Lonavla-Khandala-Lohagadh outing

Right from the time I have come to Pune, I have been hearing about Lohagadh. Every one here just sings poems describing its beauty. Planning something on weekends and then bursting it up has become more of a habit when it comes to people in my office but this time around we were determined as hell to make it. The planning started with girls on-board(as usual) and then after severel rounds of talks they finally declined our offer( again, as usual) of going on bikes. We were bored of pacy and instant one day trips and hence were planning to go for a 2-day sojourn this time. And not just that, everyone was desperate to test the toughness of his newly acquired bike on the topsy-turvy western ghat so everyone wanted to go on a bike. We rounded off the travel list with 9 people on 5 bikes. We left Pune at around 10 AM on Saturday to reach Lohagadh around 12:30. Man, it is quite a place. Located on the foothills of Western Ghat, we have a well sprawled fort atop a mountain. The pre-monsoon showers had draped the entire place with green curtains, punctuating here and there with floral tributes. I say tributes because the place is bombarded by bougainvilla and the likes. You should see how the petals will be scattered on roads, as if in anticipation of the roadies ( ya, we called ourselves Roadies, after the successful show of ruggedness on MTV). Before we could reach the fort, we got a small freshwater body, shallow and aqua blue in colour and everyone stopped there for dastardly photo session. I hate it when people take several photos in the same location. I mean, what the hell !!
Then we went to the fort, remember, its on top of a hill, so we had to trek. The worst part is it is slippery, with cascades gushing down from atop the hill and with amateurs like us trekking, there is every chance of a casualty. We finally reached on top and the effort was worth. You could see a host of civilisation scattered from the top. One thing I hate about India is that you will find people in every nook and corner. As we started our monkeying stints on the top, everything felt like nothing. It was like you are staring at a beautiful wallpaper and suddenly you landed inside it. Man O Man !! It was freshly beautiful.
We then headed to Lonavla, a tourist heaven with everything heavenly costly( Buy a maize at 25 bucks !!! I'll rather have shit instead). The first impression of Lonavla was disgusting as it was Saturday and people were storming in, mostly from Mumbai. We had to stay at a lodge and at an affordable price, so we got a nice and clean stay-house at a very cozy price. We combined all the beds to make a dais and started playing cards. I'm mentioning this because that was the time when we had the highest laughter in, say a month. Man, it was hilarious and out of the world.
We( 3 of us) slept at 4.30 in the morning with promises of getting up at 6 as we had to start early to Khandala. The stay-house had to be vacated before 10 and I got up at 9:40 with dozens of eyes staring me for being late. We then had pathetic break-fast and went to Bhushi dam. I can say it is a decent place but what made us stick to it was the crowd. Babes, babes and babes. The place was crawling with babes. After another miserable photo session, we left for Khandala and reaching there, were disappointed because of the mammoth crowd. OMG. People dont seem to have work on weekend and all they do is throng to Khandala. Can you imagine we could not go to the famous Tiger-point because of the mad rush !!
All we saw was Western Ghats being cut by the Express Highway with some beautiful waterfalls pinned in the backdrop. It is a beautiful visual as the entire scene is aptly populated by passing vehicles on the highway.
We came back to Pune on Sunday evening, rejuvenated, over-joyed and exhausted !!!