Many more snaps have been uploaded on picasa on following url
https://picasaweb.google.com/deepak.thaper/Trekking201102
I left from home with rucksack on my back at 5.30 AM - Walked to Ghansoli station to catch Thane train, from Thane station it took around 10 mins to reach at the place, where we had to catch up with the group. I reached to the point, where few people were waiting for the bus there I met with Shrinivas and few more people, which quickly turned into the friends, specially shrinivas looked like my old time friend, soon we boarded in bus.
There were around 15-16 girls and 23-24 guys in trekking group plus organizer, coordinators and support teams, all of them were supposed to spent next 3 days together but most of them currently were stranger to each other. At this time we really had not much idea as how is our life going to be next 3 days.
Anyway bus went with its speed we had a break at Panvel for morning breakfast, process of making friends and introducing once self directly and indirectly was in process. After having breakfast and tea we soon reached to Lonavala point from where we had to leave luxury of bus and had to start our further journey on our feet.
Yateen & Jay sir instructed group as next journey is of around 12 kms trekking at mountain and our destination is Kundeshwar village at Rajamachi ghat.
At this time we were at beautiful location of Lonavala near Della Adventure park, view was awesome, we all left the bus started getting ready for trek, I volunteered along with other 3 other leaders to lead the group to take them at destination.
Everyone in the group started walking with the load of rucksack on back, many feet merely used to of walk few hundred meters only in stretch, we did break journey after 1 & 1/2 hrs for lunch. Some shoes sole had already come out but none shown any difficulties in carrying on - that was amazing. I made few more friends like Mahindra, Abhishek, Sonal etc…… while list was adding up
Route after lunch went more tough & rough, we came across steep surface, mud, waterfall, river...... that was the time some hands needed support and many came to hold on. All the way we saw many beautiful, awesome & scenery view. It was raining on & off, condition was foggy as we were going thru clouds.
Some made atmosphere lively by jokes and comments, some clicked pictures on the way....
It started getting bit darker but we had still not reached our destination.... people started feeling tiring.
Finally group reached to Kundeshwar village, as it was already late evening and heavy cloud made the surrounding dark.... above on that this village had no electricity supply & this was the time everyone took off his torch, which I remember I never used in Mumbai.
We were directed towards village house turned into our room/dormitory accommodation ;). And now everyone needed torch to get change, organize and freshen up.... climate was chilling around.
So now it was clear we had to spent our next 2 nights in the village without electricity and toilets ;)
After having a blend vegetarian dinner (Daal, Bhat, Bhakari, Bhaji), we tried to make our self sleep – even after getting dead tired many didn’t sleep whole night and I remember I was talking to shrinivas most of the night and he also didn’t sleep. Above on that my cell-phone alarm which was mistakenly active made people listen to the song at 4.30 am “Jab hum jawa honge, jane kahan honge”. I knew if people know that it’s me - they are going to kill me, so initially I behaved as I am also not aware where the song is coming from, but after 10 mins again when cell-phone started singing the song I had to took it out from my bag and switch-off the alarm
Now guys had to go for Tiger killing in the field – that was new code language taught to us by Yateen and Jay sir – “Going for small nature call = rabbit killing”, “Going for big nature call = tiger killing”. I hardly remember if in past many years I have used Indian toilet also, while going in field was absolutely different experience for me.
We got freshen up under tap of big tank, which was throwing ice cold water, some took full bath, some half and few just managed with deodorant.
After having breakfast “poha”, group started for rappelling activity, we again climbed up on nearby hills, which had some old time fort there. It was awesome location… it was like sharp & extreme top being continuously hit by clouds…… chilling and speeding breeze was freezing our body…. We were given advised to cover our ear by cotton or scarf.
Finally rappelling started we saw the demo first as most of the people were first timer and it was initially scary but later one by one completed his task fantastically. I can never forget that 5 mins duration which I took to come down from top of the fort with the help of rope, while I could feel myself hanging in the sky and being hit by wet, chilled & speedy wind
Evening activity “treasure hunting” was at village but this activity had mixture of fun, music, dance, team building, management and mental skill.
Next day morning as it was Independence Day today group attended flag hosting ceremony in village school , which had more guests then children. I observed all kids were wearing uniform but were bare foot. But standing into assembly reminded most of us our school days. After that we took departure from Village and started our journey back, while trekking down we had taken different route which was eventually more tough & hard. But with support of each other group kept going and enjoyed awesome points in between, we even stopped in between to take bath in water fall – it was too fun
Finally we saw a pakka road after many days as we came out at Karjat, we saw our bus….. And realized how great luxury we use in our normal life & remain busy in criticizing it …..
We took lunch there and then a briefing session happened with Prof Charuhas Joshi about trip and our learning areas, I can write many lines about various management briefing sessions happened during trip but don’t want to bore people who are not from management stream as well I don’t want to describe about my own burnt parts ;)
Prof Charuhas handed each one of us certificate of participation
And we went into bus – now we were back into our normal or I should rather say routine life….. Saying which life is normal – would be matter of perception
While bus running back to our home, group had fun dancing, singing in bus this time all had bonded into strong friendship relations
Many more snaps have been uploaded on picasa on following url
https://picasaweb.google.com/deepak.thaper/Trekking201102
https://picasaweb.google.com/deepak.thaper/Trekking201102
