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.
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| View at Randha falls. It floods during the rains. |
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| Couldn't make head or toe of this one. |
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| Approaching the valley |
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| Accumulated knee-deep water at one of two spots. |
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| Preparing Maggi in the middle of a valley |
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| Vijay standing by the waters |
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| 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.
