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Published: July 22nd 2009
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First Pic
before starting the journey Trip to Ratangad....
Well to start with.. we had planned this trip a year ago .. I mean the destination. I received a fwded mail from one of my friend which had this beautiful pics of Ratangad ... You know what ? anyone will be IN for this location after looking at those pics ... but unfortunately everyone of my friends had different pland and due to lack of required numbers it got canceled last year ....
Suddenly someone had fwded the same mail to one of my friend (Rakesh) and he said lets do it this time.... so I drafted a mail to my office buddies and checked if they are In for it this time... and you know what we got YES from all .... I said yeahhh and started browsing to gather more info to get there, accomodation, sight seeing and other stuff ...
There are 2 ways one can get there : (Known to me)
1. There is a bus from Kasara early morning at 5.15 AM to Bhandardara, but to catch this bus you have to be at Kasara before 5.15 ... catch
last train to kasara and wait there at
first halt
to have chai (tea) ... bus stop till 5.15.... (plan dropped)
2. We hired a vehicle (TRAX) and drove on the Mumbai Nashik highway. About 150 kms from Mumbai, is place called Ghoti, from where one takes route going towards Bhandardara. Now at this place you can book a room at any of the resorts (to name few. MTDC, Yash resort & Anandvan) for stay. Guys remember this is the place you can buy whatever you need that you forgot to carry ...because Ratanwadi is a village and we didn't find anything over here .... I personally loved Yash resort as it was located at a beautiful location and the rates were affordable ...
Mumbai to Igatpuri - 95 Kms (approx)
Igatpuri - Ghoti - Bhandardara - 35 (approx)
Bhandardara - Ratanwadi - 8 Kms
Since we were 9 of them we didn't find any of the above mentioned place Ok as per our trip budget ... so we moved on to Ratanwadi ... and let me tell you the drive to this village i.e. Ratanwadi is awesome during monsoon ... everywhere you see is waterfalls and beautiful view which is very different from city malls, traffic, gutters, stinking environment of
at ghoti
at ghoti industries... seriously this place is treat to someone who is fed up of city life and wishes to spend some time to chill out during monsoon.
Now to continue after reaching Ratanwadi : We met a local guy who agreed to guide us to the top of the fort (Ratangad) & also agreed to show us some place for accomodation. We made a deal with one of the villager (his initials BZ) to stay at his place for 600 bucks (from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon)....
We took 10 packets of gujrati food (THEPLA) which is packed and available at sweet shops & 20 bottles of mineral water ..This helped us a lot during our trip... We asked the same villager (BZ) to arrange for the dinner. These guys take advantage of the non availability of food and charge very high ...
so suggestion would be either carry enough food for the trip or cook food on your own....
Once accomodation & dinner arrangements were done we started with visiting the temple ... this temple is very old and has a shiva-linga which is under water during monsoon ... we then went to this place where
the waters from the mountains were flowing ..I don't know how to describe it but it was amazing and nice to swim etc ... we also went to the nearby waterfall which was the best part of the trip ... We came back to our place to have dinner at 6.00PM in the evening (Zhunka, Thecha & Roti) .. quiet early ... We then went for a walk and came back home ... It was dark already ... We could literally hear the speed of wind just like storm but not at all dangerous everyone loved it
.... There was no electricity, no water arrangements, no toilets but you know what at some places there was BPL mobile network available ... No one regretted the nonavailability of electricity because the weather was so cool ... Ok so now someone poked BZ to tell us something about the histroy of this place ... We heard less about King Shivaji and more about his ancestors .. no wonder it was quite obvious ... The story was nice enough to put anyone on sleep ... lol ... only 2 of them were asking questions - our driver & Akshay Pagare ... We
all slept
Sunday morning : We woke up to check out the best scene of the village .. all covered by fog & drizzling ... We started our trekking at 8 AM in the morning & reached to the top at 11.30 after several breaks ... It takes three hours to climb the mountain .. Since it was monsoon, climbing both the ladders was the scariest thing of the trip ... Everyone successfully reached the fort and checked out the small temple, Cave & all the Darwajas (Doors of the fort) ... Walking the way around the top of the mountain to one of the doors was one of the nice experience .... Our way back down was quite simple ... Cheers it was fun ... m/
SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE PICTURES ....
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Rakesh
non-member comment
Fantastic Trip
Vignesh, Trip rocked, We enjoyed a lot & thanks for writing such a knowledgeable blog............................................ Let's Plan 1 more trip like this.............................. Rakesh....