Mahuli Masti

Mahuli Fort

Date: 15th August 2007

Trek to Mahuli was suggested by Amey and with the trekking ghost encompassing me, I spiritedly joined.

Two new entrants this week for trekking - Aditya (I had met him earlier at Cafe Seaside), and Ranjit. And they are awful but enthusiastic singers like me. So good news for the likes of Kalpesh, Rahul and bad news for others .

So we had - Sanjay, Preeti-Deepti (The twins), Aditya, Amey, Ranjit and myself, and Rahul Barve who came with us to show the route.

We started off on the first local fro Kasara from Dadar, and got down at Asangaon. From there we took auto rickshaws to get to the base of the trek. There was a temple at the base - the trek route starts from behind this temple. This board beside the temple clearly outlines the map of Mahuli Fort.

We started off crossing a stream. Amey was leading as he had been to Mahuli previously. The sun came out to our utter annoyance and being on the "leeward" (no-wind) side, we were soaked to the skin soon, without any rain. The trek is quite simple but long, as we traverse over several hills to close in on the Mahuli Fort. The route is well defined with no chance of getting lost. We reached the ladder at base of the fort in around 2 hours. Preeti and Deepti and Bertram were capturing the nature on their way up. The ladder is a bit rickety, and so we climbed one at a time.


On the fort, we explored the various tanks and Dwars, and I managed to climb up a small waterfall, and have a nice shower. After that we had snacks in a meadow with tall grasses, with Adi providing us with yummy salami and omlette. The twins didn't eat much - I guess they survive on air and nothing else ! They had some kaseli and some namkeen though, and kept offering us their food. I was hogging as usual.


Next Amey suggested that we go to Kalyan Darwaza. However, he had forgotten the route to the Darwaza, and after half an hour of futile searching, we decided to start the descent.

As we were getting down, Berty started feeling pain in his knees, and so we had to slow down to match his pace. We stopped at one point and sang the national anthem. The twins managed to pull out identical flags. I guess they carry other "one of a pair items" as well. Even their dress and bags are quite similar. For my comments on these, I had to bear their wrath all through the trip, and I realized that their mouths are sharper than whips.



While we were crossing the stream to get to the temple, an idea struck us - why not take a dip in it ? So walked a bit upstream, and found a nice cozy spot for all of us. I caught a violent cold after wards as a result of this, but am not complaining :P. After spending some time frolicking, we went to a villager's hut beside the temple, and had some yummy food - pithle, bhakri and thecha.


After the meal, we took an auto back to Asangaon, where after a slight wait, we got the local to CST - the trip back was full of singing, Ranjit showing his affinity to Indian bands like Jal. I finally got down after bidding everyone good bye.

There can be no better way to celebrate independence, than spending it in the cradle of nature. We were unable to get to Bhandargadh which is on the side of the Kalyan Darwaza, so Mahuli will be calling again sometime soon ...

For more photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/deepti.patodia/MahuliAugust152007

http://picasaweb.google.com/bertram.fonseca/Mahuli15thAugust2007