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.

Tung A.K.A. Kathingad Pictures

Pinnacle, there is a temple at the top !!

Road from Paud towards Tung

Tung from the Road !!

Another shot, the pinnacle in clouds !!

Waterfalls on the way to Morve !!

The entrance !!Machi below .. taken from rightmost point if facing Tikona !!

Tung A.K.A. Kathingad

I lost the 2006 monsoons till first week of Aug. The first weekend didnt work out that well, since I landed in Mumbai on Thursday and buddies kept telling me how busy they are working on weeknds meeting deadlines etc. Then things fell in place this weeekend and that saw the group of four from Ingot heading on two bikes to Tung.

First of all, all I had read and heard about this fort was its a tough one, which remains pretty much the reason why I did not experiment with this one for so many years though it was just couple of hours away from Pune. Things have changed drastically over a year now, I have lost some hair ;-) and there are more bloggers set to educate poor people like me about the forts and approach routes etc. I remember distinctly that few years ago all I had to refer even after googleing etc was just this one web hosted on tripod with whatever little information and more suited for people from Mumbai. So I did see some bloggers mentioning about their trek to this place etc, which was an ecouragement to poor soul like me who needed it badly.

Anyways, so we set out from Chandni Chowk, Paud Road at 7.00 in the morning. Precursor was some chai-sutta at a tapri opp. Banjara Hills.

Reasearch showed there are two ways to get to this place from Pune.
1] Reach Paud from Pune, take the turn right next to the ST bus stand and reach a place called Javan. About 10-15Km from Paud I guess, situated at the base of Tikona, another fort on the other bank of Pawana Dam. The road is great with no potholes at all. From here take a left to reach Morve-Tungwadi. This part of the road is not at all advised. Although its pretty scenic and although being warned we took our chances. If you find yourselves at this point, move straight ahead to Kamshet from Javan, reach Lonavala and follow option 2.
2] This is a no-nonsense route, - Reach Lonavala from Pune, take left turn to Bhushi dam, move ahead towards Ambavane-Sahara Valley without falling for the chicks frolicking in dam waters . Somewhere in between take a left at a place called Ghusalkhamb [About 20 mins drive from INS Shivaji] and reach the base of the fort. This road is in great condition though might sound time consuming and lengthy, effectively its not. Option 1 took us almost 5 hours, the road is that bad.

We started climb at 12.00 after our eventful journey which consisted getting bikes across flooded roads, pushing them uphill etc. There were 50% of ultra-noobies in our group of four, which called for lot of babysitting during this climb/getting down process. After leaving one of us behind we reached the top at about I guess 45 minutes. The climb is really tricky and requires one to watch his/her steps all the time. I had read somewhere there are two ways to get up this fort and one of them is a simple one. Although after talking to lot of locals I couldnt get my hands on any other route than the one we took.

There is not much to see on the top. A temple and a pinnacle which has a temple of godess Tungai. We did not attempt this pinnacle for reasons best not explained. You get a good view of Tikona on the other side of Pawana dam from the top. You can spot the wall of Pawana dam from here. Apparently you can also spot Lohagad and Visapur from here, but since it was too cloudy and my sense of direction etc failed me I missed the spectacle. The locals swear to god that from top of the pinnacle you can see both Mumbai and Pune but thats super unlikely.

While returning we took the Lonavala route. [ No way I was going to go back by that road ]. Overall, I would still say if you can avoid this trek in rainy season its better since the supports, paths/rocks here are all slippery and you hardly have a foot wide path for you. Haapy to be alive and the pictures will tell the story ;-) Check out the complete imagestation album here.