They say that after burning wood in holi the summer heat and the sun starts burning you. That made me think, is that why they burn lots of wood in holi? Is it supposed to be a revenge party? "You're going to burn me for couple of months now, so I will burn you before that so that we are equal, then we are also gonna throw away lots and lots of water on each other, till we are out of water."
I don't know, like I don't know about a lot of things, but yes I did experience a lot of heat on my last hike, just 3 days after holi and less leaves to shade myself, and less water to quench my thirst.
On guru’s instructions I decided to visit Thanale caves in Thanale village near Pali then continue on to Waghjai ghaat to TailBaila village in Lonavala, hike up to col between two walls of TailBaila, stay in the village and get down to Bahirampada village near Pali via Savashni Ghaat. Akash decided to join me.
We took first local train to Khopoli. Then a bus to Pali, then another bus to Thanale. It was about 10.30 AM when we reached Thanale. Sun was already shining bright. The trail to Thanale caves starts from the south of the village and enters east, as had been shown on the Google Maps. But we started from the center itself and headed east towards Sahyadris, as instructed by the villagers. Soon we lost our way. On realizing that, we started taking turns towards the main trail. After about half an hour of struggle we found the main trail.
We could see Thanale caves by now. They were on the opposite side of the valley at about 200 meters. First a walk keeping caves on left hand side then a turn across the ridge made us cross a dried stream. There are two ways from here, route towards left and North will take us to Waghjai ghaat, while route climbing upwards will take us to the caves.
We took the cave route and reached the caves in about half an hour. Most of the outer part of the caves is destroyed with time. Huge boulders have separated from the cliffs and have fallen down. There are carvings and stupas in the cave. Destruction due to time and environment was not enough, so some smart humans of this century have painted their beautiful and meaningful names on stupas and walls of the caves. Their efforts must be admired and honored.
We left the caves at about 12.30P.M. and came back the stream from where Waghjai route bifurcates. Keeping caves to our right we started walking on the plateau. There is a spur to the right which we had to climb to get to TailBaila village. This spur is the Waghjai ghaat. I found a prominent trail going towards the right and on the spur. We climbed on the top of this South east placed spur and started walking towards the ghaat.
It was about 1.30PM and we had already finished most of the water we had. We were totally exhausted, we had already hiked about 4 hours and there was no shade at all. My body was spurting water and salt from all the pores available. My lungs were pumping air like hand pump. When I tried to take shade from a tree trunk it felt as if I was a भोपळा and the trunk was a दुधी भोपळा.
We kept walking and ascending and the route started to turn leftwards when I noticed a house like structure, a bit towards right. Waghjai temple!! I exclaimed and we ran into it, in the shade we just threw our bags and took in the coolness of the temple floor. There are a few stone idols here and a pillar in the middle. Behind the temple there was a dried up waterfall.
After resting for a while we started again. Soon we were standing on the Deccan plateau. A mango tree and it's cool shade welcomed us. Behind this tree we saw it, the huge magnificent walls of TailBaila, these walls kept changing their shapes with our every step. So frequently that at one point it looked like a Cannon gun.
As we were walking towards TailBaila village we heard drums in distance, which started sounding louder and louder with our every step. Villagers were celebrating Shivaji Jayanti. After asking around for a bit we reached the house of Mene family where we were going to have our dinner and stay. We had दोन दोन तांब्या पाणी , relieved ourselves of our bags and started walking towards TailBaila.
Already exhausted and tired, legs started shouting their existence. In a while we found ourselves under north edge of the wall, and yes the views, the scenes, the height, everything seemed under me. My legs rejoiced and joined in the spectacle. They found it wrong to complain at that place.
When we reached the col, we found a group of climbers climbing the wall. One of them lectured us on haphazards of trekking in small group of two. In the col there is a cave in which there is a water cistern. The water in it was so cold that it hammered my teeth and send a shrill down my spine.
I sat on a rock and took a look around. Memoires were refreshed with a breeze, the windy night on Sudhagad, the rainy bike ride to Ghanagad, the unexplored but welcoming Saltar, all spread across the landscape. Konkan had hid itself in white light. The sun vanished in a while, before it reached the horizon. We vanished ourselves from the place.
The rest of the evening was spent in talks with Mene आजोबा. त्यांची एक line आठवते, आज शिवजयंती, शिवाजी एकच आला, आणि गेला. आता त्याच्या सारखा आहे का कोण, येणार पण नाही. आज्जींनी जेवण बनवलं होतं. डाळ, भात, भाकरी, ढोबळी मिरची आणि बटाट्याची spicy भाजी. पोट भर जेवलो. थोडं फिरलो आणि तैलबैला च्या मेणेंच्या घरात बैलांच्या घंटीच्या ding dong मध्ये केव्हा झोप लागली, समजलच नाही.
Next day arrived with cool breeze….. थडथड फडफड, it rocked the house. I laid with my senses open till the morning light, lighted the door. We had tea and packed our bags for our descend to konkan. मेणें आज्जी म्हणाल्या सवाष्णी आत्ता वापरण्यात नाही, वाघजाई ने जा. आजोबा म्हणाले, न्हाई वाट हाई चांगली अजून. मी तुम्हाला सुरवातीला सोडून येतो. We bid our good bye to the family and left the place, आजोबा पुढे, आम्ही मागे, धपाक धपाक चालत सुटलो. Savashni Ghaat starts from the plateau at about 8 O clock from TailBaila facing north. A few meters down from start of the ghaat there are seven stone steps carved in the rock, which gives it another name: सात पयर्यांची वाट. Sudhagad from here looks like a friendly neighbor and Sarasgad in distance looks like an inverted conical aluminum bucket
आजोबांना good bye Karun आम्ही सुटलो. Trail wasn't much in use. The gathered dried leaves and overgrown vegetation on the steep slope made the descent slow. Straight down we saw our destination, Bahirampada village, to its left and further ahead was Dhondse village and a kilometer ahead was Vaitaagwadi, Nadsur. We kept taking leftward trails and soon reached on a plateau. We went leftwards and got on to our final descent to Bahirampada.
We had missed our Bus to Pali from the village, so we had to walk all the way to Nadsur village which was about 2 kms from Bahirampada, from where we got a टमटम to Pali. From the टमटम , I saw TailBaila rock wall on the ghaat. It was becoming smaller and was going further, on the other side I could see Sarasgad in Pali, which was getting larger and was coming closer.
