Hello california again.

I left office and immediately had the feeling that there is a lot of packing left. Travelling to faraway places requires packing and no matter how well planned your 'packing schedule' it always leaves something to be desired, at the last moment. So as usual before I left home to catch the san francisco flight, there were a lot of things to be done, bought, and packed. My bag had been packed and repacked and rerepacked before finally leaving the house at around 10:30 PM. There wasnt much traffic on the road as a result of which we reached early, checked in early and got bored early sitting in the waiting lounge near the departure gate. Anyway, the airport is full of shops and eateries and I had a nice time watching expensive liquor bottles of the finest brands on display, chunky watches with prices so chunky they make you feel faint !! Finally the boarding announcement was made and we got into the flying machine. I had a window seat. No matter how many times, I have sat in a plane, I never fail to feel amazed at the size of the aircraft and at the fact that something this huge even flies at all !!!
The plane took off, the mumbai lights went smaller and smaller and finally disappeared. I mostly slept and ate through the first flight. An eventful flight it was. The landing was in foggy conditions and only when we were very close to the ground did I see the water of the south china sea. The landing was quite soft nevertheless.
At hong kong airport, we had starbucks coffee and me and dad had a great time doing some window shopping. The Hong Kong airport is huge and has a view of the airport runways, the sea and the Hong Kong city. I took videos of aeroplanes taking off and taxing. There was this sardarji who met us at the airport. He was going by the same flight that was taking us to san francisco. He was a religious preacher and the gurdwara committee in US had invited him to preach. He looked like a leader of the Akali Dal party and I came to know that this fellow had travelled to places like England and Canada and amazingly, did not know how to speak English. He knew only hindi. I filled up his emigration form for him during the second flight.
The second flight was as normal as the first one....except for the turbulence near Mt Fuji where the seat belt sign was turned on and remained on for atleast an hour. This was bad, as I needed to pee badly. After the seat belt sign finally turned off, I got up from my seat and immediately realised, I wasnt the only one with a full bladder. Lot of people wanted to pee, and it was another 15 minutes before I finally relieved myself having moved ahead in the queue!!!
I watched the hindi movie, 'blue' and slept. No one who has watched blue would have managed not to sleep after it !!
I listened to some music after that and played games on the entertainment centre. Like all of my home PCs, the entertainment centre produced a software error and crashed when I started a game !!! I called the attendant and he got it reset for me !!!
We landed in san francisco in bright sunshine and a pleasant 18 degrees celcius. The emigration interviewer asked me........
Interviewer: Why are you here?
Me: To visit my sister, she lives here in sunnyvale.
Interviewer: So what more are you going to do apart from visiting her? Sit home and watch TV?
Me: hahaha....no I am going for some sightseeing as well.....san fran and some other places like vegas mebbe.
He asked me some other routine questions as well and then stamped his emigration stamp on my US visa. We took our baggages and came out of the airport area. My sister was there to pick us up. The journey had ended well and apart from a huge nap in the afternoon there were no 'jet lag' effects.
We celebrated my niece's first birthday with a small function on the 18th April where I met many of my sister and her husband's colleagues and friends. They are very nice people.
Right now, we are planning our sightseeing schedule. I have been out on the bicycle to some local stores and am having fun playing with my one year old niece. Will keep updated.

IPL

The IPL match was certainly an experience, whatever people say about it being hot in the stadium, not getting the required views like the TV camera does, and not being able to see the ball from a distance. I can tell you, after watching one IPL match, that whatever be it.....you have to go to a stadium to watch a cricket match....just for the atmosphere..!! Its best when you have a huge group.

So irfi having booked the tickets for the IPL, we were off on Sunday to the DY Patil stadium...me, irfi, chakot and two of irfi's friends....avinash and govind. We took my car as there were 5 of us and left 1 and a half hour early for getting a good parking spot. As we reached Nerul, we realised that everybody had the same idea (obviously !!). So after a zillion turns and trillion lanes, we finally found a parking space and believe me........ we were lucky to have got a parking space at all. And then it was a short trek to the gates, through big crowds.....it looked like the whole world had come to watch the match. Irfi being the tallest was ahead and we were following him. Usually I am not easily visible among crowds....height being less.....but none of the 5 wanted me out of their sight, coz it was my car they had come in and my car they would ride home in !!

So having stood in a queue for sometime, we made our way inside. (which we had to make sure was a queue to the gates !!)

Having found our seats, we sat and the match began in a few moments.

Roars from the crowd as Sachin walked up to the pitch, swinging his arms, warming up. Sachin gets the loudest cheer, when he walks, talks to the umpire, when he is batting, adjusting his groin guard, signalling the third man for a change of gloves......in fact he would get a cheer in DY Patil stadium even if he is not playing in the match !! Thats 'the' awe-inspiring Sachin Tendulkar for you !!

And for crowds in India....Symonds is a universal target for jeering......

"Hum sab ke neeche kaun? Symonds.......... Symonds.........." And I dont need to explain the meaning of that to you.

Sachin played some swashbuckling shots,. He was hitting the ball so easily, it was as if he was playing with a rubber ball!!

Meanwhile there was this fellow in the crowds in front of us who was standing up just when the ball was being bowled...After being told off many a times by all 5 of us....he kept doing it.

Finally, Avinash cracked, jumped off his seat, nudged him and said "Arre khaali bas naa saalyaa, ball taaktaanaa tari, saalya pahilyandi aala kaa match baghayala?" (Now saalya, saala, saale is universal. Rest of the translation of the marathi statement is ...."Sit when the ball is being bowled atleast. Have you come to watch the match for the first time?." ) Now this was saying something, as Avinash had come to watch the match for the first time too!!!

Avinash and that fellow had some bitter exchanges, but soon a policeman walked up and asked both of them to calm down and told the man to be seated. Avinash outbreak was effective as the man did not get up again to even celebrate and cheer with the crowd!!!

Mexican waves were being made and every time a six or a four was hit by the mumbai indians the roar of the crowd would be deafening. The sexy cheerleaders were cheering and the crowd danced with them.

The middle 10 overs were boring and we thought Mumbai Indians were playing slowly and would face a huge defeat. But the last five overs were very exciting as harbhajan played a swashbuckling innings. Crowds cheered him loudly, if possible the loudest (as with tendulkar).Mumbai Indians made 171/7 as a total score.

We rarely thought about food during the match but those dominoes and macdonalds guys kept carrying their food items and tempting me.....but we had decided to have dinner later.

The deccan chargers made a weak start and they lost gilchrist early. No one really played an innings like Bhajji that day....

I remember Gibbs hitting a couple of fours which were really great to watch. But not as great as it was to watch Bhajji and Tendulkar.

The Deccan chargers buckled out for 131....thanks to some fine bowling by the likes of Zaheer, Malinga and.......... bhajji, once again spinning the way to victory.

We had work to do.....and that was getting to the parking through the huge crowds. We had dinner in Hotel Bhagat tarachand and it seemed like there were only people from the IPL match crowd who had come to eat at that place !!

Jawhar-Sajan-Kelwa: Part 2

So after taking the right left turn for Palghar, we finally felt relieved. We still werent sure that we would have a place to stay the night of course. But at least we had found the correct route and even that was something !! In fact it was something of an achievement after a botched up journey. And then surprise surprise, we found quite a nice place to stay called 'Kelwa beach resort'. This resort had cottages as well as some dorms. We rented a cottage for a 1000 smackers each (There were 3 of us) . The room rent included our dinner and breakfast. It had a small gate which opened out to the Kelwa beach. We dumped our bags in our rented cottage and headed straight for the beach. We stripped to our water gear..... Irfan wore his swimming trunks, rohan .... his boxers and me in shorts. We tore towards the water like young kids towards an ice cream man. The touch of sea water was so soothing after a whole day of travelling. We spent a quite a lot of time in the water. It was so cool and so refreshing that I didnt feel like leaving at all. Back at the hotel all of us had showers and then sat down outside. (The cottage had a small sit-out). As always, we had a lot of fun chatting. Long soulful chat, where we discussed life, people, cricket, IPL, relationships etc. After this was time for dinner. There was a buffet dinner. There was kofte ki sabji, dal, rice, rotis and ravas fish fry and custard for dessert. I liked the ravas fry, especially. After this we came back and slept like logs till 8 in the morning. I was the first one to get up. I ordered tea so that the other two would get up and I wouldnt get bored sitting there alone !! After tea we went to the beach again to take some photos and shoot some videos. It was low tide and the waters had drawn back so much that we had to walk for atleast 5 minutes to get to it !!! Kelwa beach.....I observed, is not as clean as, maybe, say, Kashid. But its still good enough to have a fun time ! We had breakfast and left the place at around 11:30 A.M. As we had not included lunch in our package the manager of the resort tried to tell us that we had to check out at 10:00 A.M (It was actually because some other people had booked the room for the day and were checking in early.). But since we had no such prior information from him about the check out time, we had a little argument with him. Rohan raised his voice a bit (or maybe his voice is a bit strong !!). Anyway, the manager was a bit intimidated and he 'adjusted' our check out time to 11:30 A.M !! We played some table tennis and left the place at around 11:15 A.M. We took turns to drive the car. Return journey was via Mumbai - Ahmedabad road. I wouldnt say it was the best of our trips. But I would say that it was one of the most adventurous and fun trips I'd ever had !

Jawhar-Sajan-Kelwa trip: Part 1

So finally I had my trip. It was all thanks to irfan once again, who once again managed to get hold of his car, so that we could make a quick journey. One day before the trip, I went to two or three travel agents to ask their rent-a-car rates. I was discouraged by the exorbitantly high rates (We were going to make a 2 day trip and we hadnt booked a place to live. We were just going to go to some undecided place and book a resort on the spot. So there was no point in booking a car just like that.) It was finally Irfan's call in the evening that shook me from my deadened and discouraged state. He told me that he had his dad's car at his disposal for two days and that we could finally go to someplace. It was decided in the evening that we (three of us...Rohan, Irfan and me) go to Jawhar, a hill station in Thane district, a little off the Mumbai-Ahmedabad road. Next day we started at around 0945 hrs (after casting our votes for the Lok sabha candidates.).
We took the Bhiwandi route (like idiots). This is because we did not know how to go from the Mumbai - Ahmedabad route. So we took the route to bhiwandi via Shilphata and then mumbra. We went through what seemed to be like the most interior part of bhiwandi....before we finally came out and started cruising towards Shelar and then Waada. On the way we stopped in Waada for some wadas !!! The road was nice and curvy after that and Irfan was having a time of his life driving his Hyundai accent. Before Jawhar, there was a ghat. On reaching Jawhar....we started at once to look for places to stay. Jawhar is a hillstation and is quite good for its view and all. But we realised some time later that it hasnt got any places to stay in and not much to see at summertime and that we should come down here in the monsoons !!! We were disappointed. We even searched for places to eat, but there was hardly any decent place to eat, let alone to stay in !!! We decided to head to Sajan which is just some Kms away from Jawhar. We had read about Sajan having a nice nature trail resort. On reaching the resort, we found that it was fully booked and once again it was not a hotel, meaning that there was no food. Again it was disappointment for us. It was 2:00 pm, our stomachs were rumbling with hunger and we had not even found a place to stay. We decided now, to head to Palghar, which is a coastal town, and has the famous Kelwa beach. We were hoping that we get a good place to stay in Kelwa !! Thinking that we should probably eat the first place we see now, we stopped at a dhaba which was fairly decent looking. We had a filling lunch and started off again. Just minutes later, we reached the highway, and wondered how bad our luck had been. Minutes earlier we had stopped at a Dhaba thinking that there would be no better place to eat on the path ahead and now just a few miles down, the road connects to the highway, where there are plenty of hotels to eat !! In the way we kept asking Irfan whether he wanted to take a break from driving his car. But he was enjoying the drive and had no desire to break off his rhythm. We took a right turn and headed towards the Palghar turn / cutting and kept driving. After going on for almost 25 Kms and passing a toll booth, we realised that we had left the Palghar turn behind. We took a U-turn, paid the toll again and headed back again.
Now it is said that man learns from his mistakes. But apparently we did not, that is because after driving back 25 Kms we drove another 10 Kms in the opposite direction and still hadnt found the Palghar turn !!! We stopped to ask someone. We found a scrawny looking man and asked him "Where is the Palghar turn?".
"Where do you want to go?" he asked.
"Palghar" we said.
"Then why did you come here?" he asked.
(That was a STUPID question.
Because we knew that the Palghar turn was behind and came ahead just to see your face and ask you directions of some turn already knew, BOZO !!...thats what we thought )
Anyway, he gave us the right direction. We were about to take a U-turn. When the U-turn was about to be taken, Irfan asked us whether we want to go to Palghar or head back to Mumbai? (Till this time we had travelled a lot, were hungry again and had been to the wrong places, taken the wrong routes and we were finding a place, where we were not sure whether we would even find a place to stay, so the thoughtful question from Irfan !!) After some contemplation, rohan and me were all for finding Palghar. So we took the U-turn and finally after going to and fro on the same highway for around 50 Kms we found the correct turning for Palghar. Hurrah !!!
Later on Irfan commented that
Life is just like the journey we had that day......we come to right place after going through so many wrong turns, so many treacherous climbs and descends. So many people, give you directions, few of them are right and many others, wrong. Also there are times when you decide, whether to head back to the safety of your homes or go on bravely in hunt of unaccomplished challenges, inspite of all the disappointments on the way !!!
(To be con'td)

Carmel-by-the-sea

The day started off clear…..with clear skies and bright sunshine that is…..and my sister asked us to carry along our winter jackets. Even though its cooler here than it is in Mumbai, I did not think it was necessary to carry along my winter jacket. My sister’s predictions turned out to be right. But then, even I wasn’t wrong. A winter jacket was required at carmel on that day, but so was a rain-jacket. It rained that day at carmel !!!
Carmel-by-the-sea is the name of the city where we parked our vehicles. Carmel- by- the- sea also seems to be built on a slope. In some areas roads were just like those in San Francisco, with virtually a 45 degree slope. We parked our vehicles and took out the picnic baskets. The moment we put on our hats, we had to hold onto them….the reason being that it was very windy. When I had my first look at Carmel beach ….it was spectacular. The sands are as white as they can be. It looks as if someone’s put ‘flour’ on the sea shore. Behind and stretching far beyond this white sand was the sea…..bluish green…pure looking. We took off our shoes and walked on the sands and into the water. The water was very cold. My sister told me that its even more colder than it was that day. Near the horizon dark stormy clouds had started appearing. It seemed like there were trails of clouds below the thick upper layer of dark clouds. It was only after some time that I realized that these ‘trails’ of clouds was, in fact, rain which was falling in the faraway sea.We saw flashes of lightning too. I even tried to capture the flashes of lightning in my camera…..but no ones that fast or that lucky!!! We had a fun time taking pictures of each other. There were many people on the beach that day……some enjoying the waters, others playing volleyball and football….while still others were content with just lying down in the sun…tanning themselves. By this time the clouds were very close to the beach and we started wrapping up to leave. Just as we left the beach it started pouring. We took cover under some trees until the rain stopped. After this we ‘hiked’ to a nearby thai restaurant and had tom yum soup, pad thai curry and brown rice. Next we went to chocolate shop where we bought pieces of fudge for everyone. There were also some great looking candy lollipops which my sister wanted to buy for me. I turned down the offer. After all it would look a bit weird for a 20 year old ‘kid’ to eat a lollipop!!! Something to note……there are a lot of art galleries in the city of carmel-by-the-sea. Paintings Galleries, sculpture galleries, regional (folk) handicraft galleries and many more. When you take a walk in the city….there are art galleries….which seem to be everywhere….so this is also a city for the art lovers. We went to Thomas Kinkade galleries. His paintings are lovely. We purchased some of the Thomas Kinkade painting jigsaw puzzles!!! We visited a Chinese Handicraft gallery and many more. After this it was time to leave….so we did.

P.S: Photos of carmel beach will be published later. The computer here is too damn slow.

Evening at Stanford University....

I have had a truly incredible stay here up till now. Each new thing is a new discovery and each new sight does not fail to amaze me. We visited many stores like Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Fry’s, India Cash and Carry etc. All these stores are so big that one could easily be lost in one of them!!!
This Monday, I took out the bicycle for the first time. Was carrying a map and few dollars for emergency situations, such as, getting lost in the city or something like that. Also wore a helmet (A helmet here is compulsory even when you are on a bicycle.). Initially I was a bit confused….coz here you have to keep to the extreme right, unlike in India where you have to be on the left (Is that so? Naah…In India, you can walk or drive on any side of the road that you feel like…) Went around in circles in nearby locality. Discovered that there is a big soccer field out here and two elementary schools.
The thing here is that parking lots are in abundance and no cars are parked on the roads. People only park where there is permission to do so on the roads…or in parking lots. Parking is sometimes time based….that is, parking in that area can be done only for a fixed period of time, after which you have to pay more to park for a further period of time. This system is called paid parking here. Also, just as car drivers obey signals, even the pedestrians do. Although peds usually have right of way, there are roads where there are pedestrian signals. Only if peds get a ‘white’ light, they can cross. At times there is a button which peds have to push to get the ‘go’ signal. Even otherwise peds cross roads only at zebra crossings.
The other day saw a screening of the marathi movie ‘Valu’ which was organized by the California Arts Association. After seeing the movie we went to see the Stanford university. Stanford University has a large campus and separate buildings…department wise. Stanford university is quite old (100+ years as I was informed by Dr. J….my sister’s hubby). As you enter the University complex, students’ residence is seen on either sides of the road. As you move in deeper, the various department buildings can be seen. After you turn from one of the junctions, a huge lawn space is seen ahead. This is called as the oval. The oval is like a huge park. On the periphery of this oval is the car park. When you stand on the approach stairs of the main university building and the church……the oval and the main approach road can be seen at a slightly lower level. (Can the above layout description be understood? I don’t think so….I ain’t too good at explaining….. The photo above makes it more clear!!!). The church was closed that evening…because the following day was convocation day!!! (Imagine the pride of passing out from such a coveted university!!!) There is a big clock in the same complex which sounds a ‘gong’ every 15 minutes. The mechanism of the clock is displayed in a nice glass enclosure on the ground level. When the gong sounds, you can see the cogs, wheels and the gears moving!!! Its great fun to see it!!! The architecture of the buildings and the walls and arches makes one feel as if the buildings are of historic importance…which they probably are!!!

Hello California.....Hello San Francisco!!!

This post is being written after 24 hours of travel and 48 hours of complete rest. The weather as was announced by the cathay pilot is ‘balmy’ with maximum temperatures at 23 degrees and a minimum of 10 degree Celsius. The sun is out here till 2100 hrs here in California during these days, which is greatly surprising for a person like me who sees the sunlight go off at around 1830 hrs in India.

We checked in early at the Sahar on the day of departure (night of departure?). After passing quickly through the customs and immigration checks, it was a long 3 hour wait in the waiting lounge, before we boarded the plane (The time of departure was 0300 hours and we checked in by 0000 hours!!!). I have never before seen an aircraft and so I was taken aback when I saw the wing of the plane from the window!! It was so huge!! Indeed when I first saw the plane, I wondered whether the thing really flies at all!!! But then the pilot taxied down to the runway and after a moment’s halt on the strip, accelerated the plane to such a high speed that I could feel like I left my stomach behind. And then it took off…..I could feel the power of the engines…..could hear its magnificent whistle and could barely believe the sight, when the lights in mumbai city became smaller and smaller and finally disappeared when the plane leveled out at the desired altitude.

The landing at Hong Kong airport was another fantastic experience. Hong Kong looks truly fabulous when seen from above during the time of landing. Its covered by sea on what seems to be, from all the directions. The mountains and other landforms can be seen quite clearly. The plane makes a sort of ‘thud’ when it touches down and then vibrates a lot before coming to a halt and then starts taxiing.
There is this one sight, I will probably never forget. A few hours after takeoff, I opened my window flap and looked outside. Behind the wing of the aircraft I could see total darkness and ahead I could see a halo of morning light being filtered through a portion of the clouds!! It was so thrilling a sight that words cannot describe what I saw.
Hong Kong airport was a marvel. There are a total of 70 exit gates, all in single rows on either sides, between which, are the waiting areas and the escalators. (straight escalators). For people who want to save the trouble of walking; there are these…small carts (called ‘shuttle’) which ferry people from one end of the airport to another. 50$ Hong Kong is the fare from one end to the other. People here have a different accent, than either the British or Americans. The whole building has glass panels so that the airport runways and the aircraft parking areas on either sides can be seen. Its rather fun to see, different aircrafts land and takeoff against a backdrop of the Hong Kong city and the China Sea. The second flight was much boring except the takeoff part. I mostly slept during the second journey. After 12 hours we landed at San Francisco airport My sister and her husband were there to pick us up. I pushed the trolley up to her car in the parking lot. There are a lot of good looking cars and bikes out here. I saw a Ford GTI, Lexus Mountaineers, a lot of Mini Coopers and also a snazzy looking Yamaha bike called RTZ and a Harley Davidson. There were a lot of Toyota corollas and camrys as well. I even saw a Hyundai Accent. The roads here are as beautiful as they can be. Signboards are put up everywhere and the network of roads is very complicated. You got to have a map to move around here. Traffic Discipline is maintained and on the first day a car stopped to let me cross the road!!! My sister told me that pedestrians are given the first priority to cross roads!!! It was even surprising to see signals being followed and people braking completely even where there was just a ‘STOP’ sign. My sister’s house is nice and neat. It has a large garage where the cars are parked. My sister owns a 2 door Honda Civic, a very cute looking car. On the first day we visited a grocery store called as Trader Joe’s. My sister showed me the cheese section. There were atleast 100 different types of cheese…..mozarella, cottage, milk, goat, cheese cubes, gowda, Feta etc etc etc etc.
We also went to the Sunnyvale public library. Here again there were several millions of books and several thousands of CDs and DVDs. Also they were all properly categorized and were easily accessible. Any book could be searched for through a search engine on a computer. The library as everything else here was so big….I almost lost myself in the war books section. A lot more programs have been planned out. I might take my sister’s bicycle tomorrow in the morning and go for a small joyride!!!

Nature, the surprise package!!!

This weekend I went for the darshan of my ‘kuldiavat’ and ‘kuldevi’……in case any of you reading the post don’t know the meaning of the marathi words ‘kuldiavat’ and ‘kuldevi’……it means the god and the goddess which has been worshipped by the family from ancestral times or a better way to put it would be ‘The clan god’. Anyway….the trip was wonderful. I don’t feel like posting the travel description because it might be too lengthy. So ill just highlight the special moments of the trip. The temples of my kuldaivat (Kal bhairav) and kuldevi (Bhavkadevi) are situtated in villages called wada and padel respectively. These villages are near the town of Kankavli in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. These temples at wada and padel are not large or rich….like the temple of siddhivinayak in mumbai….but they were very peaceful and even though smaller in size they were clean and well maintained. My concept of a ‘darshan’ is not quite the type where you stand in long queues waiting to get a glimpse of the idol!!!

So anyway talking about the trip in general, there were some sights which were totally unexpected in pleasing manner:

1) As we were travelling from Kolhapur to Kankavli…..it was a flat road surrounded by plains on both sides. After sometime we came to a road with a somewhat sharp incline beyond the top of which nothing could be seen from our car. I thought that maybe this was just another road and beyond the incline there would be nothing but flat land again. When we came to the top of the incline we had a breathtaking view of a deep valley!!! We had come to the start of the descend of ‘karul’ ghat!!! The view was simply mindblowing and the sight was absolutely refreshing!!!
2) When we were travelling from kankavli to wada….. it was just the same old flat road with flat plains and greenery all around. As we came near a curve on the road, we saw that there was a bridge ahead, probably on a river, I thought, many rivers flow through the konkan region into the sea, As I drove the car onto the bridge and looked sideways……I suddenly realized that it was not a river over which the bridge was built…..it was, in fact, the sea!!!! It was a creek bridge!!!! I could see the endless expanse of the waters below the bridge!!! It was a totally unexpected sight, seeing the sea after a perfectly plateau type land form!!! I knew that we were near the sea from the start, of course, but that sight…..Ah!!

I can never forget these two moments when I saw the deep valley and the expanse of the sea so suddenly. My heart felt a different kind of emotion…..one of joy, elation, happiness, jubilation……adjectives would be inadequate to describe my feelings!!! I leave it to you guys reading the post to imagine!!

Saturday trip to Karnala

My friend ron was a bit worried on Friday……Ron, KC and I were to go Karnala on Saturday on our bikes (biking trip). Ron was worried because the last time we had planned a trip on Saturday on bikes……things had gone wrong…..reason being I had met with an accident on preceding Friday…….due to which my buddies had cancelled the trip. Anyway…..nothing happened to me this Friday…..the only accident I met with was seeing a beautiful girl in our locality !!!
We started off to Karnala at around 0830 hrs in the morning….everbody got up on time thankfully…..Filled our bikes’ tanks with petrol….and started off. KC and ron were on ron’s bike and I was alone on my bike……On the way we stopped at Shree Datta snacks corner in panvel…..and had wadapav and chaai. The advantage in going to Shree Datta snacks corner is that the food is good and there is a lot of candy for your eye too..!!! From there karnala is not much far off on the bombay goa highway….we reached karnala, KC bought the entry tickets at Rs 30 each and we parked our bikes near the rest houses some distance away from the entry gates. Karnala is, of course, a bird sanctuary but apart from that there is also a fort at karnala…We saw some unhappy looking birds in cages and then went on to climb the fort. Actually we came to Karnala for the sake of making a short trip by bike and to have some fun together. We started the climb which initially seemed to be quite ok, as usual, we were wrong!!! We took the harder route….the steep climb path….it turned out to be extremely steep…and as if that wasn’t hard enough there were patches where there was loose dirt and loose stones…..which made the climb difficult…..and so puffing and panting and slipping and sweating we finally reached a sort of plateau. We thought we had reached the fort but then in the distance saw that it was still some more way to go…..We decided to stop for some time on the plateau and return as it was already 1230 and our stomachs had started rumbling with the want of food. So we clicked some photos and started back….the descent seemed to be as difficult as the climb, it was very steep and we had to hold on to a branch of tree every time we gained ‘extra momentum’. KC was on flotters and this kind of footwear is guaranteed to give you that extra ‘slip’ (not the extra ‘grip!!), I was a bit afraid that he was behind me while descending….but then he was a bit afraid too because ron was behind him too!!! Luckily no one fell…… I nearly caused an injury however….I held one of the branches and swung on it while descending and then took my hands off it…..the branch…..swung back to its normal position…..where ron was standing!!!! It hit him on the head……not too hard however…..just enough to make me laugh at this incident!!! After this we started back on the highway. We stopped at the dhaba where I had stopped on New years night. We ordered food…..the old ‘kaka’ seemed to remember me…….he told me that he had seen me before…..was pretty much surprised at the old mans razor sharp memory!!! We ate channa masala and chicken sabji in the typical countryside gravy and 4 tandoori rotis each……all this while there were animals around us…..A dog, lots of hens and only one cock (lucky bastard!!). There was also a small kitten she seemed to be enjoying mewing at us and weaving in and out of the spaces between our feet…..Finally kaka picked up the kitten by the skin of her neck and threw her out like a rag!!!! After having our food and paying the bill (Only Rs 346!!!) we came back to vashi non stop, this time KC riding my bike….(he drove it faster and ‘incident free’). Came home and slept like a log only to wake up when the Electricity load shedding power cut started.!!!

Trek to ahupe ghat part 2

Everyone nearly whooped with joy after reaching the top. The feeling in our legs had started to cease and the break was welcome. There was a big shady tree where all of us sat down for some time.....enjoying the light breeze and the sweet silence. The top of ahupe ghat is a plateau where you get a great view of the steep valleys and long stretch of plains below. Ahupe is nearly at a height of 3500 feet. We had our little photo sessions on the plateau, near the edges and under the huge shady tree. After this came the most important session…….the food session!!! Climbing makes me hungry (well, ok even sitting in one place and working makes me hungry but still…..!!!) The menu was a mixture……I had brought my tiffin which had baingan ka bharta and chapatti (normally, baingan ka bharta is a no no for me, but this time I was eating it like it was some kind of delicacy…..as they say…..hunger is the best sauce…..ill rephrase that…….hunger is the best baingan ka bharta!!!). There were a lot of things to eat…..one of my friends had brought a full ½ Kg tub of shrikhand, some people had brought khakra, some had brought sandwiches and some had brought……….cigarettes!! Normally I don’t have cigarettes for lunch, but then I didn’t have it even then!!! After this came the best part of the entire trip, I think, ……..We slept for under the shady tree……we caught our 40 winks in only 45 minutes …..but man!!! The way we all slept……like logs..... One of our friends woke us all up at 1530 hrs….we picked up all the litter we had made and put them in plastic bags to carry them with us……conservation of nature!! We started the descent and found out that, descending was much easier than climbing (obviously!!) However there was just one catch, people were falling on loose stones and dirt……..satish was behind me and I was afraid that he would slip and slide down the slope and either take me down along with him or squash me like a lemon!!! Anyway we all kept our footings firm and descended in less than half the time we had taken to climb up.... the total number of official and non-official breaks were only two!! So, at 1730 hrs we were again at the village where we had started…….I was just going to sit in the return taxi…..when I decided to just look back. So I looked back, and looked up, at the ahupe ghat peak, at a height of around 3500 feet from where I was standing. Standing there I wondered once again…….Did we really climb up till there?

Trek to ahupe ghat part 1

I had wanted to go on a trek / hike for a long time……since I had my last trek……so I was pretty enthusiastic about it when one of my office friends, omkar, organized a trek to a place called ahupe ghat. At least one, out of those ten ‘holiday plans’ made, seemed to be working. We decided to have the trek on a weekend. There were seven people from my office including me….. Omkar, rohan, sachin, tushar, satish and prashant. There were also two other fellows, amit and another satish (who were satish’s friends!!!).
I started from my house along with prashant and sachin and reached rohan’s house. Thankfully no one was sleeping when I called them up…..people were punctual for once (Omkar warned us that there was no flexi time for starting the trek!!!). The four of us traveled upto Kalyan by rohan’s car and parked it at a friend’s place. Target Kalyan station was achieved by 0730 hours. (please excuse the military language.) There we met the other guys. Tushar was hungry, as he always is, but no food was available so early in Kalyan , so we caught the state transport bus to Murbad. Once we reached Murbad, we had a traditional breakfast of ‘misal pav’ and ‘cutting’ chai. We hired a taxi to go to Khopivali village, the starting point of the climb. The taxi driver would drop us at khopivali village and would pick us up in the evening at 1730 hrs……that was the deal……do not ask me the commercial implications of this deal. We reached Khopivali at 1000 hrs and started the climb. The trail is through a forest which thickens as you climb up. The ascend was easy initially…..However very soon it became steeper. The weather was quite humid. After sometime, due to the difference in everyone’s climbing pace, three groups were formed…….one group which was ahead……..another which was behind…….and a third one who’s members were telling people of the first group to wait for people of the second group and at the same time encouraging the members of the second group to climb faster!!! If you have understood the above sentence…..I am happy to tell you that I was a part of the third group!!! On the way there were two natural water reservoirs at different places where we took our first and second ‘official’ breaks (We took many ‘unofficial’ breaks!!!). We reached the top at around 1300 hrs. It was sheer sense of achievement for everyone……we had reached the top of ahupe ghat!!!!