Tuesday, July 20, 2010

8 kms and a cloudy day




In our bid to escape from the monotony of our professional and non-existent personal lives, me and 6 of my friends, decided to go to Lonavla. It wasn't totally unplanned, nor was it organized. We knew the date of our travel but nothing else. So this is what happened...

Managed to wake up at 5.30 and still miss the train (here starts our planned way of traveling). So took a bus instead and gossiped, chatted and slept our way to the 2 hour journey to Khandala. No. None of us sang the song.

From there we took autos to Lonavla (this reminds me, I somehow always mess up by calling autos scooters, whereas the actual substitute term used here is rickshaws..) station. By now we were 'in the mood' to enjoy our trip and thus we started our trek to Bhushi dam (no pun intended). Some people were nice enough to point out that its 8 kms away and we shouldn't try walking, but we are just like any other over confident,out-to-prove-ourself Indian.

So we decided to walk it! Wonderful experience actually. Take away the extremely rowdy crowd of men/ boys who kept crossing us in their bikes, cars, or legs. I think they had this misconception of auditioning for a Dharmendra movie and were, thus, trying all sorts of vocal antics.

Anyway.. we walked and posed and walked some more..By the end of our two-hour trek we reached the destination. Took off our shoes and started wading through the muddy water. Point to be noted, beer bottle pieces do not make for a nice carpet. Almost as bad as shorts-clad overweight uncles look to the eye.

This dam was nice and peaceful, it was the adjoining staircase-like structure which was the Maharashtrian version of the Kumbh Mela. I swear on every penny I have ever earned, there were at least 500 people sitting on those steps, trying to take a bath with the water the person sitting a little way ahead just used! And the way the screamed made me think at least some of them must be from rain-starved Vidarbha. Water! water! Oh and we paid Rs 10 for a cup of chai. Poor little rich shopkeepers! blah!

Done with that, we took an auto and reached a veg (sigh!) restaurant and had our lunch. Ran to the station in the drizzling rain and somehow managed to get on the train. Another first for me, sitting on those wooden shelf type upper berths in the general compartment. Of course the trip wouldn't have been complete without one of us fighting. So we did the best thing possible - gave our voice to my roomie's struggle for a place to sit and fought way to victory! Thats just about it.

Back to Mumbai. The hills look so far away now :( I still have some money left, though. Could plan a trip to Malshej Ghat next month...