Mahuli - The Road not Taken

Incurable Travelers - Arindam (The Basu), Falu, Maulik, Sheeba

Date of Travel - July 6th 2008

(It is advisable not to go between mid-July and September, due to the mosquitoes the monsoons bring)

This one is about how we didn't go to Mahuli, or at least the right one...

Sticking to tradition, the intrepid four set out bright and one hour late (9am) from Kanjurmarg station. Mahuli is in Thane district and you need take an auto from Asangaon station to the base village. With the train switches, wrong trains and stops to buy breakfast, we got to the base village at 12 pm - in time to see the early bird trekkers on their way and also in time to build up enough of an appetite that we stopped at one of the houses for some food. Well rested and armed with bhajjias and vague directions we set out for the trek. What we didn't realise that the dry river trail that we were following was just a scenic route to no-where...

After some neat acrobatics on the way, we came to one of the

 most beautiful waterfalls I've seen. It wasn't big and gushing or awe-inspiring... In fact, with more of a water trickle. But the set up was beautiful - it was this big stone caught between two rock faces, creating a little niche underneath, 

and water flowing down as a curtain in front of it (remind you of Indie Jones?). We stopped to take pics, but didn't dare to venture into the little cave. The pic would have been good, but would demand the high price of us getting soaked to the skin...

When we tired of the water and decided to move ahead, we faced a dilemma - there was no way ahead! The river trail had sprung from the waterfall. So we decided to make a path where none existed - we scaled the side of the trail and headed uphill, through calf high dry grass, in search of a more trustworthy trail. We didn't find that, but we did find a plateau. I'm not sure if any human had seen this plateau before, but it definitely was a popular hangout for goats (don't ask me how I know). And it was at this auspicious time that Basu got a call from some long lost friend who asked him 'Are you at home? Where are you?', to which Basu replied 'Err, no.. I'm somewhere near Kalyan...' For future reference - when you have no idea where you are, 'somewhere near Kalyan' is a good enough answer. 

So far, we had seen a rivulet, a waterfall, lots of grass and a plateau. Continuing our journey up hill, we came across the one missing piece - woodland! And for wildlife, we were greeted by a horde of mosquitoes - who were really happy to see us. Since it was now blindingly obvious that we had taken the wrong trail, and were in fact on the wrong hill now, we debated trying to find a way to the right hill, or just giving it all up and going back. Since we couldn't see a path ahead, we turned around and headed back, and the mosquitoes decided to give us company. 

Twenty minutes and several different 

trails later, we realised we were completely lost and couldn't find any way down. All the routes seemed to lead to cliff like endings and we didn't know which way we came. And the mosquitoes were still with us. And this brings me to the spookiest part of this trek - The brave adventurers fanned out to try and find a way down before it got dark, Maulik to the left and Basu to the right. And a few seconds later, we heard shouts from Basu. Picture on the left, is what he had found, etched into the ground by some past traveler, who had been lost and then found his way, or maybe even space aliens. I'll never get over that. How in the middle of nowhere, after following so many different trails, just when we really needed to find the way down, we found the answer written out in the ground. And also how the sentiment mirrors my state of mind more often that not...  

We followed the arrow mark and found the way down to a more sizeable river. And there we stopped for over an hour, splashing in the water like 5 year olds and devouring the bhajjias. The most fun in the whole trip. And we finally got rid of the mosquitoes. 

The rest of the day was mostly drab. We found our way back - with only a few missteps, one of which took us to a beautiful lake - through forests and rocks and farmland and gaping farm workers. Till we reached the road that runs between the base village and the station. And not knowing which way was better, we just turned right and started walking till we reached a bus stop.... The bus doesn't go all the way to the station, so we were ejected at the nearest stop. 

And once we made our way back to civilisation, and the necessary bath, we celebrated Nadal victory over a pizza and pepsi, ending an action packed day. 

More of the gorgeous pics (courtesy the industrious Maulik Nagpal) here