Footprints on the Mountainside

Getting out into the outdoors is not as tough as it sounds. Honestly, even though I provide the service, I don’t do any rocket science. Most of the enquiries I get are for outings in the Sahyadri from Mumbai. So here, I provide a detailed method of going about it.

1. What do you want? Is it a challenge, relaxation, exploration……? What do you want to do when you have this itch to get out of the city.
2. Narrow it down - For example, if you’d thought of exploration in the previous step, go a step ahead. Is it exploring forts, caves, sea forts in particular, fishing villages……?
3. Figure out other stuff you want - how would you like to travel…. bike trip, local buses, private vehicle…? What would you like to eat - local food, self-cooked stuff, full-royal resort meals…? Stay where - in nature, resort, caves, local homes……?
4. Once you have this, you’re ready to begin preparing. Simply put together all requirements and make a list of everything you will be needing. Fuel arrangements, resort bookings, routes, stocks of food….. whatever. Make this list as detailed as possible. Feel free to ask other travellers for tips.
5. Most resorts can be booked online or through agents. If you’re planning to stay in a village or cave, there are no booking needs of course, but you may wish to find out details on the village or condition of fort etc. Most of this is readily available online.
6. Put one day aside for shopping and preparations. Get your act together and be sure to go through your entire list.
7. That’s it. Leave on time and have a blast.

As a general guide, if you have figured out transportation, food and accommodation; there’s little that can go wrong. However, be sure to cross check all information you get, as once out in the rural areas, it is not uncommon to find unmarked roads, or those that have been too damaged to use, etc. Similarly, a trekker who visited a fort a few years ago may confidently tell you that the village is 10 min from the fort, when in reality it may be 2-3 hours. Information that seems the same from a few different sources is generally reliable.

This is probably the only place where an organized trip is stronger, as we have strong contacts in most places we operate in, and checking any changes in status of information are a matter of routine. However, many trekkers and regular travellers know enough of the place to help verify information.

So why am sharing this? Because my objective is not to sell tours so much as to get more and more people venturing in the outdoors and developing a love for the land they live in. If this helps people get into a car and head out of town more easily on a weekend, I’ve got what I want.

The people who come to me easily become capable of this within a trip or two, so its no real secret anyway. I think they pay me just because they like the company, or would simply like me to handle the hassle reliably.

Its time for my sporadic obsession with the website. These days I’m trying to spruce up the entire place. I fiddled around and learned new stuff. I found this thing AjaxWP and installed it on the site. It requires a little fiddling around with the theme, but once that is done, it makes the site run much faster, as no doubt regulars here will have noticed.

Its a really neat modification, though I’d have appreciated a little more clear instructions. Newbies to code have a duty to mess up everything we touch, and I take that seriously

It took me a while to figure out that I have to create versions of my theme files for the ajax, and rename them and keep them in the same folder as the rest of the stuff. Now that I’ve figured it out, it seems kind of obvious, but until I arrived at enlightenment, I tried replacing the files, creating a separate folder, sub-folder….. you name it, I done it - all except the very obvious - just let them be where they are

Other than that, I’m reworking almost the entire site now. Trying to generally tweak things around to make them prettier, faster, read better, etc. I’m at a stage where I’m totally confused, but there seems to be emerging some kind of path through the chaos.

I’m in a somewhat “overreaching” kind of mood as usual, so I’d appreciate any comments, suggestions, complaints, etc that can help me toward better webdesign. Pleeeeease don’t wait for me to revamp the whole thing and then show some major glitch I’ve created somewhere. My abilities are rather limited.

Heh. Monsoons near Mumbai are fun, but let’s be honest - this is blister time. Whether we go on a fun picnic, or a long hike, or simply roam around in the city. The continual wet feet are quite blister prone.

This is why I was so impressed with this product - GlacierGel I came across as I was surfing. It is a clear blister dressing that protects the blister, and is soft and is transparent as well, so we can keep an eye on the painful spot. The perfect recipe for feeling free to risk our feet and know that we can deal with any blisters that pop up?

Its monsoon time again, and the world is a rich green. While we conduct rafting trips all through the year, monsoon is a special time, because the river is really full of water. We no longer are slaves to the dam that releases the water for our precious white water.

The season is good this year. The field staff have got in another raft to deal with the work load, and trips are running full. Bookings actually need to be done two weeks in advance to have any guarantee of getting a place on the raft. And all this, in spite of having enough water on the river to allow an additional late morning run as well as the usual early morning one with the dam water.

Not bad. Raka and I are in a good mood these days. We’re planning to join a group from JP Morgan who have booked with us this Sunday, and hope that this is going to be a time for us to get away from the city and feel truly like being in the outdoors for fun again.

Who knows, there’s a group from the same company on Saturday as well, and we just might make an overnight trip out of this. Monsoon is certainly not a time to be sitting in the city.

I’ll see if I can get some fun pics out of this.

This post will be split into two, as there is plenty of content. I’ll focus this on the travel and the people and the next can be about the religious experience.

Getting from Sangli to Kule Narshingpur is a pain. First, there is a state transport bus journey to Islampur, which takes about an hour, and then there is the further journey by bus/rickshaw to Kule Narchingpur, which takes another half-an-hour.

We were lucky to find a luxury bus waiting as we reached the bus station at Sangli, and the journey to Islampur was comfortable and quick. Not much to do, except watch the kilometers tick by, and the wierd little conductor interact with the people on the bus in his singsong voice.

This region is all about sugarcane production, and we passed fields with sugarcane standing, or in various stages of being harvested, sugarcane loaded on tractors, bullockcarts, being stored….. whatever - sugarcane - and loads of it.

In Islampur, we gave up trying to figure out further state transport and simply hired a rickshaw to take us to our destination. The road was now bumpy. I guess the parents in law were not exactly comfortable. Raka was sitting on half the driver’s seat in the front, as these rickshaws are designed to seat only three, so I guess he wasn’t too comfortable either, but I was enjoying the ride through the countryside.

Narrow bumpy roads, blocked with bullock cart traffic - pretty heavy - we seemed to be waiting more than moving. Charming glimpses of the river, and all kinds of people chattering with our rickshaw man as we passed them. Very charmingly rural, if you overlook the not-so-charming ruts on the road.

Bullocks and goats seemed to be all over the place. Parked in front of homes having lunch, yoked, pulling carts, being loaded, unloaded…… I’ve never seen so many bullocks in one day.

We reached the home of the pujaris at our destination. Actually, the pujari on duty was someone else, but my parents in law had good relations with another, who wasn’t on duty, but we stayed with them anyway. I was surprised to find a Marathi family - I was expecting Kannada Brahmins (my in-laws are Kannada) like in Sangli. Apparently there are historical migrations and stuff involved and the seeming discrepancy was a normal state of affairs in such issues.

At least I could understand what was being said. I found myself feeling at home. The family were really charming people, complete with a really charming old widow grandmother - a typical joint family.

We visited the temple in the evening, and I have never seen such a charming location in this region (plenty in the Himalaya). What can I say, I’ll let the pics do the talking.