat. Fati was wearing a jeans, a of socks, a t-shirt, a thin jacket and then a thick warm jacket , a warm hat and a scarf. She did take off the goggles while sleeping.
I was also wearing warm track pants that I bought in the Us for skiing, a pair of socks, a full sleeve T-shirt, a warm sweat shirt, a muffler and a hat. Apart from the thin base of tent, we had a thin carpet and a sleeping bag as your bed. We had a common single-person blanket to make it more romantic with all those clothes on. Nature was testing our resistance against desires! I'm not sure what apart from snoring was going on in the other tent. Boys said that they had a great night, with lot of sleeping space at hand. We weren't cold but the thin tent cover made a lot of noise with the wind entire night, which did cause frequent interruptions in my sleep. Fati slept indisturbed by all voices of nature.
It was before sunrise of first day of new year that I started Pulak and Abhinav chatting outside. Pulak of course was making every attempt to not only wake us up, but also get us out of the tent to enjoy the sunrise beauty. Three of us in order (Abhishek, Fati and I) didn't care much about what nature had to offer so early in the morning. We just needed 5 minutes sleep that lasted 2 hours for Abhishek. I came out of tent soon after 7, next came Fati and then Abhishek at around 9, that too with a bad headache.
Pulak always need to be busy, so he made the morning fire for making tea and breakfast. While he was doing that, Fati and I ate the leftover desert (Churma) from last night. Abhinav and I also did some good photography. Many Indians don't get the nature call until their intestines get some tea; Fati is no one of those million. This camping was different as Fati's potty had never seen rocks before. Yeah, it was a sort of world record! She did it finally! I remember the first camp where we were out from Friday night until Sunday night in Oct 2006, before coming to US. There she would pee once a day and no poop for 2 days in a row. Amazing capacity, isn't it? It takes a different wheat flour in daily meal for 23 years to reach that level and I still haven't figured out where my in-laws got that flour from. I've diluted that effect in 3.5 years though and hence this "on-the-rocks" potty experience! We all (men) also went pooping but it was no adventure for us. I actually needed few sandwiches and a egg-cheese bhurji to make the required pressure, but the golden yellow made me very happy after the rounds.
While all this was happening, Abhishek also woke up and took charge of kitchen. He made remaining sandwiches and very good egg-cheese bhurji. With filled stomach, Pulak and Abhinav went to the other side of lake to take some pictures of our campsite. Abhishek gave me a good massage with Navratna oil, usually used to keep your head cool. Soon after that, I took a power nap, which Abhishek told me was 30 minutes but I didnt even remember. We also had a set of walkie-talkie with us, another gadget that Pulak was fascinated about and desperately wanted to use it and test its range. after they got to the other side, they asked us to go places over the island to get pictures. I also took some jumping-jack pitures for Pulak and Abhinav from the our side. Post photography, three of us went back to campsite and then I gave Abhishek a good massage, I hope. While I was doing that, a fisherman was passing by in his boat, whom I called to inquire about a short boat ride. After some negotiation, he agreed to take 5 of us on annother side of the lake, from where our tents were not even visible in straight line of sight. We all tried our hands on the traditional paddles with no luck in paddling even 5 meters towards desired direction. The old man got happy when Fati took the paddling seat. He really smiled and tried to teach her as well. I've some pictures to prove this. Men are Men, age doesn't matter. When I asked the fisherman about safety of our campsite from thieves, he said - "He Mubai nai. Ikde koni kai lenar nahi", i.e. This is not Mumbai, nobody is going to steal here. What a reputation these big cities have got.
After getting to the other side, we decided to do some diving photography. You may have guessed by now who jumped first. Or course, the only frog - Pulak. Boat was his diving board. The only other diver was me and I launched myself form boat too. Since boat was not still, both of us didn't get good thrust and landed flat on water and came out with a burning chest. I later found a better spot on the other side to dive from a stome, hardly a feet or two above water level. I got two perfect dive pictures from there and felt proud of owning a Nikon D90; the pictures won't be as good otherwise. Pulak remained a frog from there as well. After our dive photography, we started back towards our abode and when we were just 20 meters away, Pulak's inner frog jumped again, getting him a great frogy picture in the air. In this jump, he tore his vest apart and gave a macho pose as he was walking from water towards land.
After getting back to the island, Abhishek and Abhinav took a few dips in water close to the shore, which was also bluish-green and clean. Clock was showing 2 and after our swim session, it was natural for stomach to cry. We warmed the left over dal-baati from dinner and really relished the food. All of us wanted a nap afterwards but then it would be dark before we could leave and Abhinav had to do house hunting the next day. He is getting married on Feb 9, 2010. It took us a decent half hour to do the dishes, wrap the tents and our sacks. We left the island in same physical state as we had came but in our minds, we felt some ownership for that piece of land! We stopped at Nandu's hut for a "Chaach". He was expecting some money and we certainly wanted to give. Abhinav and I were on same page to not raise expectations of villagers and offered only 100 ruppees. Nandu of course insisted on more and rest of the group gave expressions in his favor, but we stayed firm. I was giving explanations and Abhinav was signalling us to leave! It was not about our capacity but keeping other hikers in mind and setting the expectations right.
Everything until now was great but we needed some adventure to ensure that "Nazar na lage". The heavy motorbike that I was riding didn't start and we were parked on grassland at least 200 meters from road and it was not a easy task to push-start the bike. This bike was supposed to start with push button which doesn't work and luckily enough, there was no kick. Thanks to designers of Bajaj Pulsar 200! The only way to start the bike was to push it to 10 kmph and then put it in gear. To our stupidity, we realized after 15 minutes of pushing the bike that there is a start engine button which was off and I wasn't aware of it. Finally we all started back towards home. I got some cool pictures of highest mountain range in state over setting sun. Pulak was taking us to show some windmills but it got late and the road was bad too, so we u-turned.
On the way, we ate dinner at a Dhaba opposite to Shahpur railway station, which wasn't as good. On our way back, we were all riding together until 50 kms before Mumbai. I then drove the powerful bike to its capacity and made to home sooner. I Slept from around midninght until 2:30 PM next day. Fati was still sleeping until 7:15 PM, not AM. I was supposed to get pictures taken from Abhinav's camera but till this date (Jan 14), I'm awaiting for Pulak to give those to me.
We were not running for anything and had no time targets. For once, we were at leisure on our mini island in Murshet! It indeed was a good start for the year.
Our resources including human were 4 male, 1 female, 2 owned and 1 borrowed bike, 2 tents, 2 sleeping mats, 2 large and 3 small rucksacks. Rucksacks had our food and clothing related stuff and the extras. With an mutual agreement on starting the ride at 9 am on 31st, we didn't actually gather and leave together until 11 am. Fati was my companion and we of course had the best bike of the 3. It was a 200 CC Pulsar with relatively comfortable seats, only 10K kms on it and I touched my highest speed on a bike - 120 kmph for a couple of seconds. Abhishek was sitting behind the slow rider - Abhinav. Abhinav had recently bought a bike, which Pulak was riding and this was probably his first long ride on a national highway. For the sake of Einstein (relativity) and Newton (relative speed), in the first 75 minutes, he was more than 25 minutes behind me. When I read Nashik - 37 km, he read 73. Pulak was the "hammal", carrying all the weight in two rucksacks and two light weight sleeping mats.
We had our lunch at Siddhu da Dhaba, a small place 40 km en route. Main diversions to remember on our route were at villages named Gothi, Bhandardara and Ghatghar. From Ghatghar, we had to do a survey of perfect spot to camp. It was around 5:15 PM when Pulak stopped the bike roadside and said that this is a right spot and we should stay here. My instant reaction was negative because I had a fixed destination in mind. However, we stopped and surveyed the place. After going a couple 100 feet further, Pulak saw something that he wanted Abhinav and me to see. There was a nice little isloated island, connected by land via a small strip. It was a perfect spot as our bikes and us would not be visible from roadside. With Fati around, safety was our major deciding criterion. Mumbai alone consumed from than a million litres of alcohol; there of course were lot of drunk people supposed to be driving the roads of country.
We checked with an old man who was out on a walk with his bull, who advised us not to stay there and suggested a place few minutes down the road. However, we were not happy with the advise as he didn't sound authentic. At that moment however, we decided to validate what he suggested.
Within 100 metres of that place, we met Nandu who gave us a positive advise. He suggested us to stay on another similar island on the other side close to his hut. He also offered us shelter in his house, food and taking care of our vehicles. We found isolation and he offered us security; there was nothing more to ask for. Everybody made a U-turn and parked the motorbikes. In a straight line of sight from the road, we could see Nandu's hut, few fields, a narrow passage that had opened up recently, the island where we stayed and the Bhandardara lake. To Fati's excitement, it wasn't a long hike either. Its nice to be back home. I wouldn't have dared to camp outside a designated campsite in US.
Nandu's kids came running to us in excitement and made inquiries. Their father explained that we were camping overnight. Nandu told me that the hamlet's name was Murshet, whcih was approximately 160 kms from my house in Navi Mumbai. There weren't more than 2-3 huts in the area and those too were scattered. India's population density for once seemed to be miscalculated.
After a quick survey, we decided to put the tent on the farther flat end at around 10 meters from water. By the time we reached there, it was time for Sun to go to bed and for us to take pictures. Sunset behind the mountains and over the lake was one of the few panoramic views that we captured. After sunset, we started putting the tents, while enjoying the different shades of sky, mountains and water. It was also a a full moon night or at least close. There was also a eclipse between 10:35 PM and approx 1 AM, visible only 7% from where we were.
Sun was gone, tents were set and we were not running behind time. Hunger was the call of body. Abhishek was the junior most enginner and our resident cook as well. Fati always get VIP treatment on such trips and more this this time because of her eye infection! Abhishek has this quality of observing the likings of people and remembering them as well. He started playing favorite songs for each one of us one by one. In the meantime, he also set up his kitchen and made "Bhel" and "Chai" for evening snacks. He called the Bhel with some Bihari name that I don't remember. He had also collected wood from Nandu to cook the dinner, breakfast and lunch. Wind and Water remixed the music and gave all of us our first few refreshing moments of solitude! Moon was so bright that we didn't need any light to roam around. Moon's reflection in water was another reward for the place we accidenatlly chose. With a full moon, 5 of us on a lonely island, great music playing and fire buring on the side, water and wind talking a different language, it was a perfect night!
After evening snack, it was time to prepare dinner. We all contributed one way or the other by igniting the fire, washing the utensils, filling water bottles from the lake, keeping the fire alive, preparing the dough for "baati", cooking the "Daal" or entertaining others after a few sips of "Old Monk". Our rest of the evening passed in discussions, preparing dinner, drinking and eating. Dal-Baati didn't turn out to be the best but it certainly tasted great in that environment.
Of the two tents, Fati got the preference and hence I also got the master bedroom tent with open toilet all around the tents. The only difference was that we were wearing extra, unlike a normal night in Ghanosli flat. Fati was wearing a jeans, a of socks, a t-shirt, a thin jacket and then a thick warm jacket , a warm hat and a scarf. She did take off the goggles while sleeping.
I was also wearing warm track pants that I bought in the Us for skiing, a pair of socks, a full sleeve T-shirt, a warm sweat shirt, a muffler and a hat. Apart from the thin base of tent, we had a thin carpet and a sleeping bag as your bed. We had a common single-person blanket to make it more romantic with all those clothes on. Nature was testing our resistance against desires! I'm not sure what apart from snoring was going on in the other tent. Boys said that they had a great night, with lot of sleeping space at hand. We weren't cold but the thin tent cover made a lot of noise with the wind entire night, which did cause frequent interruptions in my sleep. Fati slept indisturbed by all voices of nature.
It was before sunrise of first day of new year that I started Pulak and Abhinav chatting outside. Pulak of course was making every attempt to not only wake us up, but also get us out of the tent to enjoy the sunrise beauty. Three of us in order (Abhishek, Fati and I) didn't care much about what nature had to offer so early in the morning. We just needed 5 minutes sleep that lasted 2 hours for Abhishek. I came out of tent soon after 7, next came Fati and then Abhishek at around 9, that too with a bad headache.
Pulak always need to be busy, so he made the morning fire for making tea and breakfast. While he was doing that, Fati and I ate the leftover desert (Churma) from last night. Abhinav and I also did some good photography. Many Indians don't get the nature call until their intestines get some tea; Fati is no one of those million. This camping was different as Fati's potty had never seen rocks before. Yeah, it was a sort of world record! She did it finally! I remember the first camp where we were out from Friday night until Sunday night in Oct 2006, before coming to US. There she would pee once a day and no poop for 2 days in a row. Amazing capacity, isn't it? It takes a different wheat flour in daily meal for 23 years to reach that level and I still haven't figured out where my in-laws got that flour from. I've diluted that effect in 3.5 years though and hence this "on-the-rocks" potty experience! We all (men) also went pooping but it was no adventure for us. I actually needed few sandwiches and a egg-cheese bhurji to make the required pressure, but the golden yellow made me very happy after the rounds.
While all this was happening, Abhishek also woke up and took charge of kitchen. He made remaining sandwiches and very good egg-cheese bhurji. With filled stomach, Pulak and Abhinav went to the other side of lake to take some pictures of our campsite. Abhishek gave me a good massage with Navratna oil, usually used to keep your head cool. Soon after that, I took a power nap, which Abhishek told me was 30 minutes but I didnt even remember. We also had a set of walkie-talkie with us, another gadget that Pulak was fascinated about and desperately wanted to use it and test its range. after they got to the other side, they asked us to go places over the island to get pictures. I also took some jumping-jack pitures for Pulak and Abhinav from the our side. Post photography, three of us went back to campsite and then I gave Abhishek a good massage, I hope. While I was doing that, a fisherman was passing by in his boat, whom I called to inquire about a short boat ride. After some negotiation, he agreed to take 5 of us on annother side of the lake, from where our tents were not even visible in straight line of sight. We all tried our hands on the traditional paddles with no luck in paddling even 5 meters towards desired direction. The old man got happy when Fati took the paddling seat. He really smiled and tried to teach her as well. I've some pictures to prove this. Men are Men, age doesn't matter. When I asked the fisherman about safety of our campsite from thieves, he said - "He Mubai nai. Ikde koni kai lenar nahi", i.e. This is not Mumbai, nobody is going to steal here. What a reputation these big cities have got.
After getting to the other side, we decided to do some diving photography. You may have guessed by now who jumped first. Or course, the only frog - Pulak. Boat was his diving board. The only other diver was me and I launched myself form boat too. Since boat was not still, both of us didn't get good thrust and landed flat on water and came out with a burning chest. I later found a better spot on the other side to dive from a stome, hardly a feet or two above water level. I got two perfect dive pictures from there and felt proud of owning a Nikon D90; the pictures won't be as good otherwise. Pulak remained a frog from there as well. After our dive photography, we started back towards our abode and when we were just 20 meters away, Pulak's inner frog jumped again, getting him a great frogy picture in the air. In this jump, he tore his vest apart and gave a macho pose as he was walking from water towards land.
After getting back to the island, Abhishek and Abhinav took a few dips in water close to the shore, which was also bluish-green and clean. Clock was showing 2 and after our swim session, it was natural for stomach to cry. We warmed the left over dal-baati from dinner and really relished the food. All of us wanted a nap afterwards but then it would be dark before we could leave and Abhinav had to do house hunting the next day. He is getting married on Feb 9, 2010. It took us a decent half hour to do the dishes, wrap the tents and our sacks. We left the island in same physical state as we had came but in our minds, we felt some ownership for that piece of land! We stopped at Nandu's hut for a "Chaach". He was expecting some money and we certainly wanted to give. Abhinav and I were on same page to not raise expectations of villagers and offered only 100 ruppees. Nandu of course insisted on more and rest of the group gave expressions in his favor, but we stayed firm. I was giving explanations and Abhinav was signalling us to leave! It was not about our capacity but keeping other hikers in mind and setting the expectations right.
Everything until now was great but we needed some adventure to ensure that "Nazar na lage". The heavy motorbike that I was riding didn't start and we were parked on grassland at least 200 meters from road and it was not a easy task to push-start the bike. This bike was supposed to start with push button which doesn't work and luckily enough, there was no kick. Thanks to designers of Bajaj Pulsar 200! The only way to start the bike was to push it to 10 kmph and then put it in gear. To our stupidity, we realized after 15 minutes of pushing the bike that there is a start engine button which was off and I wasn't aware of it. Finally we all started back towards home. I got some cool pictures of highest mountain range in state over setting sun. Pulak was taking us to show some windmills but it got late and the road was bad too, so we u-turned.
On the way, we ate dinner at a Dhaba opposite to Shahpur railway station, which wasn't as good. On our way back, we were all riding together until 50 kms before Mumbai. I then drove the powerful bike to its capacity and made to home sooner. I Slept from around midninght until 2:30 PM next day. Fati was still sleeping until 7:15 PM, not AM. I was supposed to get pictures taken from Abhinav's camera but till this date (Jan 14), I'm awaiting for Pulak to give those to me.
We were not running for anything and had no time targets. For once, we were at leisure on our mini island in Murshet! It indeed was a good start for the year.
1 comment:
too good..
Post a Comment