Panvel to Sinhagad on Bicycle - Planning and Involvement

2nd Aug 2013

This event started with a group chat. I was sitting in a Car Dealer and Nardev invited couple of guys in a group chat. I made an exit from the group chat as I didn't know the reason of that group chat and moreover I was very busy. He again pulled me in the group chat and again I made an exit.  They continued with their chat, but I wasn't available there.

Nardev called me in the evening. He informed me that they are planning for a trip to Mahabaleshwar on coming Friday and that is Eid. I was literally very happy to hear that. I asked him to explain more about the trip? Nardev explained and I exclaimed listening to the plan. They were planning to go there by bicycle. Mahabaleshwar is around 200 KMs ahead from Mumbai so it makes it around 400 KMs trip on bicycle. Sounds interesting!!! But impossible in three days as we were already victims of urban life style for years now. Like eating junk, inadequate sleep, not doing any physical exercise etc. which affects health. There is scarcity of stamina required to do this task. This was applicable to all of us.  I, Nandkishor, Nardev agreed for this and there was one more fellow Mandar who wanted to join us.

6th Aug 2013

Four of us met at Vashi to plan the trip. We all had Mahabaleshwar in our minds. We started seeing Google Map,did calculations, like number of KMs we would cover every hour, the time to reach there, taking rest and coming back etc. It seemed difficult and then impossible for all of us. We started looking at other options like Shivnery hills, Kasara Ghats, Kashid Beach, Sinhagad Fort etc. So finally we concluded Sinhagad Fort to be our final destination. According to Google map Sinhagad Fort is around 25 KMs ahead from Pune. From Panvel it would 135 Kms so at the end of the event we would complete 270 plus KMs of cycling. I, Nandkishor, Nardev and Mandar are the four guys for this event. Three days of cycling, Sinhagad Fort Pune and returning to Panvel. It would be a great expedition and will certainly bring positive changes in our lives.
 

https://maps.google.co.in/maps?hl=en&tab=wl


Introduction

Mandar is a professional cyclist and into a business of organizing adventurous activities like river rafting, mountaineering, rock climbing etc. on the range of Western Ghats of Maharashtra. We were expecting a lot from him as he is a professional cyclist. Now Guess what ?? He didn't turn up on the day and gave us a reason that he has some family function.Now it became more interesting.
Nandkishor a thin guy works in the same company I work for but he is in a different department. That is what I knew all about him
Nardev the plan maker and most important person here as he initiated everything.

None of us has ever done anything like this, we weren't aware of the route, we knew nothing. All we knew was that we had to do it.

8th Aug 2013

NandKishor stayed in Sharique’s house at Vashi so that he would be able to reach Panvel on time.  I was at Kharghar that night. I could not sleep that night because of the excitement which lied deep into my mind. Same thing happened to Nandkishor. Next morning at around 5 AM I got a call from Nardev and Nandkishor just to confirm that everything in all set and we are reaching Panvel station. I and Nandkishor reached to Panvel station at around 6 AM. This is where Nardev picked up us on his CBZ to his home. We reached Nardev’s home. We loved the way Nardev’s parents adored us. We had tea and few cookies before we left. Nardev’s dad shared his experiences of his young days like how he used to do cycling on his Avon bicycle on the hills of Himachal Pradesh. Nardev’s Mom put a Tilak on our Forehead and blessed us for our wellness and his Dad petted on our shoulders to motivate us. I could feel that they were bit worried but they were happy too and must be thinking that these kids are grown up now. We said good bye to them and taken our departure on bicycle.

Mumbai to Sinhagad on Bicycle - Part 1

Part One 9th Aug 2013

Here begins the real fun. We started riding our bicycles at 6:50 AM.  All of us had great zeal to complete this task.  We had to reach Pune on the same day by evening. We hardly completed 1 Km and it started raining heavily. Nandkishor asked us to take a halt. We took a halt so that we could put on our rain coats. And in next two to three minutes we again started cycling. I had put on my ear phones just to enjoy some music. We were at Palaspha Phata Panvel. We saw the mile stone, Pune 108 KMs. On highway, a rainy day, on bicycle, three friends, everything was simply irregular. I must say two of the bicycle was really in bad shape. If you look at the photographs of all three bicycles you would definitely admire our guts for taking them for such a long distance, or you would pity on our stupidity. We were just riding on and on and crossed several small villages at NH-4. It was raining, and super fast vehicles were overtaking us. Many a times heavy vehicles such as ST buses, container trucks passed by. Bit scary !!! We were surrounded by hills all green hills. It was looking very beautiful. I looked at a hill and asked Nardev to look at the hills and also told him that its looks like the hills which were shown in the Movie “Avatar”.  While looking at them Nandkishor lost his focus and his bicycle fell into the roadside pothole. Nothing happened to him. All of us laughed aloud. We were just finding reasons to laugh as loud as we could. We had our water bottles. Drinking a lot of water kept us energized throughout. We saw several warehouses of OEMs like Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra etc. and that became topic of discussion as we all are from Auto Industry .Nardev has adjusted seat of Nandkishor’s bicycle as per his sitting comfort.

(Nandkishor posted in Facebook, I thought its just for now, and never knew that is so much involved in fb)

After cycling for almost three and half hours we reached Khopoli. We had covered 35 Kms by now. We were tired. We stopped in the city area. After asking a couple of guys about good place to eat we finally we made ourselves comfortable in Veg restaurant. The objective was only to have light breakfast. But nobody realized how much we ate. There was no way we could resist ourselves from eating that mouth-watering missal paav. We had tea and it gave us a nice kick. We had parked the bicycles on the opposite side of the restaurant. Nardev’s focus was more on the bicycles then in the breakfast. Those bicycles were his real treasures and meant a lot to him. Ultimately it was Nardev who came up with this idea, who took so much of trouble to arrange those bicycles and then he really worked hard to bring them in considerable shape. like welding, oiling, changing brakes etc etc.

(Nandkishor posted our break-fast on Facebook)

Now we have done with our breakfast and leaving from Khopoli. We again started riding with the same zeal. We appreciated the weather, had it been a hot sunny day then we would have been in more pain. We crossed Khopoli city area. We were facing a big hill. Climbing this Ghat or hill wasn't a joke. One of the biggest hurdles we had during the tour. We had to climb up on this hill to get close to Khandala and Lonavala. We could hardly cover 1 km and finally we had to get down from our bicycles and we started walking to climb up. We climbed for a while and after completing hardly 1 or 2 KMs we took a halt for chatting. We took photographs and again we started climbing up with our bicycles. Riding bicycle was not possible so we climbed up for next one hour or so and covered almost 5 to 6 KMs. It is more tiring now. We were completely broken down and couldn't climb up any more. We had to take a halt for some time. We sat and again started the same typical old Indian stuff ‘Antakshri'. We played ‘Antakshri' for a while, sang songs as loud as we can to energize ourselves. A stray dog came and joined us and staring at us and expecting that we would offer him something to eat.

It was around 2’0 clock then and we had only covered 40 KMs. We decided to move on. While climbing up Omkar crossed us. Omkar stopped and asked Nandkishor about this trip, and he moved on. We were climbing up towards Khandala Ghats with our bicycles. Almost at the same time Satyen replied on Nandkishor post and it was, "do wear helmets from next time." Yeah, we all agree to this, safety has to be first constraint. Finally we reached Khandala Ghat. We guys were starving and our hungry eyes started looking for something to eat. We had Corn and after some time weather compelled us to have tea. We climbed up and reached Kamat restaurant and had heavy launch of Butter Roti, Daal Tadka and Chicken Biryani. Stomach full, Aaah !!!! We again started riding our bicycles. On Khandala Ghats we could not stop ourselves from admiring nature’s beauty. It was incredibly beautiful. Green hills with uncountable waterfalls. We were on top of the hills and felt great as if we have won the world. It wasn't winning the world it was more of a win over ourselves. After crossing Khandala we got to Lonawala. A famous green valley, almost everybody in Maharashtra have heard of these two places Lonawala and Khandala and everybody aspires to go there to experience the breath taking beauty of it. You must go to breathe there once in life. And once you go there next time you would not need to plan or put efforts to go there. That’s what I felt. Lonavala seemed to be a place of rich and elite class of people. Like millionaires, those prefer to have a holiday home at countryside. We saw so many beautiful row houses and Bungalows (I aspired to have one as well :) ). We were cycling ahead and saw many signboards of Chikki shops, it seemed like people in Lonavala only eat Chikki. The most famous one was Maganlal. We crossed wax house of Lonavala, and headed towards Pune on highway.

Mumbai to Sinhagad on Bicycle- Part 2

Part Two

4’0 clock in evening on NH-4, old Mumbai-Pune Highway, seeing no one walking or cycling on it, surrounded by hills more than thousands  feet from see level. Only heavy container trucks, cars, buses. Noise of vehicles and mixed with cool wind blowing. We defeated the first barrier towards Pune, its Khandala and Lonavala Ghats. We are now silently cycling. No one needed to put any efforts to cycle for some time as its down hill. Down hill, I mean slopping down. We were sitting on our bicycles and just giving them directions. Rolling down from a hilly place on bicycle is always fun. I bend down ahead and the speed of bicycles must be in between 40 to 45 KMPH. which was real fun and comfort. All of us had the feeling of being professional cyclists. This time we cycled almost 15 KMs in a stretch without taking any halt. I was cycling far ahead of Nandkishor and Nardev, I stopped to see if they are just behind me. We were near Kalra caves. We took some rest and again started cycling. By sun set we approached Kaamshet, it was real fun rolling down on bicycles for KMs. Now we started loving the moments I could feel the sense of satisfaction of doing all this and can see the same on Nandkishor’s and Nardev’s face. We have become almost professional cyclist by now and none of us seemed to be tired. We all were really happy after cycling for all day and our body, mind, muscles, heart, blood, kidneys, legs,etc .everything felt the sense of satisfaction and all got strengthen up. My Heart was saying thank you appu..J

7 PM,After reaching Naigaon we decided to have cup of tea and its almost dark. We sat in a nice Dhaba with Maharashtrian ambiance. Asked the waiter about the distance to Pune, discovered that it still 40 KMs more. That means we have covered almost 70 KMs on cycle. We had to be fast now as Pune is still 40 KMs, and its already dark. On NH-4 there are no street lights. We had to rely on the lights of vehicles passing by and on our guts. Nardev had one torch which hardly has any brightness he fixed that on his cycle's handle. Okay something is better than nothing. We decided we would cycle and would not stop until we reach Pune city. We had to be in a lodge so that we can sleep properly. After cycling for next 2 and half hours we covered almost 20 KMs and approached Dehu Road. Cycling for entire day made us cover only 90 KMs. I calculated average KMs completed every hour, it was 8 KMs. Felt bad looking at it and promised myself next day I would cover more KMs with my buddies. We got to a lodge in Dehu Road, “Sabana”. We have stopped to stay that night. For three persons the charge was Rs. 900.  Nardev went ahead and like a leader negotiated on our behalf and made it 750 bucks and also arranged hot water for us for taking shower next morning.  I was completely exhausted by now as expected and had little bit of fever as my shoes soaked lot of water and was wet entire day. I laid on the bed as soon as we entered in the lodge. Nardev and Nandu took shower and started chatting for a while. After chatting for a while they went ahead for their dinner and I asked them to bring chicken and Roti for me.  After having my dinner I had a pain killer and collapsed on the bed. Nandkishor the Face Book bug was online and Nardev went asleep.

Mumbai to Sinhagad on Bicycle -Part 3

Part Three 10th Aug 2013

Next morning we had to wake up early but we woke up at around 9:30 AM and started packing up as we had to leave for Sinhgad Fort. Sinhgad Fort was more 50 KMs from Dehu Road. We checked out from lodge and took our bicycles for service. We had done oiling on chains, paddles, handles, and air in tires, 50 bucks, very expensive. As if the cycle repairing guy knew that we would not negotiate. After getting our bicycles serviced we wanted to sit for our breakfast. It is already 12 Noon by now. Nardev asked us to take TD of our respective bicycles. Nandkishor Asked, “what is TD?” TD means test drive. (silent and hidden joke only few of you would understand and would smile). We sat in a nearby restaurant and had Onion Uttapmam, Vada Sambhar, chocolate and tea. We had to keep ourselves energized as today’s day was more challenging.

A perfect balance of healthy food is must.  We started cycling crossed Dehu Road, approached Chinchwad, Pimpari, and finally reached Pune. I must say roads are really good inside the city. Did not experience any traffic problem, hardly could see any pothole on main road inside the city. People say Pune is hub of educated and professional people. The Marathi people of Pune are united and they don’t let administration to exploit them. I am not sure but looking at the cleanliness, road conditions, greenery, drainage system it sounded to be true. But there is something good in the city which is very different. We halted in middle of the city to have Mausambi juice and picked up apples. That was kind of lunch for all of us. “An apple a day keeps the doctor way” really sounded convincing. After having juice and apples we all were energized and started cycling. We are crossing Pune City and approaching Nanded, Dalve Wadi and Khadakvasla Dam. We wanted to stop for some time to take photographs however time didn't permit us to do so. Khadakvasla Dam and Khadakvasla lake side was really very beautiful and now I regret that we should have stopped for a photo session. We are on Sinhagad Road and beside us we have Military area which has MILIT Combat Vehicle Division, Military Institute of Technology, MES etc. On this way we saw a massive historic fighter  tank. Nardev stopped there to pose and take a pic. But Nandkishor refused to take click his pic and I also motivated Nandkishor not to take his Nardev’s pic. It was just to tease Nardev. We knew that we have to take pic of this tank and all of us would pose, only thing was while returning.  Reached Sinhagad by evening 6 PM and covered almost 45 KMs by evening 6 PM.  After reaching Sinhagad we had to climb up to the fort. We had two options. First one was to take our bicycles with us and cover 9 KMs up hill to the Sinhagad Fort. Second one was to do cycling for 3 to 4 Kms and park our bicycle at the end of the road and track up on foots. We chose the later one. It was all gloomy day and we did not make out the time. At 6:30 we reached the dead end of the road.  There was a small village at the valley.

 Now time to eat something. Again the word starving, we were starving like anything. One thing we took care of was the diet, we made sure that we take our carbohydrates on regular intervals. Because the way we were cycling and the distance which we were covering, everything we ate was getting digested in couple of minutes. This is one of the common thing which all of us experienced. Sat in a small Dhaba, after locking our bicycles. We have to say good bye to our bicycles now. From here we had to track up on this hill. We had to reach the summit to be in the Fort, “Sinhagad Fort”. We all were physically tired but mentally excited. We had, missal paav and omlet paav. 3 Plates of missal paav and 2 double omlet paav, and 6 paavs etc. This should ideally cost you Rs. 120 or maximum Rs 150. This Dhaba guy charged us Rs 273 which was far expensive, very very expensive. I don’t know why they do that. Nardev was expecting some discount and tried to negotiate here as well. The owner of that Dhaba had all beards on his face and his Gunda type look was very dominant. Nardev didn't ask for any discount once the Owner said no.

Mumbai To Sinhagad On Bicycle- Part 4

Part Four

Here starts a new chapter, this time we didn't have our bicycles. We started trekking up on the 'Paghdandis'. It was almost vertical. It reminded me of trekking experience of Darziling, which I did in 2003, I was in class 9^th.

I still had those images in my mind. Sun set, its dark in next couple of minutes its all dark. Without wasting much of time we had to get as close as to “Sinhagad Fort” we can. It was too dark in the middle of the jungle. Nardev had lost all his stamina and he was stopping every now and then. Nandkishor said I would tell something which would motivate Nardev to climb up fast. Nandkishor started saying that he had read somewhere that leopards or tigers attack humans from behind and catch hold of the guy who is at last. Nardev wasn't encouraged to climb up after listening to this. While climbing up at night (its 8 :30 PM now) we crossed two three huts. We decided if we don’t get to the fort we will stay in one of these hut. The local villagers come here and sell stuffs like water bottles, corn, tea etc to the trackers. While climbing up for almost 3 hours we got a perfect hut to be in. Here we found a Chulha and got woods arranged. These were monsoon days and it is very difficult to find dry woods which we can catch fire. We sat inside the hut and started making plans how to spend the night in the horrible middle of the jungle. We were just hoping to do a bonfire so we had bought petrol when we were on Sinhagad Fort Road.  We started collected wooden sticks which we found inside the hut. Nardev torn off his note book, these papers helped us to fire up the wood with the help of petrol. We really struggled to fire the woods up. It was all wet. After struggling for hours finally at around 11:30 PM it caught fire.

 Remember the torch on Nardev’s bicycle, yeah that torch, Nardev had brought that with him. That torch not only brightened up the hut but also gave us confidence until we could get fire. Apart from this mobile phone torches also helped. At midnight almost 12 AM we made ourselves comfortable and got a level of confidence and comfort that we would survive to see next morning. We had fire, water, food and most importantly our positive attitude and guts. Not kidding guys and girls, this adventure is in on top of our adventures list. None of has done this sort of thing before. Cycling for 2 days continuously covering 130 plus KMs and tracking up to an almost vertical hill to get to Sinhagad Fort is no joke, at least in this era. You guys are just reading this but the intensity can’t be felt unless somebody has done this. All we have done made us fight back and never give up attitude. I laid down on a sack. Slept for one hour and then I woke up to let Nardev Sleep. “Nandkishor” Hats off to him entire night he didn't sleep and was constantly monitoring the surroundings with the torch. He compromised with his comforts for our comforts. I and Nardev at least had one hour sleep. Night passed out at 3:30 AM we found people coming for tracking. We were at a good height in that hut. We were amazed to see people coming for tracking that early in the morning. It was time for us to leave that hut and climb up. Nandu poured water on the fire, we packed up did some stretch exercise and by 4:30 we were all set to climb up in the morning.  My thighs almost became insane and dysfunctional. This was the most intense pain I have ever experienced in my life. I was motivating myself to climb up and track up. I heard people greeting  each other saying, “ Jai Shree Hari, HarHarMahadev, Namashkar etc.” We also met a guy who brought candies and distributed these candies randomly. Probably he gave it to all guys who needed motivation for climbing up. Even we got those candies. Thought of all movie dialogues, Dar keaage jeet hai, no pain no again, never give up etc. but nothing was really working out for me. Nandkishor and Nardev motivated me to trek, I saw them climbing up and I also started crawling up. By that time (around 4 :45 AM) We saw hundreds of people coming for tracking. I assumed it was Sunday that’s why so many people have come for tracking. But looking at their speed and their style we concluded that some of them almost come every day. Or was it the influence of the movie “Bhaagb Milkhab Bhaag” just kidding. There were more than one thousand people who have come for tracking. And finally at 6:30 AM we touched the fort. Amazing experience we never felt like this before, this moment has brought so much of positive energy within us.

The power of Human body, mind, soul, revelation, almost 48 hours, three friends on three bicycles and more than 140Kms on bicycle 3 Kms of tracking on a hill. And from top of the hill you can’t see anything down nothing. Guess what could be the height of Sinhagad Fort. According to Wikipedia its 4300 Feet (1300 Mtrs) from sea level.

Some Music enjoy watching video and get inspired :) just kidding .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3TFHR8WVRg

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BHEDAGHAT AND BALANCE ROCK "JABALPUR"

All heavens are on earth. This could be first and foremost gratitude for anybody to feel that we are living on this incredibly beautiful planet, where every place is unmatched to other. Everything is so amazing that can astonish you in every single moment of your life. I love traveling not just because this is cool to say but because I am a curious guy. I always want something new. When I go to new places interact with new people and see new things it makes me feel content. That's what exactly happened probably a week ago.

https://maps.google.co.in/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

My New Job offers me to travel different cities. I have been shuttling between 5 cities of Madhya Pradesh and Chattishgarh. These are Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Satna and Raipur. I never knew that these cities have so much to explore. I interacted with few of my friends and must mention their name Parvez, Radhika and Gaurav about these cities. Everybody said naturally these places are very beautiful.  Parvez asked me to keep one day unoccupied so that both of us could explore Jabalpur. Believe me, I never expected so much. It was on 23rd march 2013 best day in this year so far. We were at Madan Mahal and we had to explore two different and amazing places one was World Famous "Balance Rock" and second "Narmada River" at Bhedaghat.

In the morning woke up at around 11:30 and had tea along with Parvez and his friend Kaushik at a tapri. Frankly speaking I did not brush my teeth neither taken shower I had left with Parvez. When I saw this Balance rock I could not believe in my eyes and astonished I thought, there must be some trick involved. But when I climbed up when touched it saw it then realized that how amazing this Balance Rock is. I had never seen something as amazing as like this before. Some people gave their scientific thought on this that it could be because of "center of gravity or mass." whatever the reason could be but I liked to so much. It was very unusual and different. I must say.

We came back and had our lunch and got ready for "Bhedaghat". I am not sure how to explain the beauty of this divine river Narmada. "Bhedaghat" is basically range of small hills and Narmada flows in between these hills. This place witnessed few shooting of Bollywood movies, and most popular one is Ashoka. They emphasize saying this is where Karina Kapoor performed her dance. It is so divine and peaceful. Then we went to "Nauka Vihar". and enjoyed a ride on boat. There was a host in the boat who did not let the travelers get bored. He was genuinely very interested to make us laugh a make us have a great time in the boat. Hospitality in most of the places is been done in order to have more business but this was really genuine and obviously he was not doing it to make some tips.

We started from Nauka vihar and went up to "Bandar Kundani". "Bander Kundani" It is nothing but two very high vertical hills and Narmada flows in between. This used to be so close that Monkeys could jump from one hill to another. But now the water flow of the river has collapsed the some part of the hill and it widen up. These all boats are traditional boats with two guys driving it manually with “chappu”. I admire that and good to see there are no machines otherwise this place would have lost its intrinsic beauty. Motor Boats would have polluted the noise, air and water too. Nauka Vihar is closed from 15th June till 15th Oct, due to monsoon.

And the image is of a craft man nourishing our heritage and also earning his livelihood.