Into the wild

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more...
- Lord Byron

They say a picture says a thousand words. Welcome to my million word post. The occasion is the amazing weekend trip to kaas valley and nearby places. Needless to say, it was awefome.
[Click on the images to enlarge. The thumbnails here leave out much].

We were to leave at 5:30AM Saturday morning. The car was supposed to pick me from office, but when I reached there at 5:40, not a single soul was to be found. I decided to go in search of a chai tapari. Found one on Sinhgad road, and the walk was wonderful. It feels great to walk so early in the morning, very few people to be seen and streets beginning to wake up. Streetlights were out, and the day had not yet properly begun.

Junta arrived eventually, by 6:15AM. Here's the group, except Amit and Shruti.


We started our journey towards Thoseghar. Our first stop was Sriram Vadapav center near Shirwal. The place is very famous, and for good reason. Probably the best vada pav you can get on NH4. The tea was good too. Here's Amit and me (with my third cup probably).


The journey was as usual filled with songs, discussions and jokes (PJs, some prefer to say). The road to Thoseghar is picturesque. Here are some snaps clicked at a random spot where we made a halt. The highlight was the sky, the grandeur could actually be felt, not only seen.


Here's one I clicked. Had to lie flat on my back, but I think it was worth the effort (Thanks to the good camera).


We resumed our journey after the brief halt. The most important feature of the place can be seen in the next picture.

Yes, pawanchakki. I remember seeing a few when I was a kid, but here we had an entire farm. Here's we trying to act as if we are falling.


I think I am the most realistic one of the lot :p. Here's one more.

As you can see, we are posing for different cameras, Lalit for the front camera, myself for the left. I don't know which camera MD was posing for. Here's another with the Pawanchakki.

If you look hard enough in the bottom left part, you'll find me, arms outstretched. The landscape was beautiful too, filled with flower beds like this


Here's another one. Don't know why, but it reminded me of the Eucledian plane, with many lines intersecting.


I really did not want to leave the Pawanchakki-land so early, but there're many more things on our plate. Our next stop was to be Sajjangad. I had heard about it, but never visited earlier. Beautiful, serene. We had Mahaprasad, and the simple elegance of the system made an impression on me. The food was great too. Maybe the purity of the people preparing it somehow finds its way in the food. Here's a snap taken from a distance..


In a just-another-stroll, we discovered this beautiful valley.


OK, all I am trying to say is, idhar mat jana, bahut gahari khai hai... I am unsure of how much success I had had in conveying that message.

For some reason, this is one of my favorites. But I see you haven't looked at the valley in its totality yet. Take a look


After spending the afternoon in wandering around and a little bit of shopping (me and Amit bought digging tools, these days we find ourselves in continuous need of those :p) our next stop was to be Thoseghar waterfall and then Kaas lake. Here are some new friends we made on our way.


Our first stop was the waterfall. Actually there are many waterfalls that can be seen from that point. They are not very big , but the the whole is very impressive. Take a look


Later we started our journey towards the Kaas valley and the lake. The valley is actually a plateau, where flower beds sprawl around this time of the year. It was beautiful, but I guess we missed the main season by a week or two. Our next stop was the lake. But first things first. Here's something we encountered on our way


The rain was falling, but on a very small portion of the water, just like they show in cartoons. And one could discern the moving shadow of the clouds on water. I think something like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
We reached the lake in the evening. Here it is


Some of the group went swimming, but I did not want to, so went for a walk instead. We discovered another hidden beautiful spot

Now it was about sunset. So we decided to leave. We were to stay at Mahabaleshwar for the night. Thanks to C for making the arrangements. Here's a snap of the place.

We actually did not stay at one of the building in the snap, but in one to which the road leads. It was way better than I had expected. We had our dinner at Swad, which is famous for it's chicken. The plan was to do some tp in the evening. We gathered in a room, and within 15 minutes, most of the group was asleep :).

We woke up early next morning. Here's wonderful snap of a cobweb MD clicked.


Our original plan was to go watching the points in Mahabaleshwar. Instead, we decided to go to Pratapgad. I had visited it in a school trip in my sixth standard, but remembered very little. After a journey that did not go too well for me, thanks to the overdose of tea (5 cups) and breakfast I had had in the morning, we reached Pratapgad. Mist was everywhere. Here's a snap taken from the payatha.



And here's an attempt on beta's life (in the middle), by crushing him between two buruj. But he survived. You'll find out why in the snap after this.

Insan aur Shaktimaan

Dono milke Duniya bacha rahe hai

And may I add, Bwa ha ha :p

Here's me staring into the mist.

This was also the spot where I received my acid burns. Some plants here have white stringlike formations on their leaves and I accidentally brushed my hand against one. It burned like anything for the next five minutes, and marks could be seen for some time. As I kept saying the whole day, Evolution rocks!!

We continued our climb and we're halfway through when we encountered this handicraft shop. My initial reaction was to skip it entirely, but later we decided make a quick run. And, and, we spent almost an hour there. No doubt the objects were very attractive. All made from wood. Bought a model aeroplane, among other things, which I again convinced me that I am turning into have turned into a shopoholic. And we decided to skip the remaining climb when we got out. This small incident made our true motives (shopping) clear to us :p.

We wanted to start the descent asap, but heavy rains intervened. We found shelter in a tapari nearby. I'll let the pictures talk for themselves as for what we did for timepass there.

This
and this


Here are some more snaps from Pratapgad. This one is called idhar udhar dekho, idhar udhar :p


And here's me sitting on a three hundred year old sofa.

On our journey back to Mahabaleshwar, we found this beautiful zarna.

Next on our plan was boating at Venna lake. Here it is

We don't have any snaps of the boating as it was raining heavily. But we did spend quite a good amount of time after boating discussing whether we were kutte jaise bheege or a bheegi billi. :p And the bhutta was fundoo.

We soon started our journey back to Pune. But one cannot leave Mahabaleshwar without visiting Bagicha, famous for its strawberry-cream shakes.


Reached Pune by 9:30.

There are many more snaps and more stories, but I think I'll stop here. Thank you guys for the awesome time. (And special thanks to Lalit for paying all the bills. Ye ahsaan mai zindagi bhar nai bhulunga :p.) To use words of a member of the group, this was a weekend spent as it ought to be spent. I totally agree.

Enjoy!!

Update:
I jumbled the chronological order. We went to Waterfall before Sajjangad. Thou shalt not write in sleep. :p Thanks to C for pointing out the error.