Majestic Rajmachi – a monsoon trek

With a loud super irritating tone my alarm clock beckons me, it’s 4.23 am and I need to wake up to get ready for my first trek of the monsoon. I am not an early riser and especially not when I have slept around midnight in the previous night.

A quick hot shower helps me to get into my senses. After packing my bag I left my house to find a rickshaw for a ride to Ghatkopar station. Fortunately my place is not far from rickshaw stand and I easily found a rickshaw to the station.
Then I took another train to Dadar where I met my friends. Our train – Indrayani express was right on time and soon we were on tracks heading to Karjat. Since Indrayani express is an early morning train most of the times you will get a place to seat in general compartment.

Well if you are at Karjat Station and not eating world famous Vada Pao means something is definitely wrong with you. So we did our usual vada pao, misal pao and cutting tea. After ensuring full stomach we took Tum Tum ( rickshaw ) to Kondivane village, from where we will start our ascend.

We did a quick direction check with locals and started the climb. One of the advices from a local was not to follow cows and if you don’t see too many cows that means you are on right track. After walking for a while we realized that we were on wrong track / lost. So we decided to backtrack to the point where we might have taken a wrong turn. Luckily we found a local on the way and we were able to convince him to be our guide to take us to the village at the base of Rajmachi Fort.

Climb was very steep and bit slippery. After few hours of rigorous workout we reached the village, Udhewadi. All of us were delighted to see a limbu pani stall. We had generous dose of limbu pain which helped us to revive our body fluids and also boost our spirits.

Lot of villagers cater meals to trekkers like us. So we placed our order with one of the local and decided to head towards Bale Killa (fort). After walking for a while we were at the base of the fort, but due to time constraint we decided against going to the top.

Everything is lush green and super pretty in monsoon. Romance of the clouds with lush green mountain and thousand waterfalls around us remind me what we miss in the modern concrete jungle and why it is super important to be with the nature to feel it at it’s best. After absorbing this breathtaking views we headed back to the village.

We had our lunch in the village and then headed towards Lonavala from where we had booked our return train journey. It was a long, scenic, around 16km muddy walk on a rocky terrain. It’s a great feeling when your both feet are totally drenched in the mud. I enjoy walking in the mud and it was great fun. Because of rains there were lot of streams and water so we got enough sources to clean ourselves.

After walking for few hours we reached the civilization and we managed to get a lift in a open taxi for Lonavala city. We were very glad that we had reserved seats for our return train journey. Well that was the end to yet another amazing trek and a very eventful day.

for more photos check: https://kurund.com/blog/2013/07/17/rajmachi-through-my-phone/