It was the end of the first decade of the 21st century. I was in 4th grade. My summer vacation was coming to an end.I was eagerly waiting for the first rain. Especially I was waiting for the rains of the holy Shravan month. Shravan is a Hindu month in which all Hindus worship Lord Shiva.

That time I lived in Aurangabad. there’s a kailash temple near Aurangabad in Ellora village. It was our custom to visit the Kailash temple in every Shravan and worship Lord Shiva.

At that time I was too young to know about travelling and exploring places. But every year I used to wait for that day. When my daddy used to take me on his bike and we used to travel miles in raining showers.

Shivering little me used to cling to the back of my daddy . And while passing through the valleys I always used to imgine myself running behind those purple butterflies , dancing under the waterfalls and running towords the mountain tops.

But this tiny trips made me realize that I really love mountains..that I really love rains .. that I really love traveling..

Hello people.. meet some of my quarantine achievements from my garden ..

The cold winds were blowing, we were sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree. while we three people were sharing weirdest problems of our lives with each other , there comes the next twist.

While talking we were making some arrangements to spend our night there . Like we laid the mats on the sand ..then we were trying to burn bonfire for some light and heat ..At that time we heard the voices of some vehicles which were probably going towards the shore . Our friend indicated to us that now we have to hide.

I and my colleague was totally confused. We were not understanding anything. We took all of our stuff . And we hid in the bushes behind. I whispered, ” Yeh kya chal rha hai ”

Then that beach friend explained us the situation. The vehicles we were hiding from were actually the tractors of sand smugglers.We stayed there for a long time. Then as soon as those tractors left the place . We took sigh of relief.

We changed our place of stay where our friend’s bike was parked. We were just asking him about those smugglers. At that time the police patrolling arrived. They stopped their vehicle near our bike.we layed down so that they could’t see us . Headlights of their vehicle was facing towards us.

We thought for a moment that we would be caught. We were very scared. The vehicle stopped there for a while. We too remained hidden in the bushes.

That vehicle left after ten fifteen minutes later. Then we decided to shift our stuff to any other space which is away from the path of people coming and going to the sea shore .

The voices of the vehicles kept coming for a long time. Sometimes it was tractors sometimes it was patrolling vans. The voices stopped nearly at 2 o clock .

Finally we were realxed . And came back to our trip mode . we kept talking for a while . And then fallen asleep watching towards the infinite stars in the sky.

When we woke up in the morning ..it was a view that worthed all the efforts we took in the whole night.

This is the end of most chaotic night in my whole life . Thank you so much for reading. (P.S.: DON’T EVER TRY VISITING ANY BEACH IN THE NIGHT WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZERS )😂

We both were standing near the station ladder, there was a small ticket counter in front of the stairs which was probably closed. We went ahead and walked towards the road to find any other means to reach where our friend had told us to reach.

It was 8.30 pm. And looking at the place where we were standing , it felt like it was 12 o clock in the night. Only dogs were visible on the street all shops were closed except an old bakery in the corner . The scene was quite horrible .We were thinking that we should ask local people from where to get the auto. But there was nobody else other than us on the road. We called our friend and fortunately he had a bike .He came to pick us up .

We reached the beach finally .

Sunset chhodo raat ho chuki thi .. And our stomachs were growling out of hunger . There was a Chinese food stall near the beach which was about to close . But our friend had good relations with the shopkeeper he convinced them to keep it open for us for a while. We had noodles and manchurian rice there , which was undoubtedly delicious. Like there’s a saying, thakaan me kuch bhi do …woh yummy hi lagta hai ..

After feeding our hungry stomachs we looked towards the beach . We felt it that we should have read the reviews of the beach . Coz water was very far away from the beach . After going there other thing we came to know that we cannot stay there at night

It was very shocking and heartbreaking for us . But our friend made us relived saying, ” we can stay here .. I’ve stayed multiple times for photography purpose . It’s just that if patrolling people comes we’ll have to hide . And they really comes only once in whole night .”

Let me introduce you to this beach friend. He is very good astrophotographer. And his posts were the only reason for us to wish to visit this place.

We started walking on the shore and enjoying the wind . It was like we were with some partially known guy alone at that unknown place ( Even we were prepared with the pepper spray for our safety )

Kuch samay baad ..dosti ho gayi thi us mahol se… bhagdoud bhare din ke baad .. bigdi hui shakal pe muskuraat si chha gai thi …bhale hi paani durr tha .. par jis gunj ko sun ne ke liye tarsi thi mee .. aakhirkaar usse rubaroo hui thi ..

Thandi thandi hawaa ..woh lehro ka shor …amawas ki raat me woh taaro se bhara aasmaan ..andhereme chamkti hui ret … aur woh thandi ret me chalte huye nange pair….

It’s not over yet.. This night is going to be long.

Thank you so much for reading

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We had left for  Dahanu. In the train my friend called her friend  who was supposed to guide us to the beach and even he was going to arrange things for night stay on the beach .

We had word with him . He told us what to do after reaching Dahanu . He gave us two options . Either take direct auto to the beach which will take an hour to reach there or take the next train to vapi and get down at the first station on the way  and take the auto from there to beach which won’t take more than half an hour.

We thought,  it’s better to take train if we reach earlier than the auto thing . Again as decided we got down on the Dahanu station. And unfortunately we reached there at 6 o clock  (a complete evening) . But still ..there was a hope to spend atleast an evening with the orange sky on a beach.

We didn’t know the actual timings of  vapi/ stuart Express so we enquired there at the Dahanu station.  Accordingly we got the train .

Another siyyappa .. The train we boarded was standing at the same station for an hour. Eventually that train started running  and we reached Gholwad in 10 minutes where we supposed to get down.

Gholwad was a very small station it had just two platforms. We walked out of the station .

It was 8 pm . And when we stepped out of the station we realized that we’ve missed last auto for the Bordi.

Thank you so much far reading.

I was seating in the biochemistry lab with my colleague (all time partner in crime) . It was off for the practicals that day . We’re just wasting that time in scrolling Instagram feed . That’s when she said to me , ” yaar I wanna visit this place.” I ignored , ” hmm.” She repeated, ” Bro I wanna visit this place and I am taking you along. ” I came back into the senses and asked , ” what?”

And we decided ,” we’ll see today’s sunset on this beach anyhow !”

It was 2 o clock (noon) when we decided to leave . We were near the CSMT station, we had to go to churchgate . Because there is no direct local for dahanu from CSMT. So we had to go by taxi till churchgate . From there we took local for Dahanu .

After every 30 to 45 minutes there’s a local train for dahanu from churchgate station. The next train was at about 2.15 pm and we were at the CSMT station at 2 o clock . In next 15 minutes we had to reach the the churchgate station anyhow . After a lot of efforts we reached churchgate station at the right time . And it takes nearly 3 hours to reach dahanu .

You can feel the uncertainty of our wish to see the sunset being fulfilled .

Thank you so much for reading 😃

There are 3 routes to reach the fort .. .. one is from matheran ..which is 8km away from neral ..you can reach matheran by bus /by car/by train or just start walking along train rails . It takes about an hour to reach entrance stairs of the fort .This is the most easiest route ..other routes are difficult and becomes slippery during rains.These routes starts from mamadpur and fanaswadi.

As you all know me and my gang took fanaswadi route… and guess what the hike was enough difficult as I said earlier.

While hiking we met few problems.. like we met dead end twice .. but this dead ends were most beautiful part of the trek .. Yes! we found beautiful waterfalls flowing down from the peak of the hills.

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Let’s come to the other problem we faced “cow dung” .. Coz it was already raining and the shit ..it was a little disappointing. (Though this shit helped us while hiking down the fort.) And monkeys, we had really horrible experience with the monkeys . So if you are wishing to go for a trek to vikatgad keep safe distance from monkeys and don’t let any of your colleagues alone (this monkeys can be aggressive sometimes)

Heading towards the fort, we met some new challenges. There are 2-3 big rocky patches ( nearly 5 to 6 foot long) in the way toward the peak ; a small ladder almost last part of the hike and 2..3 narrow caves (can accommodate single person at a time)

Finally.. by crossing peaks and valleys we reached the top . Standing there I saw , I was standing on narrow peak of the mountain with a small temple .. completely surrounded with the clouds. Such a heavenly feeling it was!

Condition of fort is not really good but the trek and the experience of being with the nature is worth going there .

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Some happy pictures 😃😃

Thank you.

I welcome you people to the next part of PEB- vikatgad trek

Fanas wadi , a small village with tiny little huts .. surrounded with flawless beauty of mountains. We started our hike towards fort after having a word with the locals (about routes and essential details)

A few meters away form the village we met a small stream of water flowing down from the hills , there was a bridge to cross that stream. Watching towards the view from where I was standing.. looking towards the stream .. I was litrally amazed with the beauty of that place .

While heading ahead we were introduced to the great beauty of flora of the vikatgad premises. And what I suggest is, if you are an ” anthophile” (one who loves flowers) you must visit this place at the end of the monsoon; I’m sure you’ll be witnessing this blooming beauty. Here are some pictures from my collection of vikatgad trek..

I’am sure you people will love this part of the trek . Thank you so much for reading.

Roj ki bhaagdaud ………………………………….. Roj k kaam kaaj ……………………………………….. In sab se chhutti le kar ……………………….. chali hu mai un pahaado ki or……… jahaanse sukhoon ne mujhe pukara hai

There we go with my first travel diary….. “A trek to Vikatgad”. As name suggests Vikatgad is kaafi vikat (tough) but just for the beginners or for people who are not professional.. PEB will give you many of the trekking experiences….like steepness .. rocks to climb .. plain platues .. and .. monkeys with great importance..

So … it was a planned trekk at the end of the September.. (end of the monsoon actually) .. me and my colleagues..we planned this trekk on long weekend.. It was 4th saturday . Choosing Saturdays for a trekk ,specifically for the one day trekk is the most mature decision you can ever make. Because the coming sunday will surely relive all your trekk fatigue . We packed our stuff at 4am and took local train from CSMT to Neral . It takes nearly 2 hrs to reach neral . When we reached neral we took auto rickshaw for fanas wadi ..the base of vikatgad trek . And it takes 1hr 40 minutes ro reach there . We packed some food from neral station itself . Even I suggest you people to carry your own food and enough water coz sources are verry rare (or no )on the way of trekk .

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton