Trek to Chanderi

I don’t think any other trek has tested my endurance, patience and fitness as much as this trek.

Base: Chinchavali Village
Distance : 140 Kms approx from Pune(By Road), 80 kms from Mumbai
Route: Chinchavali is accessible by autos from Vangani and Badlapur Railway Stations on Central line, else take the road to Badlapur from Kalyan and then to Chinchavali from Badlapur(E). From Pune take the old-Mumbai Highway till chowk, take a left and follow the Chowk-Karjat-Neral road which further goes to Badlapur, after Vangani, take left from the turn just after Hotel Chanderi

It all began like this :
I was not having anything to do for a couple of weekends and was looking places to explore, on flipping through “ Offbeat Tracks in Maharashtra” figured out that there was a group of caves pretty close to Badlapur. So I called up my best buddies Kapil and Swasti and asked if that could excite them and no surpises like always they joined.

I reached Swasti’s place in Thane on Friday night itself and so did Kapil. We planned to take the fist local to Badlapur/Karjat as none of us knew the timetable, we decided to reach Thane at around 4.30. We planned to sleep early but then you cannot sleep early on a Friday J. Anyways..

We managed to reach Thane @ 5.30 saw a local standing and to our surprise it was a Karjat local. We got down at Vangani and looked for autos. But decided on walking till the base village as well (Someone wrongly thought that Rs.100 was too steep a price).

We started walking and asking the village folks for directions, walked down till Chanderi hotel on the way making some interesting discussions about almost everything in life.

Took the left turn from Chanderi hotel and saw a bunch of kids standing on the slope we asked them too for direction and they replied 10 mins.
We walked a little further and started feeling hungry , Swasti  had prepared some sandwiches for the breakfast which we three hogs finished in no time.
Continuing further we reached a small village and we asked again “How far is Chinchalvali?”  5 mins was the standard answer. I guess our village folk have a different sense of time. Finally after walking for about 2.5 hours we reached Chinchavali (so much for 5 mins).

We asked for a local to guide us till the fort, but since the changes were too steep we decided against it ( A decision I would repent later in the day). We asked for availability of water and threat of animal atop the fort for which we got satisfactory answers.

Day 1:
Timestamp : 10:00 a.m – We started the actual trek to the Chanderi Fort, it was a mild walk in the beginning with gradual descent, we kept following the markers laid out earlier by  the various trekking groups and were pretty happy about not hiring a guide and saving some money. For the next couple of hours we kept walking through the woods and looking for markers. After around two hours we lost track of the markers and also lost ourselves in the jungle, after trying a few jungle trails for the next one hour or so we did figure out the right path. There was one marker which we had missed as it had been turned upside down somehow. We kept trekking further and came across a small rivulet which on going further upstream had a small waterfall created, we replenished our water supply here.

Now began the difficult part of the trek, there were patches which were difficult to climb, ptches which were muddy and slippery et. all  .

Two more hours had passed and we had finished all the water that we had filled at the waterfall. Since it was extremely humid we kept drinking a lot of water, which I did realise is not such a great idea if you have to trek too much. We finally reached a Y fork which showed two paths going two peaks, and none of the smart chaps knew which one was Chanderi,

So there we were trekked for 5 hours, exhausted without water, and not knowing where to go, we needed water badly and that was available only at the top orwe could go to the waterfall two hours away and abandon the trek. Then it started to rain and opened my mouth to drink some of the rain-water, but , since it was our lucky day the rain stopped L.

Suddenly an idea stuck me I did know someone who had quite a bit of knowledge about the trekking spots close to Mumbai- Raj Khatu, thanks to him we reached to the top. It was he who understood our exact location from the gibberish I could muster, we had thought of taking right from the Y fork, which he told was Mhasala, another trekking point but without any water source. Good heavens we didn’t climb it..

He also told that it would be a further 20 mins trek to reach the top of Chanderi which rejoiced us, we decided to make do with whatever glucose we had in absence of water so as to keep ourselves energised. Good Decision Kapil!!!

We finally did manage to reach the top in an hour (as against 20 min) following the Om Namah Shivay signs stuck on the trees. We found that there are only remains of the fort, Chanderi also has a shiva-temple at the top and also a Shivaji Statue inside the cave we decided to stay inside the Cave for the night. We spread our wares inside the cave, gave our bodies some much needed rest, that not before we had splurged on the water spring besides the cave. It was around 5.30 that Swasti lighted the Stove that we were carrying to dish out a meal for us.. a khichdi..( We did have some argument about the spices to be used)

We were also carrying a lot of other stuff Chakli, farsan, Vegetables which we kept gobbling..

The Khichdi was done after some time but we were already full because of the generous amount of junk that we ate.

Once it was dark we were able to see some beautiful city lights. We chatted for a while and then dozed off, apparently there was a Rat which did not allow kapil to sleep peacefully(I wonder why J).

Day 2:
I got up around 6.00 in the morning, with mist hanging over me inside the cave, gave me feeling as if being in heaven, I wondered if God had punished me for some of my Sacrilegious acts like cooking in the temple and not offering to the deity. I looked around and saw two familiar faces, I realised that this cannot be heaven my friends are too good to be there J..

I walked outside the cave and there was no visibility for more than 4 feet, this was pretty risky for our descent, but then who cared we were carrying enough to cook for another 2 days. But I had to go to office, so I decided to call up a colleague later. We manjan-ed our teeth and sat down to a cuppa tea, later-on we took out the camera to click some of our pics. It was about 8 with still no visibility I called up an office colleague and told her that in case I don’t reach office on Monday inform Team Lead that I am stuck at a remote location and will not make it. No sooner I did that the weather cleared up dramatically, I heard some sounds of people speaking to each other and I was right there was a group of around 7-8 college–guys from Mumbai. Whoa.. I was shocked!! How could someone reach so soon.

I asked them and they infact had strted at 4.30 from Badlapur. The guys did Pooja in the temple and we three too joined the chants.

We reheated our Khichdi gulped it (Khichdi was never more tastier) and packed our stuff for descent. On our way down we found a number of people who had got lost in the jungle and shouting “Chanderi” as if Chanderi would reply. Also found a couple from Pune who were visibly tired, they asked if it was possible to return by late evening and we smiled. They decided to join us on our way back. We reached Chinchavali village at around 3.30 in the afternoon. I asked a shop owner if we could get something to go to Badlapur or Vangani to which she gave me a number to call. I call the guy and he said he’d reach there in 30 mins. He did reach there in some time and dropped 5 of us till Badlapur for Rs.60.(I wondered if the saving of the earlier day was actually worth it)

We reached Badlapur and took a train to Thane. On reaching Swasti’s home I kept asking if there was a massage parlour close-by for getting a massage......(So much from a guy who didn’t pay 100 for the rickshaw).

But then had we taken rickshaw and the guide in the trek, it wouldn’t have made it as memorable as it turned out to be.

Thanks to Swasti and Kapil for being sporty enough to join my mis-adventures