Visapur near Lohgad near Lonavala

Monday, October 13, 2014

It had been a while, since I had been on a trek. So wanted to do a easy one and so Manohar and I finalized on Visapur near Lohgad and Bhaje Caves near Lonavala. 

Directions to Lohgad from Lonavala

 I had been to his fort around a decade ago with Neel. Though I have been to Lohgad a couple of times in the past. Have to admit that Lohgad is a easy fort to trek as there are steps right till the top of the fort. The only difficult part here is Vinchu Katta (Scorpions Tail) where too many people don't go.

Sunrise

So even if we don't make it to the top of Visapur we had a backup plan. 

Lohgad

As decided we met at Ghatkopar Station in the west at 6:15 AM. Manohar had bought his car along. We decided to travel by car. 

Manohar's car parked at the foot of Visapur Fort

Lonavala can be reached by train and ST buses plying to Pune. But while returning these buses and trains are packed as they depart either from Pune or places beyond Pune. So when you are tired post the trek we need a place to sit and not stand and hunt for a mode of transport home. And if you have a car that runs on both petrol and CNG , there is nothing like it as it leads in reduction of transportation cost. 

Visspur Fort

As it was early in the morning we couldn't get breakfast, we decided not to waste time searching for a place to eat but to zoom off to Lonavala as there would be plenty of options there. 

Muddy Trail to Visapur

I love early morning journeys as the roads are traffic free. We watched the sun rise as we zoomed off on the Mumbai Pune Highway. Though we had to exit at Lonavala.

Fortification of Visapur

When I last came here, I had boarded the Chennai Express and alighted at Malavali Station. One station after Lonavala Station on the way to Pune. From there we have walked all the way to the base of Lohgad. The initial road was made of tar which later converted into one made of stones all the way to Lohgad. 

The hut from where you need to take a left to go to Visapur

But now we were travelling by car, so had to come by a motoroable road till Visapur. Which I believe did existed even then. The road had to come from Lonavala as it was a stoney road from Malavali station.

Cave

Checked google maps and exited the Mumbai Pune Expressway to head to Lonavala We had to travel on the Dudhiware Khind Road to reach Lohgad. As we didn't have breakfast and were not sure when lunch would be served, we decided to break for breakfast at Kamat's at 8:15 AM. 

Cave

We had Masala Dosa, Idli Sambhar and Tea for breakfast. Collected some biscuit and cake packets at Lonavala to have at Visapur.

Fly

Asked a couple of locals for directions to reach Dudhiware Khind Road. Finally we were on the Didhiware Khind Road, on this road there are signboards leading you to Lohgad. It is a small tiny tar road which curves at every nook and corner, it also has its share of high's and low's , but the road offer's a wonderful view of the hillside, Lohgad fort, the hills and valley's in a distance and the villages on the way. 

Manohar climbing via the waterfall track to Visapur

We reached Lohgaon the base village to Lohgad Fort. Refreshments , snacks and even lunch is available here but at a premium fee. A ten minute walk from here leads to the base of Visapur . The time was now 9:20 AM on my watch. 

Caves atop Vissapur Fort

Note that there is no base village for Visapur. have to comment that the stoney road which we used to take while coming from Malavali station has now been replaced by the tar road. Tourism has started flourishing which is a good sign for the village of Lohgaon. Another source of income for them. 

Fortification

We geared up and started on our trek. The weather was just pleasant. Which is good else our body batteries would have started draining as the heat at 9 AM is also madness. 

There is a small hut at the base of Visapur, from there a muddy trail starts to Visapur. We need to keep walking on this trail till you reach another small hut on your left side. it takes around 15 minutes to reach the second hut. The road divides into two here. Take a left here and then the first left. Now this is the tricky part, there is no signboard here. So if you miss this then you will be walking on the plateau like we did. We walked for around 20 minutes  an realised that we are going around the fort but not climbing it. We returned back to the hut to start all over again.  

Bones found on Fort premises

Once you take the left, it is a climb via the waterfall route. Again no sign if we were on the right track or not. Finally a red arrow on the rock confirmed that we were on the right track. Now this road is full of asorted stones from which the waterfalls during the rains. Suddenly there was thich forestation all over us. The forest was so thich that the sunlight could't penetrate it. But that was short lived and we were back in the sun. 

Structure

As you go higher the climb gets steeper, plus we had water trickling down the rocks which made the climb difficult. Note there is no shade here and temperature had started rising. We took plenty of breaks and finally the walls of the fort were clearly visible to us. That offered the last bit of motivation and finally we were atop the fort. We see two caves here. Though one was filled with water the other had graffiti. The time was now 11:20 AM on my watch. 

Manohar and Me

History books state that this fort was built somewhere between 1713-1720  by Balaji Vishwanath. the first Peshwa of Maratha Empire. Lohgad fort was built first, Visapur ws built later. But the history of both forts are inter-conncted.

Cannon

Lohgad had turned out to be the fort that housed the treasury of the Marathas. The British understood this and made plans to attack the fort. In 1818, British conquered Visapur. As Visapur is one a higher ground in comparison to Lohgad, the British placed their cannons atop Visapur and bombarded Lohgad. Thus both forts landed under British control.  

Sculpture at mMain Entrance

Like always we had to explore the entire fort and we had little time on hand. We decided to walk, if not on the walls the near the walls to get a good view of the fort from both the inside and the outside. This fort is bigger than Lohgad in all aspects. The fort is not fully fortified as some of the walls have collapsed over the decades. 

Me

The walls offered a good view of Lohgad, the other hill ranges and valleys around us. Again there is hardly and trees atop this fort. It's a plateau with green grass all over it. We also located a couple of bones. Not sure who they belong to. 

The Main Entrance to Visapur

The fort has plenty of water bodies which are still filled with water. It also houses three fortified structures which I guess were houses or store houses in the forts glory days. Certain stretches of the fort were filled with flowers. Now don't ask the names as I don't know. 

Water bodies atop the fort

We located cattle atop the fort grazing on the grass and sipping on the waters from the water bodies. Which meant that some of the water bodies had portable water. Now question I have in my head is "How did the cows get on top?" I am sure they have not come up the way we came up. As I could not see any cowdung on that path. So there is another way of entering this fort. 

Carved stones atop the fort

Finally we located the main entrance to the fort. It had the sculpture of Hanuman on the rocks. A couple of boys were coming up that route. They were shepherds, their cattle were grazing atop the fort. They informed us that it route is extremely easy to climb and the base village is Malavali. This route near the entrance was slippery as the water was still trickling down the hills. Sadly we couldn't take this path as we were not sure which village it lead too and to top it, Manohar's car was parked on the other side. 

Structures atop the fort

Took photos of lifeforms, cattle and us. No sign of cannons? Finally we located cannons here. 

Bastion

From one of the points on the fort we could see Manohar's car parked in a distance. 

We had refreshments and finally headed back to our start point. The time was 1:50 PM on my watch. We again had to go down the steep waterfall routes. Slowly and steadily in the hot scorching heat we made our descend. Our water supply was over but I didn't give up. In an hours time we were down. 

Lohgad in a distance

We dragged ourselves to the car. Yippee finally we made it. Now we had to stop at Lohgaon to have a chilled colddrink. Got ourselves Thumps Up for 40 bucks. We headed off to Lonavala for lunch, though it was time for snacks we still wanted to try our luck.

This is the most expensive lunch we have had so far on a trek. We had ordered Veg Kolhapuri along with Roti's at Kumar's restaurant. The cost of Roti was Rs.40 each. We had 6 roti's in all. Cost of the roti's was double that of the Veg Kolhapuri. Can you beat that. The fuel expenses to and fro, to Lonavala was lesser than the cost of lunch at this place. What a shame. 

View of Manohar's car in a distance

After having our expensive lunch we decided to head back to Mumbai. 

This was a good trek, but the climb took its toll on our legs.   

Korigad

Monday, April 14, 2014

After having breakfast at Ram Ashraya we walked for around 15 minutes to reach Manohar’s car. It was parked a couple of blocks away as the restaurant doesn’t have valet parking.

As it was Saturday there was less traffic on the road and in a matter of 30 minutes we were off Mumbai premises. 

Mumbai Pune Expressway

I had planned to do GPS tracking of my trip. I had downloaded offline Google maps for the same.  But somehow they didn’t get saved on my phone :(

But that didn’t dampen my spirits and we continued on our journey.

Soon we were out of Mumbai, out of Navi Mumbai and on the Mumbai Pune Expressway. 

Curvy roads on the way to Peth Shahapur

It was a bright sunny day outside. Mercury was rising by the minute. Good cars come with Air Conditioners. It helped us keep cool. I can recollect when I was in the 10^th grade, by best friend Pranav, had a Premier Padmini and it had a fan on the dashboard for cooling.

As the glasses were rolled up most of the photos will have the windshield or the glass reflection in the photos.  There were hills all around, and there have to be after all the Expressway was made by demolishing some hills. The view around was scenic, it consisted of hills and valleys. As we were in the summers the hay had turned golden was it was glittering in a distance.

Trees along the way

At around 11 AM again we were greeted with traffic near Market Chowk in Lonavla. Why traffic. Because a political party was preparing for election canvasing. It took around 30 minutes of our time. A traffic cop informed us that we need to take a right here to go to Amby Valley.

The road had turned narrow now but was covered with trees all around. We located a mall in Lonavala too. The mall had McDonald’s and KFC in its food court. I guess it had just been constructed as shops were just filling in.

Don't miss this signboard, the Korigad Fort int he background

The narrow roads passed through local houses, tree farms, farms, hills and valleys and soon we were at the divide. One road goes to Amby Valley and the other goes to Peth Shahapur.

The road to Peth Shahapur was curvy. Curvy roads leading to the top. Some of the curves were sharp. It is advisable to drive slowly and to honk at the sharp curves. There was not much crowd though. But the roads had thick forestation all around.  Soon the thick forestation was replaced with hills and valleys and farms.

Manohar and Me :)

At around 12 noon we reached the base village being Peth Shahapur. Vehicles can’t go till the top of the fort. We had to park the car in an open space near the village. Manohar had got the steering wheel lock for extra protection. It is necessary to keep  these small pointers in mind, after all we were to leave the car here for like 2 to 3 hours time.

As we had just carried water with us, we shopped for biscuits and cold drinks at a local store there. We also inquired for directions; they told us that the way up is very easy. The shop and the kitchen were located next door. Lunch was being prepared, I just loved the smell of it. I didn’t; mind staying back for lunch, had they asked me.  A pai wat behind the wall leads to the top.  I saw the pai wat. Easy? I laughed in my mind.

Stairs all the way up

We started our journey. In a matter of 10 minutes we noticed sign boards on the side of the pai wat which had now turned into a muddy road. The sign boards were giving directions to the fort.

The fort is a.k.a Koraigad, Koarigad or Kumwarigad. It is located 20 Km away from Lonavla. Shivaji Maharaj reigned over this fort. But it was taken over by the British. 

Ganesh Darwaza

Soon we reached the stairs. These were not the ones built then, but were built later so that people could climb up the fort with ease.

There are tall flood light poles around. I guess they provide light in the night.

As there was a staircase the journey up was easy.  In a matter of 30 minutes we were halfway up. A Ganesh Temple and a cave are located here. . There is nothing much to see in the cave. But it offers a good view of the hills around. You will be greeted by Monkeys here.

View from the top, Amby Valley

In 30 minutes time we were near the Ganesh Darwaza. The main entrance to the fort. The journey put had trees around, which offered good shade for resting.

Beware, if you going in the summers, there is no shade atop the fort. It is barren.  The fortification is intact. We decided to walk on it to view the fort in entirety.

Barren soil with ruins

There are a few cut outs in the rock, which I guess used to be caves in those times.

The fort has a few cannons scattered all over the place and a few temples too, one of them being the Korlaidevi Temple. The temples are newly constructed. There  are temples dedicated to Vishnu and Shiva too.

Korlaidevi Temple

The walls offered a wonderful view of Amby Valley and the surrounding hills and valleys.

This is one of the few forts remaining in Maharashtra that has a 360 degree fortification all around.

Most of the land is barren; it has a few ruins on the fort. There is another entrance to the fort too, but the way up is very steep and is made of loose rocks.

The Second Entrance to the fort along with the fortification

We saw two ponds, even at this time there is water in them, note there are no trees around and they are exposed to sun.  But still it had water, a bit difficult to digest.

I took us around 1 ½ hour to cover the entire fort. The time was now 2:30 PM on my watch. We rested for a few minutes at the Main Entrance and then we headed off to the base. In 30 minutes we were at the bottom of the hill. And in 10 minutes time at the base village.

One of the ponds on the fort

We headed off to the only hotel in the village for our lunch, Veg Thali for lunch. I always love to eat food prepared by the villagers.  Our thali consisted of peas vegetable, moong vegetable, dal and curd, for starters we had salad made of onions and tomatoes and miniature papad's. There was also this dry garlic chutney which was awesome. It cost us Rs.80 each. Which is expensive as per village standards. 

Veg Thali

We had our full and then headed off to Mumbai.

It is advisable to travel by personal mode of transport. Not many options are available to Peth Shahapur village from Lonavala.  ST buses ply just twice a day and then we have the rickshaws, who will charge a bomb.

Our expenses inclusive of morning breakfast, fuel charges, toll charges, lunch and other miscellaneous charges summed up to Rs.1160. So it is Rs.580 per head. This is good and economical.

We travelled the same way back, there was no traffic and at 6:10 PM I was back at Chembur.

Fortification

Learning. It is good to travel by a personal vehicle, because it saves on time and energy too. After a hard days trek we can sit in a car and be back home. Also if we have full occupancy in the car then the trip becomes economical. BTW the car was powered by Petrol and CNG.