Harishchandragad...a refreshing trek full of adventure and fun

The Hype

A week before the trek, i was putting mails across lots of friends telling them to get ready for this trek. I had never been to this place before and had to gather some information from the net. The information from the net implied that this was a very tricky and risky one. So, the anticipation and expectations for a nice adventure were very high. My brother was acting weird. He was afraid of coming as i told him that this was a harder trek than Ratangad and Bhimashankar (shidi ghat). He perturbed a few other people too.
Finally, I booked tickets for 5 of us from Hyderabad to Manmad (the plan was to reach sangamner as early as possible).
Three people from Pune were to join us at Sangamner and three more from Mumbai were to join us at Rajur (they came via Igatpuri). The plan was to climb from Panchnai on Rajur side and get down the next day towards Malshej ghat via Tolar Khind.
There were discussions all over on what to carry and how much to carry. We finally decided on a nice big plastic sheet (like the ones we use to cover cars), a small kerosene stove (and some kerosene of course), a litre of milk each, a few nutrition bars, 2 kgs of rice, a blanket, two pairs of dry clothes, a towel and a few polythene bags (to save your dry clothes), a nice strong rope, 2 utensils, a few bottles of water (you will need more if it isn't raining), disposable plates, some salt, mirchi and spices for cooking.

The adventure begins

If you thought our adventure began at the base village you are completely wrong. Our adventure began in Hyderabad itself. I was waiting at my office for one of my friends to leave early on Friday as the train was at 6PM.
Suddenly, i get a call from him telling that he is in a hospital and one of his friend's cousin needs B+ve blood urgently and he is of the same group. I finally managed to get him out of there telling him that we will manage to get some other donor somehow and he should come this time (Praveen = he, missed the last two trips because of some stupid reasons). Finaly he was at my room and we had to take my bike to the station as we werent sure we would make it in time if we took an auto. We were just on time and we started making call everywhere, even to friends we werent in touch for a long time to get a B+ve blood donor. We could find three donors and haa...we are free of that responsibility now. We relaxed, played cards, shared some stupid jokes, ate some bajjis and vadas in the next stations and slept.

We got down at Rotegaon and took an auto to Vaijpur where we thought we could get some easy transport to Sangamner. But we couldn't, so we had to book a tavera which dropped us in sangamner by 9AM. The pune guys were there by 1030AM (they had their own half of adventure as they had a flat tyre on the bus they were travelling and had to take a cab). The eight of us met the mumbai guys at Rajur. We had our brunch there and went to Panchnai (the base village) in the jeep we booked from Sangamner.


The Trek

Panchnai (Paachnai), 27 Kms from Rajur, itself was a village at a nice altitude as our jeep had to go through a small ghat road to reach that. We were dropped at a small bridge near a nice waterfall.

Once stretched our bodies a bit and taking a tip or two from the locals about the route (we didn't take a guide), we started our trek. A small hike for about fifteen minutes has brought us to a point from where we could look at the village below and a nice waterfall in the background.

It was already 2PM by now and i was worried as the info points out that this is a 3-4 hours trek and we had to reach the temple/caves before the sun sets. We thought we couldnt afford big breaks.

We sped up a bit and were hiking, resting for a few minutes, taking snaps here and there whenever it wasnt raining.
We went through a rock patch forming like a shallow cave along the route.

Then we reached this beautiful waterfall where the route split into two, but we were saved by the arrow marks in white pain on the rocks every few hudred feet.

After trekking from here for nearly 30 minutes, we met a few energetic guys coming down from the top.
They told us that the top is just one and half hour at the max. I was totally surprised at that.
I thought we had to go through some tough patches and it would take atleast 3 more hours. We continued and met another group who said we were just 15 mins from the top. Finally, we made it to this spot which had many remains of some old temple and clouds were all over the place creating a thick fog.

We took a left turn from here and continue climbing. We were told the caves were near the temple, you will have to climb along the waterfall that flows near the temple. In case there is no fog, you will be able to see them clearly.
We continued climbing for some time and after a short discussion decided that we were going the wrong way. I said we will continue as it was just 4PM and we had lot of spare time in case we got lost and we can always return to the stone remains we saw earlier.

We reached a place where it looked like it was a peak and everyone agreed that it was one of the three peaks, Taramati. We came back to the stone remains patch and there we met a guy who took us to one of the caves.
Most of the caves and the temple were occupied and we needed a big one as we were 11 people. So he led us to a big cave, which we all decided was the best of all the places available. It was quite warm inside and we all put our heavy bags down and relaxed our arms and back a bit.

There were three persons there already in the cave who are all from a nearby village and they serve the needs of the tourists for a little cash. They serve tea (not at all recommended), poha (good) and dal. But, there was smoke everywhere inside the cave because of the wood they were burning for cooking food. We were all irritated because of the smoke and left our luggage and came out so that we can utilize the time (around one hour) left before it gets dark.
We went for a semi-naked (as freedom from now on) bath and then had some freedom run to the temple, freedom trek and we tried meditating in the cold rain on some distant rocks for sometime to see how it feels. It felt very good. We tried to play some games had some fun and finally returned to cave once we were quite cold.

We got ourselves into some dry clothes and used the rope we brought to hang the wet clothes and socks. Some of us rested, some started playing cards while i, gopi and madhu started getting things ready for cooking our dinner.
We realized the three mistake committed later, the rice we took at the local village couldnt be cooked in our style, I tried to cook the rice in a very unconventional way which later made me the BUTT OF ALL JOKES, we put everything we had at the first go.
After three and half hours of waiting, everyone was hungry, frustrated and finally we had to order poha from the local guys. Maggi could have saved 3 hours 28 minutes of our time and frustration.
Can you even imagine having glucose, salt and some half boiled potato and beetroot pieces as food (and stuff for people having whisky)? I am sure you cannot but thats what we experienced.

Finally we were completely tired, half hungry when we slept at around 12AM. The rock floor was quite uneven at places and was the hardest bed you can imagine. I wasnt able to sleep very soundly and was checking the cave out again and again with the torch everytime i woke.

At around 4AM, Praveen strted talking in his sleep things like 'drrrrrrrrrrr....', 'adi...no...vaddu...' and some senseless things. I pushed him hard and he burst out laughing telling me he too was awake. Madhu and Bharat too woke up and we were chatting nonsense that early in the morning. The fog formed a thick white door in front of our cave and it was quite cold and drizzling outside. Siva wanted to pee but was afraid and cold to go outside. We had a final bout of sleep after a disappointing hike and sleep on saturday to have a very beatiful and exciting Sunday yet to come.

We were all up by 7AM and i started boling all the milk we got with people again sharing jokes on what i would/can/will/might do with the milk. The sugar we brought wasn't enough but the tetrapak milk was good enough and helped us get some energy in the morning.

Madhu got us all into implementing his idea of a having a cold freedom bath in the morning and visit the siva temple nearby. The water was very cold and the first shower felt like needles shhoting through our skin. By then we were accustomed to the temparature and felt very fresh.The silhoutte of the temple can be seen in the pic below.

We were back into our warm and dry clothes and started our way back with a guide as we wanted to cover a few ponts and didnt want to miss our way in the tumultous (assumed again) trek on the way to Tolarkhind.
The guide was quite agile and we had to quilckly follow him to see both the temple nearby and then took our route to Tolarkhind.

This route is a hike thorugh 7 hills before we reach the base village Khireshwar.
The first three hills were quite easy and we were clicking snaps at most of the places whenever it stopped raining. The fog was quite thick and it formed droplets on the beards and eyebrows.
You can easily go by yourself most of the part except at one hill where the route splits into two. The left route goes to some village or that was what we could make out from what he blurted out very fastly in marathi (very localised). So the right way is the one to the right. So we continued our trek through some beatufil patches like below.

And some tough patches like this,

And three risky patches like one of the below. (we couldnt take pictures at two spots because of rain).
At one of the very tough patches we found a group of a few guys and gals climbing up and most of them were quite afraid of the slope and were being pulled by their braver friends. We gave the rope we took with us to them as we hadn't used it and though it would be of some good use to them.

Here i would like to share some tips about trekking though i am an amatuer myself. I think that trekking is more about balance and the way you place your steps at tight spots. You musn't panic about losing balance and try to coolly counteract the motion whenever you are slipping and a shoe with a good rubber grip will always help.

Well, i tried to teach a few tips to my brother all over the way while climbing down to help him over come the fear. Most of my friends were dragging their asses against the rocks when they could have got down with a little confidence and strength in their legs.

Anyways, we saw two snakes on our way and carefully walked further not to step on one of them. A dog too followed us from mid way all the way back to the village khireshwar. The patch of forest with trees overshadowing you will be over once you are quite near the village. It was already 3PM here and the guide was in a hurry to go back as it would get dark and he has to return. So, we asked hime if the route was straight and assumed his blurting to be a straight yes and came back on our own from there.

Here are a few pics on our way back,

We reached the base village by 4PM. It was a very scenic village and i wanted to spend a life at a place as beautiful as Khireshwar. The village,

We were quite tired already and my left knee was hurting like hell. We still had to walk 4-5 kms along the waters of Pimpalgaon-Joga dam to reach Kubi phata. Luckily we got a force traveller another group, who went up, left. We did some bargaining and he left us at Sushant Dhaba (3 kms from Madh village, 62 kms from Murbad) which was a few hundred meters away from the road to khireshwar towards Ale phata.

It was already 5PM and Mumbai people got into the first ST bus they waved for.

Abhi adventure baki hai mere dosth...

The trek and adventure must have ended for the Pune and Mumbai people there but the people travelling to hyderabad have another interesting story to share.

5 Maharashtra ST buses sped past us and they didnt even care for 5-6 people waving their hands. Finally at 530PM a bolero with a carriage in the back stopped and dropped us at Hotur which was 15Kms from Ale phata.
It was 615 by the time we reached Alephata and there was no hope for us to reach Manmad (approximately 150 Kms away) to catch our train at 9PM. I asked others to decide if we should go to Pune and catch a bus (almost next to impossible to get 4 tickets on a sunday night all of a sudden and would cost upto Rs 1000 per head extra) or should we take a bus to Ahmednagar (88Kms) and then one more to Aurangabad (115Kms from Nagar) and catch the train we missed at Manmad.

All of us agreed on plan B and said good bye to the pune guys and took a bus to Nagar. I still wasnt sure about the timing of train in Aurangabad but guessed it would be after 12 anyways and we can reach convinently.
We took a bus from Nagar to Aurangabad at 9 and thats when i called chandu to get a hint at the correct time of the train and thats when our hopes faded minute by minute. The train's correct time of arrival was 1035PM and it departs five minutes later. We had to go 110 Kms in 95 mins. Subhash went and told the bus driver the same and requested him to go as fast as possible. The highways was quite good and the driver was best. We made it to the petrol bunk in Aurangabad from where we had to take an auto to the railway station by 1045PM. Our hopes were quite low and in 5 minutes we were scramming out of the auto in to the station.

Luck was on our side and the train was late by 20 mins and the scheduled departure was 2305 hrs. We had some mosambi juice while bharat and praveen got us some idly and vada parcel. We relaxed and also thanked god and the bus driver for getting us into the train.

We had no dry clothes left except for the half dried shorts and tees we were already wearing. They dried up some time later when we were sound asleep and thats how our adventure came to an end and everything worked out well.

The trip wouldnt have been comepletely successful either if we couldnt have got a blood donor or if we couldnt catch the train. We were quite happy to find some dry and a bit sunny weather in Hyderabad as we could dry up everything in the bag including the bag itself.

This isnt my first adventure but first blog about one of my travels.Well, so see you all later after my next adventure.

You can find me in orkut as Aditya M. Keep in touch.