Caves of Ratanghat

Friday - Train trip

The day before the trek drives in more adrenalin in to me, me more excited for the upcoming trek and this was no different. I reached office quite early with the intention of winding up the days work early to catch the Ajanta Express to Manmad starting by 6:30PM.

As usual to beat the city traffic I took MMTS to Secunderabad. Our reservations were distributed though out the compartments and I was left alone in S6, which wasn’t a good start for me, adding to it my reservation was side upper, which made things worse as it was difficult for me to fit in and had to bend my legs through out the journey. Looked like this wasn’t enough and I was blessed with a jerk to the seat next to mine. With his entry things became clear to me, I am not gonna get a good night sleep.

Things started pretty well, he passed me a smile so I returned one and he started with a casual chitchat like where am I heading? I casually replied Aurangabad. As soon as I completed saying Aurangabad he asked Why? I was wondering what the hell, but I came to my senses and realized I am still in India and answered him politely. Going for site seeing. Aurangabad? Site seeing? What is there in Aurangabad? That was how he followed. Now slowly he started taking me to my nerves, I replied him eyeing outside the window slightly avoiding him “There are hell a lot of places in and around Auragabad which are worth visiting”. He bounced back… it cant be true, you are going to meet your girl friend rite? I know you are going to meet your girl friend… I myself is going to meet my wife… This was the limit I couldn’t bare anymore, I gave a surprised look as if he got he red handed and agreed to his assumption or I should say verdict and left my seat to the next compartment where other trek mates were seated.

By around 9:00 pm I got back to seat and was very happy not to find my seat mate near by…order placed for veg biriyani was provided by Indian railways catering service, I couldn’t eat it at all… cursing the catering service I munched a bit and dumped the rest… As if my prayers were heard my seatmate appeared in front on me with a carry bag between his armpit and I could smell whisky all over the compartment with his arrival… I knew things were out of hand but expected some fun that night… I under estimated him I suppose, he couldn’t wait to trigger the chaos… fell on a lady who was in our compartment, followed by her shouting and her husband’s intervention… A railway inspector who himself was half drunk took custody of this fully drunken guy… and placed in another seat after taking some cash out of him… Later in the night I came to know that he went to some other lady in that compartment which resulted in a fight and which in turn resulted in breaking his specs… Anyways he was brought back by the TTR to his seat and the whole night he made sure that I didn’t sleep. Every five minutes he would call me up asking for his specs and seat no:

Saturday – The Trek Begins

We reached Manmad by 7:00 in the morning, took a connection train to Ighat puri and thanks to Raghu for booking the tickets for a past date. I thought we were all screwed but he managed to get general tickets for the day before the train leaves and we were back on track… Break fast was served on the train all were set for the trek.

From the station we advanced to Ratanghat first by a three wheeler followed by a truck journey, after an hour or so we reached Bhandar dhara lake where we had our lunch. Journey to the foot of the hill was by a ferry and I enjoyed every single moment of that half an hour trip taking photography all around.

We were welcomed by Ratanwadi temple where the prime deity is lord shiva. We rested for a while in the temple and as the route wasn’t that sure the organizers decided to take help of a villager who could guide us to the hill top, after lot bargaining and negotiations our marathi friend Amit convinced the villager for 800Rs and we set for the climb. Trekking did start with a bang, and as usual people were enthusiastic in the beginning and with the heat of the climb smiling faces began to fade. Ahaan how can I miss the best part, a puppy from the village joined us for the trek. You might be wondering how come this puppy became the best part of our trek, it goes like this. We had two our teammates who call themselves and each other puppy and one of these puppies was very much fond of the puppy which joined us from the village, and when one puppy calls the other puppy all including the human puppy get confused which puppy is being called. Puppy from the village came along with us about three fourth of the trek and finally took the way back joining another group who were climbing down the hill.

By around 8:00 pm we almost reached the top of our climb, we never knew something more exciting was waiting for us over there. To reach the caves of ratanghat where we were supposed to spend our night, we need to climb two iron rails, which didn’t have support on both ends to hold on to, and the darkness adding to the horror. It was pitch black that we were not able to judge what was ahead of us. Rising star Kosstubh took the lead followed by Amit and myself. Amit climbed to the top and seated himself to help the next climber and I was placed few feet down to Amit and so was Kosstubh from me and started helping the next climber to the top. Few climbed holding torch in their mouth and our rising star directed few. With lot many confusions and nagging we completed this exercise in an hour or so and we directed ourselves to the cave with the help of our guide. Every one was happy to reach the caves but was disappointed to see the cave already occupied by the front-runners, we had enough space outside the cave to spend the night and we proceeded for our Snaffy roti, which was the dinner for the day.

People were tired and so stressed with the trek in the night that they started with their plans of going back from Ratanghat and not to continue to Harshchandra ghat. When the agenda was presented in front of our half lame organizer LSP he made a wise decision to decide on this the next day as we were tired enough to make a decision at that point of time.

Sunday – Stay continues

Early morning view that Ratanghat presented us was worth the climb, view from the cave was stupendous and I was so happy to be a part of the trek team. Harsh and myself started with the show and later everyone started taking snaps of the sunrise and the clouds getting shades from orange to red and the lake spreading through out our view. Missed a wide-angle lens big time. I got up from the sleeping mat to start with my day to day routine, grabbed an empty bottle and proceeded towards the water source.

I proceeded to a far corner with my bottle filled where I could empty my stomach. If anyone asks me what was the best time you had at the trek? With out a hesitation I could reply, yes this is. To walk with a clean stomach in the morning, too good a feeling it is. I hurried back to the cave after brushing and washing my face for getting ready to Harishchandra ghat.

I was conveyed the message that decision was made by the big shots to stay in Ragtanghat and not to proceed to Harishchandra Ghat, as parting the team was not a good idea and it seemed to be a tough trek compared to what we have completed the other day. I was pretty pleased with the decision, as I could explore more of Ratanghat and take photographs as much as I want. We all had our breakfast, as we were running out of water resource one group went in pursuit for water logs leaving rest of us in the cave.

Search party successfully found out a water log and we procured water as much as we needed and all joined together to decided on our exploration with a cup of coffee, thanks to Raghu and puppy for their effort. First choice was to hit the pinnacle, and all were getting ready applying facemask and all the stuff, even I joined them as I couldn’t let down my fans club. When all this was happening one guy came rushing out of the cave with lot of white lotion on his face and eyes tightly closed. I could understand what was going with him, but instead of helping him out I enjoyed taking his photographs and laughing. Once photo shoot was done I passed him the water bottle to wash away the excess lotion that went in to his eyes, forgot to mention, that was none another than our Ponraj, the most excited guy in our team. Why most excited you will come to know later. We all left the cave leaving the half lamer in our team to guard our bags.

I was late to join the team as I was helping Ponraj with his mess but when we wer about to join the rest we were welcomed by a screaming Nandeed girl – Snehal rushing down the hill shouting snake snake… snake did its job and she didn’t dare to climb the hill again and she waited along with the puppies down the pinnacle. When I started my climb I could see Guhan – Award winning monkey trekker and Raghu closing to the top leaving others way behind. I continued with my climb and finally when I reached the top I could find only a handful that completed the climb. As usual the monkey trekker started with all his acts and giving all kinds of poses humanly impossible, and unfortunately this time I had to take all those awful poses he gave.

By noon we descended back to the cave, where we could find a set of 20 people setting up with lights and wiring in the cave for their night stay, so this night is not gonna be peaceful I said to myself. They were already singing loud and was having few musical instruments for the night party.

After lunch people started with exploring the other side of the ghat, but I had plans to take bath as our monkey trekker found some water logs suitable for bathing. I was playing around with my cam when one of our co-cave mates came to me holding a Fanta bottle with him, I was about to tell him that it doesn’t belong to us as we didn’t bring fanta, he handed me the bottle. I was lightning struck seeing what he has handed over to me, it was a two-month-old viper, which I learned later from the snake catcher. Happily he handed over the snake and walked away saying take photographs, what the hell I was half dead holding a viper in my hand, even though in a bottle… and he is asking me to take photographs. In the mean time the snake catcher came to me and took the bottle from me, I was relieved and back to normal for snaps. I was busy taking photographs when the cave echoed with a scream, reason was one among the puppy stepped in to the cave and started running around shouting, throw that away… throw that away… Seeing this drama with a laugh on his face the snake catcher took the snake out of the cave to release it in the forest.

Myself, Bhuwan and Guhan proceeded to the water log to take a dip and I should say the water was ice-cold and the bath was so relaxing that body pain induced by this trek was dissolved in it. I relaxed myself in the evening sun fully naked stretching my back on one of the rocks and was so happy to be in that state. At times I feel like I am a nudist, am I? but anyways I enjoyed that moment big time. I got ready when Guhan and Bhuwan was done with their bathing and we moved down to our cave.

Dinner was maggi ready to eat noodles and it sucked big time, I had an apple and couple of juice packets in place of that and distributed my noodles to the needy and greedy. Mean time someone came up with the idea of playing dumb Shiraz and we had good time playing the game. Once that was done Guhan came up with some card game and we started with the game in candlelight, I felt sleepy and went to my sleeping bag when Anil – Kamenoon ka badshah, Bhuwan, Ponraj, Vignesh, Faizal and Guhan continued with their game.

Early morning we started our trek downhill, which did go well and we hit the base hill in an hour or two. Worst was waiting for us on the other side of the lake, we wont be able to reach on time to catch the train back home, that was the news some other travelers passed on to us – scarcity in mode of transportation. Finally we paid a hefty sum to a truck driver and reached Pune on time, thanks again to our marathi friend. Dinner was served on train and we got ourselves distributed in different compartments. I shared compartment with Anil and Bhuwan from our team others in the compartment included two girls from Pune. Well I was happy to have them along with us, at least I could flirt as much as I want. I was wondering how to initiate the chat with them and Anil bhai gave us a break, and rest is another story… where we learned more about the over excited Ponraj.

Thanks mates, it was indeed an adventure with all you guys and I enjoyed every single moment of it. Hoping to meet you all again. Happy trekking.