Visapur Pictures

Waterfall enroute Visapur just outside Bhaje

Fortification - Fort Visapur

Plenty of good stuff for stomach on the way.

Disintegrating fortification.

Lohagad from Visapur.

The faint traingular pinnacle is Fort Tikona. Pawana dam to right.

The faint pinnacle is Fort Tung with Lohagad to the right.

Bhaje village and Karla-Malavali valley.

Mumbai-Pune Expressway

Visapur

We had some time constraints this week. Keeping that in mind, we thought we went somewhere around and not spend much time traveling. This got M,B,GD and me travel towards Visapur 7.30ish.
For people who are looking for directions - To get here :
1] Start from Pune, travel on NH-4. Take the left towards Malavali - Bhaje past Kamshet as you are travelling towards Lonavala. Cross the guarded Railway crossing - bridge over expressway and park your vehicles at Bhaje.
2] Travel from Chandni Chauk to Paud to Jawan, proceed towards Pawananagar and keep asking for way to Lohagad. I havent done this one yet but this is one piece of information I got this time. Try it if you are an adventurer and find the monotony of traveling on the highway boring.

We reached Bhaje 9.30ish. To our surprise, there wasn't a single soul or lovebirds seeking shelter enroute. We continued our journey after modeling for the Liril ads etc. to the bifurcation at the base of Lohagad where we took the left to Visapur. We made it to the top in about 30 odd mins. Again this time we had heavy rains pounding us just after some time as we reached atop. Visapur as such has a huge huge area and take quite some time to cover.

One can spot Tikona to the left, Pawana Dam in between and Tung, and Lohagad to the right in that order from the top. On the other side one can spot the base villages and Mumbai Pune Expressway. For history of this place etc, read the Gazetteer or Google it up.

PS> The locals informed that, the previous week the deputy CM paid a surprise visit to Lohagad with 150odd cops and the cops gave quite a generous beating to the Somras fans out there. Alcohol is banned around here per them. So all you boozers out there, watch out. Cheers :p

Those who wonder what happened to the good old Hotel Lohagad-the only place for the foodies en route : I asked the guys here this time around and I was told that some boozers beat up the old man and his wife and didn't pay for the food etc. The poor couple left the place for their native place Ratnagiri.

Check the complete set of pictures here.

Tikona Pictures

Climbing Up - Below, way round Tikona Peth.

Looking up at the Peak. Not yet there.

Taken from the caves at the base of the fortification.

Taken from the village while getting back - The fort.

Some bonding. Way back.

Mumbai - Pune Expressway- While approaching Somatane Phata

Tikona

All those fellas who still tune in here. Here's a big Hi. The old man doesn't have much fire in his belly by now. Though the old man is busy with some of his daily chores he did manage to pull off a weekend hike for the start of this monsoons i.e. on 30th of June 2007.

Primarily since it rained cats and dogs this time around Pune and again my folks or I dont know played with my poor point and shoot cam's image resolution settings I wouldn't have much nice pics, though the man I am who has always believed in consistency I still have some shots which dont really do much justice to this blog. Still nevertheless what the h/f**k.

Getting to the point and for the record, we converged on Tikona. I had been to this place long time ago with Paxonet guys and was quite an experience. Since I started with Tung last year and Tikona sounded more like the closest we decided we give it a shot.

Comrades included, Balls, Gemini, Kid, Subbu and Surd and yours truly. We set out at about 7.30ish from Chandni Chouk towards our target.
To get to this place you got to
1] Reach Paud via Chandni Chauk/Hinjewadi. Take a right from the Paud bus stand to a place called Javan and proceed further towards Tikona Peth.
2] Get to Somatane Phata via the Katraj Dehuroad bypass. Take a left for Pawana Dam and proceed towards Tikona peth past Pawana dam.

We made it there amongst heavy rains, parked our bikes at the temple at Tikona Peth once we felt we couldnt make it any further and proceeded for the climb. The tonic part which is the essential ingrediant of the treks was missing this time. Some R&D took us to the top, where rains did not leave us much options than to take shelter in the caves around.

There hardly are any structures around. There is a temple, couple of caves where one could stay overnight and old ramparts. You can spot Pawana dam and Tung bang across the waters of Pawana dam. If you would google, it tells you that why its called Tikona etc. etc.

After having bunch of Parle-Gs and assorted snacks the comrades decided to head back.
Return was uneventful. Rains worsened. We took a break at Pawananagar for Chaha and Khekada Bhaji. Dont have any imagestation album this time. Hope Ill do better next time.

Lohgad A.K.A Lohagad Pictures

Lohagad ..!!

Visapur from Lohagad !!

One of the plenty of primates ..on Lohagad !!

Waterfall..!!

Macro ...!!

Some spooky tree ....!!

Vinchukata ...!!

Tung - Kathingad and Pawana Dam from Lohagad/Lohgad ...!!

Visapur..on the way back !!

Lohagad ...!!

Lohgad A.K.A Lohagad

Chose Lohagad this weekend. I had not been to Karla caves before so decided to cover that too. Honestly all buddhist caves appear the same to me. Well although I dont remember much about Bhaja caves now since I did not have an eye for the fine details etc. I thought the sculptures etc were pretty good here at Karla. Since we got done with it it soon, we decided to head to Lohagad.

A no-nonsense route to reach here, reach Malavali from Pune. If you are travelling by local etc. walk to the village from the station. If you are travelling by car etc, the paid parking business has boomed here. Prepare to shove 20 bucks down the throat of two old chaps fighting for your 10 bucks so that your car is safe etc and move on.

You can spot Pawana dam from the top, [ Only visible water body ]. I was told by some poor sods that its Mulshi dam. Man it was so amusing.
Right across Pawana dam you can spot Tung in Pawana Dam backwaters. You can spot Visapur right oppositte Lohagad/Lohgad. While getting to the place, you can also spot Tikona from this place.

The structures and entrances to the fort are pretty intact. The fort is under maintainance by ASI, although there is chai-bhajji shop there on the top. I had asked this chap 5 odd years ago how would they have his tapri there and he gave me an amused look. Poor guy, if Sahara can swallow an entire fort, why cant we have him have his humble tapri on this fort? Doesnt harm right?

Check out the complete set of pictures here.