Visit to Sandhan Valley: Day 3

Date: Sunday, 3/24/2013

Location: Sangamner, Maharashtra

Sunday morning started out lazily. Still exhausted from yesterdays trek, most of us took our time to stretch our legs and took our time to get ready to leave. We visited Vishal's restaurant, which is a family owned restaurant in the heart of the city. The puri-bhaji is a specialty at this place, and that's exactly what I had.

After a brief visit to Vishal's house, we went on to Gangamai ghat. A quiet serene place. There were maids and village women washing clothes at the banks. I tried getting a good click. But I decided it was better to not get too close to them as I didn't want to bring too much attention on myself and make them uncomfortable. There was a pundit who sat at the bank of the river offering prayers. We spent some time at the bank of the river.

 

Vijay had relatives over back in Pune so he was in a hurry to leave. I left for Pune with him. The rest of the crew stayed on for a couple of hours more after we had left. We left around 11 a.m. and arrived back in Pune around 1:30 p.m. This concluded the trek.

Visit to Sandhan Valley: Day 2

Date: Monday, 3/23/2013

Location: Sangamner, Maharashtra

I woke up pretty early the next morning at around 7:30. After quickly getting dressed and packing our bags for the trek that was to come, we left for breakfast. Breakfast was at 'Decent Misal Center', where the misal was nothing short of decent to say the least (pun intended). Misal, literally meaning 'mixture' in Marathi, is a Maharastrian dish that ranges from medium to extremely spicy. Usually consumed as either a meal or a snack, it comprises of mashed potatoes, matki, chivda, farsan and spices, served with chilly sauce.

View at Randha falls. It floods during the rains.

Couldn't make head or toe of this one.

Approaching the valley

Accumulated knee-deep water at one of two spots.

Preparing Maggi in the middle of a valley

Vijay standing by the waters

A celebrity for a moment

We headed out for Bhandardara around 9:30 pm. On the way we stopped at Randha falls. The plan was to arrive here after finishing the valley. But as it was on the way, we stopped by here for a while.

We arrived at the Samrad village by 12:30 pm. A humble village of visibly 20 huts and a population of about 50. After parking the cars and taking out our gear, we asked the locals about the location of the valley. Nyaneshwar, a local village boy volunteered to guide us through the trek.

A short distance from the village begins the path to the valley. This rock floor ravine is nestled comfortably in the midst of two mountains. The limited width across some sections of the ravine make it hard for sun rays to penetrate through. Hence, this is also called as the valley of shadows. Since the floor consisted completely of rocks, the 1.5 k.m. trek consists mostly of jumping from the top of one rock to another.

One peculiar thing that I found hilarious was that my mobile phone had no signal (Vodafone is the service provider) from Sangamner all the way to Samrad village. But here, in the middle of a valley, the mobile sported a faint signal, represented by 2 bars. Once you arrive at the end of the valley, there is a fairly sharp decent. This part of the trek is taken by few people as its considerably dangerous. We set camp and rested for a while. We prepared and had Maggi before turning back 180 degrees to return back the way we came in.

Upon arriving back at the village, the villagers offered us water from their bore well. The water we drank was extremely clean. Even though ideally water should be odourless, colorless and tasteless, drinking water from different sources tend to have a distinct 'taste' of their own. Whether its packaged drinking mineral water or water provided by local municipal corporations. Groundwater I've had before from wells tended to have this distinct taste of 'mud'. The water from here however tasted nothing of that sort. It was as cool in temperature and tasteless as you'd expect pure drinking water to be. After the trek, we went down to the Bhandardhara backwaters. After an evening of clicking photos, we returned back to Sangamner.

Visit to Sandhan Valley: Day 1

Date: Friday, 3/22/2013

Location: Sangamner, Maharashtra

This March we went on a trip to Sandhan Valley, near Bhandardhara Dam in Ahmednagar, Maharastra. We left from Pune at around 6 p.m. after office. The plan was to travel to Bhandardhara via Sangamner. Since two our travel buddies are from there, we would halt for the night at their place. Sangamner is 170 k.m.s. from Pune and about 3 and a half hours drive from Pune. To get there, you travel by the Pune-Nashik highway. We traveled by car in groups of three. We stopped for dinner as well, so it took us a little longer.

Sangamner is a quiet city. Sangam means 'confluence' and its named so because it lies at the confluence of three rivers: Pravara, Mhalungi, and Mahanuti. It is one of the most developed cities in Ahmednagar district. We arrived at Prashant's bungalow at around 11:00. Tired from the journey, preparing for the day ahead, we went to bed.

The early morning view from Prashant's bungalow.

Office trip to Holiday Inn, Goa: Day 3

Date: Monday, 2/25/2013

Location: Cavelossim, Goa

 

Day 3 began with a phone-call at 8 am from Kamal inviting me to come play volleyball. I had barely gotten 3 hours of sleep since the previous night. I was groggy all the way to the beach. We played volleyball till around 9:30. Everyone went to the pool after that. I took a detour and left went for the hotel's gym instead. The Holiday Inn gym isn't very well equipped. A couple of threadmills, exercise bikes and jogging machines. Some free weights and gym equipment. They don't have a gym instructor and exercising is at your own risk. Breakfast would finish by 10:30 which meant I didn't have the time for a full workout. I did a subset of the usual bunch. While I was there, I met Pratap, a guy fresh out of college who was in charge of the gym. He said his brother works in Pune so he'd been to places such as Shivajinagar. He told me that this was peak season for Russians to come visit Goa. Most of the book in advance for the next year as they leave. So there was always a predictable number of them swarming in every year. While the staff doesn't get any explicit Russian language training, many of them will learn it through books and the internet. Hailing from South Goa himself, he kept praising the natural beauty of Palolem beach.

The entrance of the Wharf.

The Mobor peninsula.

Goa - the few places in India where you'll find a McDowell's whisky on sale in a general store.

I had breakfast and then relaxed in my room for a while. Our checkout was at 11 a.m., but me and Kishore only checked out by 12:30. We relaxed on the beach for some more time. Lunch was at the Fisherman's Wharf, which was walking distance from the hotel. There are two Fisherman's Wharfs in India. This was one of them, and the other is in Bangalore. The Wharf in Goa is situated by the river Sal, giving a spectacular view of the peninsular region of Mobor.  They offer a good variety of local cuisine and are well known for their sea food. We had fish curry (king fish) with rice and crab. Our buses were set to arrive at 4 pm. We finished lunch by around 3:40 and walked back to the hotel. After dumping my stuff into to bus, I was quick to slouch into my seat. We stopped for dinner at the Red Chillies in Konkan, a local roadside restaurant. Food wasn't great and was expensive by Konkan standards. The bus arrived back at Pune at 3:40 a.m. the next morning.