Weekend Bash Part 1 (ThoseGhar) (16th Sept '06)

Got up late on Saturday, and surprisingly was done with all activities soon :). So asked mom/dad if they were ready for a short trip.

It was near 1:30 pm by the time we left home for ThoseGhar waterfalls. Nilesh said he could not make it since he was in Talegaon. Quickly fueled in some diesel, and off we were negotiating our route through the hustle bustle of the city to the Ghat of Katraj.

The initial twists of the ghats were surprisingly empty all one way, this meant just one thing that came to be true in no time. There was a bad traffic jam ahead… a score of vehicles stood ahead of us, the little 4 wheels trying to overtake the giant trucks! Two wheelers kept whizzing past us at many occasions. Soon the problems were discovered, Part of the so called road was being repaired and huge trailers were on the path, so the traffic was being blocked/de-blocked at various spots, also the overtaking saga added to the drama. At one instant the Ghat full of vehicles felt so silent you could hear a pin drop, basically all the vehicles shut down as people waited for endless amount of time for the a meter to move.

It took us nearly one 1.45 hours to get past Katraj Ghat. Boy was that bad, we started having second thoughts of going to ThoseGhar and cut short the trip to Balaji mandir.

But no way, I wanted to drive so I did, soon we halted at Natraj hotel and stuffed ourselves with tea, idlis and sambar. Dad already had his tiffin of chappati bhajji in the traffic snarl at the ghat! :).

The road was excellent, I mean it was simply marvelous- a smooth drive. For a wonder I never exceeded the 100kmph limit at any given point in time, that was a rewarding relief for my passengers’ hahaa. The weather was all-dark and the rain gods were just waiting for a deep spray, and they did so just before Khambatki Ghat. The visibility fell down to a bare few feet as vehicle kept following blinkers or taillights, This was a cloud burst (first of many to follow) and we went wiz past the ghat very soon.

Rest of the drive was pretty monotonous all neat and clean spick and span till we reached the Satara phata where we entered the city and eventually drove to the base of Ajinkyatara as we headed to the outer boundaries –the ghat roads of SajjanGad.

The situation was getting dark- the clock was ticking at around 5:30pm. We took a couple of halts enroute to get a feel of the awesome surroundings. The Ghat roads went up and down and through twists around the steep hill sloes into and off the clouds- it was one heavenly experience.

Soon we came went past ThoseGhar and reached Chalkewadi at the waterfalls parking lot. From here took a short hike and then descended down steps to a concrete platform from where we could see the waterfalls, three in all. It was drizzling continuously. The view was awesome and there was this cloud in a distance that emerged out of the valley. Post some Kodak moments we decided to head back.

Once up, we had amazing tea at the local shop and soon backtracked our way back through the ghats. Even in the dark the Ghat roads looked awesome the valley was full of white puffy clouds and the I drove the whole route with no lights and let the local radio station play a Pandit Shivprasad Sharma rag on his Santoor. Soonw e enetered the city and post some enquiries made our way past the hustle bustle to the main highway.

The drive back was pretty monotonous again, but was scary at time for the fact that sometimes the yellow and white stripes on the road and the reflectors on the side of the roads would be missing for miles and that left us guessing the straight path. A few close bare misses with canines at high speeds were heart stoppers!

We halted at Joshi wada walla on the way back and had an amazing rice plate (bhakri pitla amti bhaat and wanggyachi bhaji thecha etc etc). Just before hitting the Katraj Ghat we decided to break the rules and take the newly build Katraj bypass tunnel. It was an awesome ride, the roads were excellent and the tunnel too long and beautiful, soon we hit the pre-expressway and post some misses took the Sinhagad road bypass and rode back to the city.

It was rough 10pm by the time we reached home. Granny was more than satisfied to see us back, for the fact that we were delayed by about 2 hours!

It was an amazing experience. By now we had decided to drive to Shiveneri and team in Nilesh for the next day! The writeup is next..

Enjoy the snaps!