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Published: April 16th 2008
The trio
The three of us cramped up in a jeep loaded with 17 people.One of our less planned trip started over a couple of beers (as ususal). Cheryl, Shashank and me were relishing our beer after Shashank and me slogged to clean and get our cycles in shape after being ignored for more a month since we thrashed them during the Enduro3 race. Whilst we were listening to Cheryl's stories from her new work place we started looking at the calendar to identify long weekends, we arrived at 21st, 22nd and 23rd of March '08 (Good Friday, Sat & Sunday) but quickly figured that since it was just 2 weeks away we wont get tickets for anywhere, so we settled for 15th, 16th & 17th March (since I had a B'day off on 17th just the 2 of them had to take an off on Monday :-) ).
After having done with the dates we brainstormed to freeze on a location which would have something to do for 2.5 days. We had Lonar and Melghat on our list since quite sometime but were to be done separately, here we decided to club the two.
Now the challenge was to get detailed information about these places
Lonar Lake
Lonar Lake in the morning * Places to see
* Activities
* Travel
* Stay
After some research on the internet and a few calls our itenary started taking shape. MTDC has a resort with the perfect view of the lake at Lonar (trust MTDC to have the best location). Unfortunately MTDC representatives in Mumbai were not much of a help with travel. One has the following options to travel by train
1. Malkapur (District: Buldana)
2. Jalna
Though Malkapur is closer to Lonar we had to go with Jalna option due to availability of train tickets.
From Jalna you get direct buses to Lonar or take one of the following and get down at Sultanpur
From Sultanpur you can either take the bus or a share a rick / taxi which'll take you to Lonar bus stand.
There are not too many options for stay at Lonar but MTDC is definately the best option due to its location. Stay reservations can be done online for MTDC, its a good option to call the manager at MTDC Lonar to get more detailed travel options as far as local travel is concerned, he'll
Farming at Lonar Lake
Farming at the base of the lonar crater give you details about busses and also where you need to get down and how much will it cost you for ricks as well as share a taxi.
So having done all of this we were all set for our trip and our Itenary looked like this
14th March - Departure Mumbai 20:35 (Dadar)
15th March - Alight at Jalna 04:20, Take a rick to the Jalna Bus Stand, Bus to Lonar
15th March - Explore Lonar
16th March - Leave for Amravati to proceed for Melghat
16th March - Reach Melghat by 18:00
17th March - Go hunting to shoot a few tigers. We were well equiped with cameras
17th March - Reach Amravati to catch the train at 19:30
18th March - Alight at Mumbai and start worrying about reaching office
This blog only covers till Lonar (another one coming up for Melghat)
With tickets in hand, stay planned, armed with local travel information and an Itenary in place we were all set to pitch another flag.
Bags were packed by 13th night, 14th was supposed to fly-by in the excitement. Not everything can go so smooth with any trip, can it? Shashank comes up
Sita Nani
Temple across Sita nani on 14th morning to work without his bag, he had washed his clothes a day prior and went partying on 13th night, his sister unaware of his unpacked state gave away the clothes to the laundry guy for ironing, Shashank wakes up in the morning with no clothes to pack, the visit to the laundry guy was not fruitful as well since he was out on his morning delivery routine. So Shashank decided to go all the back later during the day, pack his bag and meet us at Dadar. Trust a day like this to be packed with work, we managed to leave at the last minute after handing over our half-cooked code to collegues.
I was the 1st to reach Dadar, followed by Shashank who did a fantastic job at stuffing his bag with all that he could find :-), last to come in was Cheryl. We almost missed the train since we reached early and got engrossed with our senseless chatter. We were all hungry but in no mood to eat what the pantry was offering, craving for vada-pav we settled for sharing one plate of Veg-biryani from the pantry and it disappeared even before the
Daitya Sudan
Daitya sudan temple at Lonar. The carvings are similar to that of Khajurao vendor moved to the next compartment. We were still waiting for vada-pav and along came an ice-cream guy, down when a choco bar each. Out came playing cards to kill time before we retired for the night, 3 games down came a distant cry "vaada pav..garma garam vada pav", 3 sets of ears as alert as a hunting tiger caught it and we took a break from the cards. We ate our vadas and blessed the guy . A few more games and we retired on our respective berths.
We reached Jalna at 4:40 in the morning and took a share a rick upto Jalna bus stand (Rs. 10 per head) after stocking ourselves with a big packet of chips (apart from the biscuits that we had, food is always a priority for all the 3 of us). Reached the bus stand on time to catch a bus which was on its way to Washim, we got off at Sultanpur and took a share a jeep (Rs. 10 per head), the jeep was packed with 17 people (and luggage). We reached Lonar bus stand in around 20-25 minutes and took a rick to MTDC (Rs. 30 for 3 of
Lonar Lake Evening
Lonar lake after sunset us). It was 7:45 and we were greeted by the manager who was not expecting us before 9:00, the rooms were big enough for all the 3 of us with a sit out area facing the lake.
The place was bustling with different birds chirping away to glory early in the morning, never before had we seen pigeons in groups of 100s (there must have been atleast 300-400 of them) and they were flying and making formations. Shashank decided to lie down a bit and soon he was fast asleep (he slept at the 1st given opportunity, Cheryl and me went to have a closer look at the lake which is just across the MTDC resort. We strolled around and saw a few more birds, lizards (some with their tails twice the length of their body), the lake looked amazing from where we were standing (right across MTDC). We went back to MTDC for b'fast and a shower before we moved to explore Lonar.
We got out of MTDC and walked towards the right and got a rick who agreed to take us around the place for Rs. 70, this included the following
*
Gaumukh - This place has a temple and a spring of water which is flowing throughout the year, a delight during the summer. A trek from here towards the lake will take you to a few more temples some in ruins beyond repair but worth checking the carvings.
*
Motha Maruti - A hanuman temple which is actually a piece of the meteoroid, around 12 feet long this idol is magnetic (the magnetic effect has been reduced due to the multiple layers of paint coated on it)
*
Daitya Sudan Temple - The carving on this temple resemble the artistic work seen on the Khaujrao temples. This place is surprisingly clean considering that its not actively maintained by any of the authorities. The idol is formed out of an alloy / ore and a tap with the knuckles gives a metalic sound.
Our deal with the rick guy (Imran Khan) did not include a small trek at Gaumukh so we paid him Rs. 30 for his waiting time. The ideal trip should be to do the above list in the reverse direction and to leave the rick at Gaumukh, this ways you can do go all the way down to the lake from here and walk it upto the location where you can go upto MTDC (or go further and come back)
It was 2:00 in the afternoon by the time we were done with our guided tour and the trio had just one thing on mind..FOOOD..piggies on the loose is what we were but got no recommendations about any place to eat other than MTDC, at this point Imran suggested that his brother runs a restaurant by the name of Gulmohar which is 3-4 mins walk from MTDC and we could get home made food there, we decided to take our chances and we were far far away from being disappointed. You need to be a bit patient to eat here cause they prepare only after an order has been placed, the wait is worth it (we ate double of what we initially intended to) and the place is clean and cheap. With our tummies filled and sun out in its full form we dragged ourselves to our resort and snoozed for a while.
Our snooze lasted a bit longer than what it was supposed to be hence our trek down to the lake and back up had to be shorter than what we'd have wanted it to be as we had to be up before the sun sets. We started our way down and soon our cameras were out trying to capture the most of the beautiful lake which was glowing with the setting sun. Soon we came across one of the ruins of a temple and as usual it was inhabited by students preparing for their exams. While at the temple we saw a group of youngsters preparing for their Police Admissions fitness test by running down the trek path and up, their energy levels were worth appreciation. After having explored the ruins and not having found any treasure we decided to move towards the lake, on our way Cheryl started yelling and jumping like mad, our curious eyes glued onto Cheryl were guided by her pointed finger to around 40 feet back on our trail, she had spotted a couple of peacocks passing by, we decided to follow them to get a good picture but the peacocks were not in a photo session mood hence we gave up the chase after around 30-35 minutes of following them after the peacocks split and went on two different paths and confusing us. We moved towards the lake and were amazed with the number of birds that we saw around it. We spotted a few owls, a couple of them having and end to end wing span of 5 feet, some of the other birds that we saw and recognized (we saw tons but we could not name most of them) were Red-wattled Lapwing, Eagles, Parakeet, etc. The jungle is loaded with huge bee-hives but they are very high on the trees and are normally not a bother.
Its advisable to spend atleast 3-4 hours down near the lake and the jungle around it, it has well defined path to walk around on. The ideal time to do it is either early in the morning or the evening though morning is the best time to do it.
Keep checking with the locals for activities in the evening as the place has a huge ground behind the Bus stand and they have shows / plays happening once in a while.
After a good meal we made our way towards MTDC to rest and leave early in the morning for Melghat, we got Imran's (rick guy) number and asked him to pick us at 7:00 in the morning. After freshening up we pulled our chairs out and sat staring at the lake and sharing stories till 3:00 in the night (no prize for guessing that we didnt get up at 7:00). We left the place at 9:00.
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Sandip
non-member comment
Thank You
Very good post... I am from Lonar & now staying in Mumbai....it was great picture and journey which took me long back in yrs...