Kamandurg is a quiet and quite an unknown destination when it comes to trekking. Most of the enthusiasts prefer venturing in the Igatpuri and the Malshej ghats. The Mumbai-ite with the trouble of extra travel in the crowded locals before he can set his foot on the some of the lovely mountains.

Kamandurg, close to Vasai, Mumbai, is however quite an experience for a trekker. The information about Kamandurg too is not easily found on the net 🙂 However Vj did manage to find and make the best use of Google. The trek was set for 9^th Jun 2007. Vj getting his trekking meetup’s gang as well.

Travelling Directions

I was waiting for the Borivali local to shower its timely presense.. but as all public transport modes … it was untimely. I could reach Borivali station only by 5.15am, Vj’d called stating.. that we were gonna miss the 5.10 Virar local from Borivali. And we were helpless. The worst thing for me is to be not on time. But … “some things in life u just cant control”.

5.15, Borivali: I got down @ the first platform, I was wondering where was all the old structure, when I saw another train overtaking my train and halting ahead… What was that.. ! well… I was on the new platform (towards North), another train from Churchgate showing its might @ the platform, this time at the old one.. it was when I saw ‘Virar’ on the display, my cell rung, it was Vj checking if I could make the train that was arriving… ha!! perfect ! I was already running to make for it. With a sprint I made into some compartment.

At Dahisar i finally met Vj in the compartment ahead with Vikram, this was a new guy from the meetup group. Seemed like a typical call-center-bachelor-guy happy go lucky life, smokes, bikes, etc. But I was wrong. Was quite a fun to know him later though….

आज बहुत मज़ा आएगा

Vikram kept saying that, I never new why. Inside, Anupama and Rajo were there as well giving their tashreefs a pre-rest. It was almost 6am at Vasai when we got down in the west to check for the routes etc. I was hungry and Vj had to wait for Kalpeshbhai, fine, i’d put that time to good use.

A little enquiry @ the ST bus stand made us wonder we’d miss the bus, the bus that would drop us at Chichoti was about to leave in few min. Damn!! we were gonna miss it. outside we found it would be Rs 200 a rick for that place. We decided we’d wait till all came and figure out if there is a better deal on the eastern side. Few mins. later there were cells buzzing.. Kalpeshbhai, Mayur were ringing..

Kalpesh was running towards us, I never thought he too would be a pathetic PJ cracker as we are, but he turned out to be better or worse than us (I don’t know how to put that :P) We had a vadapav and chaay and moved towards the station when we met Mayur, hmmm… and crossed the lines to get on the otherside of the station.

We can always figure out the extra km travelled in the meter

Naa.. Mayur .. not here in villages … doesn’t work that way. We were trying to negotiate the extra fare if the final destination of Dekhundi village would be from the Kaman village. It turned out to be Rs. 180 for each rick with 4 people. We were 8 that was perfect.

The rick-ride was initally boring however refreshing, and as soon we were on the Vasai-Bhiwandi exit, it started raining amidst the sun. This was better. We had few snaps which we could manage. And sooner we were at the Kaman village, where a villager guided us towards the right direction of the base of the fort, Dekhundi.

We had to walk a red soiled road, across a dry river to reach Devkhundi, at the village we spotted a house buzzing with life, early morning chores, etc. Thats where we decided to recruit our guide. We got a teenager.

अरे चल रे गड्या, घरी बसून काय करशील ?

Rajo very sweetly got his younger kid brother about 10 yrs old to join us.

The trek started close to 7.30-8.00. No sooner we were 15 min. into the trek, it started raining.. we were waiting for it… It was also when Kalpeshbhai had a call from another meetup-groupie who was @ kaman village, and had around 1/2 to 1 hr to join us. He with another friend of his. We decided we’d wait.. We sent back the teenager to pick him, while Mahendra, the kiddo stayed with us. 15 min, and Mayur was fuming … we managed to get some laughs in his arguments. We decided that we’d move on.

And the trek started… twists and turns, rocks gravel and climbs all helping to drain our calf muscles. As the clock moved past an hr since we’d started.. the pace of the group too started to pale, but we moved on. I was very quiet as there were few with whom I talk. There was Vj ofcourse and his PJs and Kalpesh just kept on adding to the heap. Vikram kept chanting “Aaaj mazaaa aayega”.

Later as soon we hit the plateau while crossing mountains.. the group moved ahead, with me and Vj at the end testing our photography skills. We even had few videos from our NGC explorer cum Dandia champ, Vj.

We kept dragging behind, often whistling to keep track of the group ahead led by Mahendra. But we kept snapping, and it was fruitful with some lovely snaps of flowers that we had on the route.

It was close to 11.30 when we thought we were almost at the top, when there was nothing above us but pure blue sky. The sun now starting to heat up the things. All the way long it was amongst the canopy and the early morning sun which didn’t really trouble us. But this was. Open and in the Sun. Some more climb and that was it for 2 of us, Santhosh and Mayur. they were happy resting on a rock. While rest of us were sure to make it to the final summit.

It was all rock climbing, none of which required any special training, but definately which requires caution and intelligent step placement. Further ahead, it was Anupama’s turn to halt. Now just me, Vj, Kalpesh, Vikram, Rajo and Mahendra treading along. The summit beautiful, all are though. Some more snaps.. and we headed back towards the trailers. That was when we saw 2 guys meeting the rest of the pack, I guess they were the ‘remainders of the division’.

Food was on everybody’s mind when we all of us met. As usual we had ample of bread, butter and Jam. Vj with is Sat. upwaas for a beautiful bride had got sweetlime, tomatoes and cucumber as well. A good, healty, meaty and heavy meal later We all were lazing around.. after the other 2 of the group joined us, we decided to move on.

And that was it, it took us around 4 hrs to climb, with a whole lot of waiting, panting, resting, drinking, etc. But the descent was exceptionally quick, back into the foliage and the canopy shielded from the sun, all of us were quick, almost jumping and running down the path. It took us around 1.5hrs to reach back to the outskirts of Dekhundi, thirst and sweat …. !!! It was when we saw a hand-pump !!!! Yummy!!!

There are certain experiences in life that u can’t blog, explain, write, etc. One of them is having a cold shower at a village hand pump after a trek, at the expense of somebody else pumping and flexing the triceps to shower u with cold cold water Jeevan

Aaaah … !!!
पैसा वसूल

This was all that everybody had on their lips, with Vikram reminding us of “Aaaj bahut mazaa aaega”

With a double, triple, quadraple showers, taking turns to pump water on each other, we finally moved on back towards the highway, it was another 1.5hr walk back, but it was good, after that refreshing bath. On the journey back, I wished some others too could’ve joined like Mukti, Sudani, Gauri. ha ha and … Mukti managed to be in just before we finished. “Mukti Dham”, a crematorium. I and Vj looked at eachother, I had my cam memory stick full, but I had to have this for Mukti 😀 . I deleted some extra photos and got Mukti Dham for Mukti 😀

At the highway, we all had ourselves full with Sugarcane juice. Again we managed to negotiate rick drivers for Rs. 150 a rick with 5 people in each of ’em. This deal was sweeter 🙂

At the station we were back in the crowd again with sweat pouring all over. We had to skip a few trains before we could manage to get into one of ’em that seemed ’empty’ to one of the commuters.

Back at home …
aaah blindness … … …

Travelling Directions

• Get a local train to Vasai (Western Railway), Mumbai
• Either get a ST bus or a rickshaw for Kaman village at the highway
• Walk towards Devkhundi (base village), where ideally u’d grab a guide to help u to the top

Photos

Complete Album

The trek was finalized !!! phew !!! After endless discussions to pick a peculiar destination. Karnala that was, a bird sanctuary. Why ? ’cause it was an easy one ! well… that was one of the points that contributed towards its vote, another one was its easy accessibility, only 15 mins from Panvel bus depot. Panvel bus depot itself being only 1.30 hrs from Dadar station by ST bus.

Excited !!! Mukti able to make it this time, even Saurabh. Other participants being the regulars, Vijay, Sudani and Neeraj. Good, always need some TP during treks, and Mukti assures that. She is best at it, with Saurabh to add some spice. The Junagadh king, Mr. Ashok Sudani adding the gujrati flavour to our recipe. Vijay and me relishing every moment of it.

Travelling Directions

Karnala Fort Trek, Photos

26th May 2007, As usual I was unable to have sound sleep in the night, waking up every half hr. or so, just to check what time is it. At last waking just before the 4’o clock’s hammering ring. Even without enough sleep, I was contended. Looking forward. A quick brush, and a call to Vj.

Trring trring… Trring trring… Trring trring… Trring trring… Trring trring… Trring trring… Trring trring…

Hello, Vj?

hmmm… (deep voice)

uthaa ?

hmmm…

uuth… aur ready ho.

hmmm…

chal bye!

hmmm…

साला आएगा क्या ?, next up, a ping to Mukti.

Trring trring… Trr, the second one not allowed, hmm… the Engine is up and running. Good.

5:45 AM, I was waiting for ‘public’, when I saw Sudani searching on the Dadar FOB, even Neeraj had come. Few minutes later, Mukti called on my cell, ye, ‘my cell’, that I’d borrowed from my mom. She managed to get the directions correctly, and no sooner she met us. She bursted into laughter, no wonder we all like her around. This girl had managed to get her cousin escort her till Dadar, on a Kandivali ticket. Oh god !! Mukti u should be into marketing. What powers of persuasion. Vijay too made it sometime later, and we thought we’d have to wait for Saurabh, when he made a sudden appearance. All there. Lets head for the ST Bus. It was close to 6:15.

Just opposite to the Pune’s Asiad bus stand, the ST buses were humming their engines, not exactly humming but kind of choking… We were lucky to spot a Panvel bus waiting only for us, as soon as we hoped in, the bus was rolling. The early morning ride on a highway is always pleasant, the May sun however was starting to show what it was capable of. New bombay, or Navi Mumbai was full of previous incidents for Vj, who’d done his Engg in BVP. We saw where he used to play kho-kho, etc., etc. ‘kho-kho’ to us also has a special meaning, which we never forget to remind. isn’t it Mukti !? Amongst all the khee khee, Sudani had spotted some graffiti in the Bus, ‘Chetana loves hemalai’ or something of that sort, which he was sure of it was not “Chetan”. I’d never seen anybody so emotionally attached to a graffiti

अबे विजय, वोह लिख्खा है ना !! वो चेतन नही है

To that, we all lost it. Haan Sudaani keh rahaa hai to hogaa…

Panvel Bus Depot, around 7:45. Typical ST Bus depot, all the red buses showing how not to follow good traffic ethics in a closed environment. The loos, full of pee overflowing, reminding me and Mukti of NH₃ and H₂S stink @ National college. People waiting in every single corner of the depot for their buses. This depot was quite a competition to Chicago’s Air Traffic Control.

A lady at Panvel was very helpful in leading us to the right bus to Karnala, we managed to get into the bus after her. This bus was full, I thought this ride would be on foot. But as usual, humans do not prefer what we do, the last seat in the STs. ha ha we love it. don’t we. The ride from Panvel was on a very good road, as soon as we left Panvel, we could smell the jungle air. The air too got cooler, here we come. Within 10-15 min. we were waiting for Karnala, when a guy said, “Karnala?, mere saath utro”. We got down with him, to see ahead, “Karnala Bird Sanctuary”. The guy got into a cabin, and said, “वर्ती पर्यंत जाणार ?”, “पाणी आहे ना?, वर्ती काही नाही.” Ok buddy, Rs. 20 each for the trip, thik hai. He even gave us a neat map of the Sanctuary.

We headed out only see a group of monkeys on the road, Mukti was hesitant, but had no option other than following us, The monkeys didn’t budge, “आगए आदमी के अौलाद”. Vijay as usual was moving fast and … trying to find a wrong turn 😀 . We took a deliberate right turn that was supposed to join back to the main road, which was properly paved. The right turn however never joined, we had to trace back. Further ahead, we saw cages and some huts, the ‘Office of the Sanctuary’ as stated in the map. There was a peacock trying to showoff his beauty, by spreading its feathers all round and dancing. Some parakeets as well, with their distinct vocals, further ahead, white Rabbits. They were so very white, they even had 3 pups,calfs, god knows what are rabbit’s kids called. But they were damn cute, just about 3 inch long and full of cotton wool. mmmm…. could be tasty to have a bite at, ha haaa.

A right turn ahead was a “difficult route” to the Karnala fort, while a left one was for “elders”. No prizes for guessing our route, we were on a trek, not a picnic. the route first descended, and then climbed back, nicely twisting and turning in the woods. aaah .. that smell of leaves fallen on the floor, the sound of crickets, cicadas, and the sound of birds…. simple jungle life…

As we moved on… Vj, not waiting.. always moving ahead…

Yeh to garden mein walk hain

Soon the way started to climb harder, more rocky features to cross and more gravel to be afraid of.. to that Mukti and Saurabh commented ‘haan, what a walk in a garden !!!’ with Vj and Saurabh both sweating heavily. With lot of snaps some video captures, we moved ahead. We got a chance to see a gujrati मक्कडमानव hanging on the trees. With all that, heat, water intake, we were moving ahead. Except for Vijay this was our trek after a long time. just the previous Sunday Vijay had again managed to have a disastrous Harishchandragad. It was my first after my knee zol. But the trek wasn’t strenuous.

We reached the top, where we couldn’t see rocks, trees above us but only sky. This top however was a road on the top of a mountain that lead us to the final fort. We saw a group coming from the other side (the elderly route !). An aunty was creating a havoc in the jungle peace… “WHY ARE YOU’LL NOT COMING…. I’M GOING AHEAD” and so on… I was trying not to listen her… but couldn’t help it. She was a bit too loud in the jungle. Further ahead there were steep steps towards the fort that we could see. The steps were actually cut rocks. The lady yet again…. “HELLO…. U’LL ARE NOT COMING… ? SHOULD I GO AHEAD ?” after a few steps, few difficult ones, “OYE WHY ARE YOU’LL NOT COMING WITH ME ?” I’d figured out the reason, why ! I was with Mukti, but I never had a look in Mukti’s eyes during this scene, I knew a single look would have made her laugh right in the aunt’s face. Thank god.. I didn’t. Further ahead, Sudani, Neeraj were managing to cross difficult rock patterns, when the aunty was unable to judge her steps… to that …

keep your pair here.

? pair ?
Ashok or Neeraj whoever that was… realizing the mistake..

leg keep here

another point where I avoided an eye contact with Mukti.

Vijay and Saurabh were ahead, almost into the fort now. Waiting for 4 of us trailing behind. As we moved into the fort, we saw the final piece of cliff that the rock climbers do rappelling etc. Some more snaps over here. By now Mukti wasn’t really feeling all good, too much of water perhaps. Feeling uneasy, While rest of us were finding a shade to have something to eat. We found a cave like area where there were cool water cisterns. Some were bad, but there was one which was exceptionally clean, I tried a sip of it despite opposite views, after me Saurabh too had it.. “abe, meetha paani hai” we then later enjoyed the meetha water even more.

Mukti was so uneasy, she had to puke.. she found a bad stinking water pool, where in she helped it clean with her distilled water like उल्टी, and in a weired fashion as well !! oh !! Tension free after that, she was so enthusiastic that she came into the cave with a big bang, ya big bang on the rock with her head. Aaaah !!! sat Mukti… holding her head… trying to weep perhaps… but then as we all know her.. She started to laugh..???? ha haa. Vj put some cold water on her head…

After few questions of how u’re feeling and so on.. we came to the important one… “what was the laugh about”

ये क्या हो रहा है मेरे साथ? पेहले उल्टी, अौर अब ये

ha haa, hmm… good carry on. After an enjoyable relaxing time in the cave, we headed for another shelter of the rock granting us some shade, where we had our food, Bread, etc, and so on.. Few snaps as well.

There on, Vj wanted to relax, so we headed back around the cliff towards the entrance of the fort, the door. Where we all put our bags down, and spread our feet. Vj and Saurabh trying to spread every single part of the body, but the whole entrance wasn’t wide enough to sleep. Vj laid down with his feet resting high on the wall. So did Saurabh, after which “Shit.. yeh paaon bahut oonche nahi rakh sakhtaa huun, aah…” uska cribbing chaltaa rahaa… We shot some more TP videos, abusing each other etc. which were deleted.

I and Mukti were still chatting while Vj was trying to sleep, Saurabh was trying to adjust his body into the area, Neeraj and Sudani were already dozing… We moved ahead from the place to venture out further, only to find nothing. Found another shade and we sat. Few min. Saurabh too joined in. aaah now this place, he was able to spread his whole body.. “aah .. but these stones, only if I could have had a pillow… ” .. and so on…

It was close to 3.00 when we finally decided to move down again, picking up our bags, etc. We head back into the jungle. within minutes I found myself hungry, yet again.. We sat down for food, munching bread, puffing ourselves with Glucon-D, mmm.. it tastes so yummy when u’re thirsty. With more photos during our descend, we reached the “Office building” where we releaxed in the shade of the trees on the grass carpet. Quenched our thirst, before we finally headed for the highway. It was then when we observed a pillar with a distinct message on it.

मुली पटविण्यास मनाई आहे

a little thought by Saurabh.. and it was actually

चुली पेटविण्यास मनाई आहे

waaah !!!

On the road, we waited for the ST bus, before we hired a 6 seater. where as a mandate, you need to sit in a awkward, tight position before u could have a sawaari of a 6 seater. Some more snaps helped us thru. At Panvel Station, Vj spotted a Watermelon vendor, and we all were there, puttin our small mouths into the big melon pieces, enjoying it. The bus ride from Panvel to Dadar was a soothing one, yet again on the backseat. Saurabh, Ashok, Neeraj all dozing off, while Vj, Mukti and I continued to enjoy.

At Dadar, it seemed more than a day, when we’d met earlier in the morning, ‘alas, the good day had come to an end, and we all were again like ants, cockroaches running and waiting for the local trains in the heavy rush.

Travelling Directions

• Get a ST bus to Panvel ST Bus depot from Dadar Stn., Mumbai (opp. to Pune’s Asiad bus stop)
• From Panvel get a bus towards Pen/Karnala