Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Family trek to Beautiful Sahastrakund Falls


Sahastrakund waterfall, another one of the waterfall which I have never heard about. I tried to Google for more information about this place, but could not find much.  I happened to see a video on this place, with gurgling water cascading down.  Soorya, my friend who happens to be a lover of waterfalls and has a knack of discovering some unknown territories, planned a trip to Sahastrakund. This time, my family also joined in his trip.  My kids, aged 10 & 6 were all geared up and excited to go on his trip.  When I informed them, they would need to walk for almost 6Kms, they agreed easily. On August 30th, 2015, the trip was planned.  Soorya had taken care of our travel tickets and as usual, he had planned everything and shared with all.

Very little details known about Sahastrakund waterfalls, I tried look up in the Google, but did not come up with much information. Sharing whatever information, I could dig and gorge on...:-)

Sahastrakund waterfalls is at a distance of 4.5 km from Islahpur village, 60 km from Nirmal, 100 km from Nanded, 116 km from Adilabad and 282 km from Hyderabad, Sahastrakund Waterfalls is a nice waterfall located in Nanded district of Maharashtra. Sahastrakund Waterfall is an amazing waterfall on the Penganga River, a tributary to Godavari River at Murli village. The water falls can be visited throughout the year, though monsoon is the best season. 


The water drops from a height of 50 feet to form the breathtaking waterfalls. The rock pattern in surroundings of the falls is also interesting, as the black rock appears like a metal. The water force is quite high during monsoons and not advised to get into the water.

There are two temples near the falls on both sides of the river. The ideal time to visit the waterfall is during monsoon (August to October).  

From Nirmal, the waterfall can be reached via Dhani, Swarna & Islahpur. The road from Nirmal is average and can get worse during heavy rains. Public transportation is limited to this place from Nirmal (one bus that runs four times a day). There is also a railway station (Sahastrakund Railway Station) which is half km from Islahpur and 5 km from the waterfall. This station is connected with Hyderabad, Nagpur, Nanded and Adilabad.

Since it was a day’s trip for us, we did not much luggage, just the required things in our backpack. We ensure that we carried extra set of clothes as it was a waterfall and we all were sure to have fun in the water.  Apart from these, we carried some snacks to munch for the kids on the way.  Since we had our train, Krishna Express at 9 PM from Secunderabad station. We decided to take the public transport bus near our place, which is 26 Kms away from the Secunderabad. We started about 6 PM in the evening, we waited for almost 45 minutes to get our bus. The travel which normally takes an hour to reach its destination, even during the peak of traffic, that was worse.  It was about 8:30 PM and we were still stuck at Tarbund stop, which is about 20 minutes away from the station.  We knew that we would never make it to the station, with the kind of traffic that was there on that day, and mentally prepared ourselves that we may miss this trip. 

 The only solution for us to try get out of bus and see if we can get an auto or something which will help us to reach the station in time. With that in mind, we jumped off the bus at the signal, crossed the road and took the next available auto.  Meanwhile, Soorya had called me twice and told me that they are already at the station.  He provided us the coach number, seat number and the platform number where we can board the train.    The auto wala took over from there, we do not know what road he took, and it was 5 minutes to 9 PM, when we reached the station. It was just mad rush for us to catch the train. All four us, just ran and got in the train, as it was leaving the station. It was touch and go for us. You should have seen the grin on our face…

Finally, we got settled, introduced ourselves around.  We found that there were two boys in our group of the same age group of my kids.  The kids got introduced, shared Mogins cupcake to cement their friendship. Some of us had got dinner, so we had quick dinner and decided to call off the day. We were told that the train stops at the Sahastrakund station about 3:30 AM in the morning.  Thankfully, our train was slightly delayed and the station at 4:00 AM morning.  My son was pretty wound up that he was up by 2 AM and every half hour, he would tap me ask me if the station has come.  The moment, we told him, we are approaching, he could not hide his excitement, he was immediately got down, ensured that his sister was wide awake.  The train stops for 10 minutes, we quickly made our exit from the train. We grouped together, started walking out of the platform. From the station, we had to walk about 6 kms to reach the waterfalls. 

Since, it was early morning hours, it was difficult for us to get any mode of transport for the kids. It was pitch dark, with no streetlights, so we had to pull out our flashlights to We found that a small shop had its doors open, which was quite a surprise for us. I peeked in, picked up water bottles and few more munchies along chocolates. By the time I made the payment, started to walk, I found group had covered quite a distance.  Pavan, who had stopped at the shop along with me to pick up water bottles, picked up pace to rejoin the gang that was marching in the dark. 

On the way, we had stray dogs barking at us, as if we were the intruders, who have shaken them from their slumber. The roads were full of potholes, filled with rain water.  We had to be careful while walking, it was nice brisk morning walk for us with jokes, talks and lot of leg pulling. With the first morning light, we were reached the waterfalls. As we walked towards the elevated ramp, we found there are two temples on both sides. You can have darshan, if you want to. From the elevated ramp, we saw the waterfall in its full glory, like a mini Niagara waterfalls. It was just beautiful, I am falling short of words to describe the views that was breathtaking. 

For about an hour or so we stayed around the elevated the bridge, basking the beauty of the waterfall and tranquility around the place. Around 7 AM, we decided to have our breakfast before proceeding to the other side of waterfall. With that decision we all walked back to the entry point of the elevated ramp, where we had seen small shack, kind of eatery run by a family.  We had hot, spicy batata poha along with sweet tea. As soon as we finished our breakfast, we started to walk towards the other side of the falls. 

To reach the other side of the waterfall, you need to cross a bridge that is built across the river, should say about a kms or so from the shack. There is no road that we found, we walked through open rocky, muddy terrain to reach bridge. I noticed that bridge was complete, we could actually get down on the pillars to sit and enjoy the view for few minutes. This walk through the terrain and bridge was refreshing, we took our time to click pictures. 

Once we reached the other side of the falls, we girls and the kids did not need coaxing to run towards the water. Soorya informed us that the force of watre was high, as it was close to the waterfall. We did notice that the rocks are sharp and slippery, we had to be very careful while getting into the water. We spent about an hour in here, then decided that we needed a safer location for all of us to have fun in water. For that reason, we walked back towards the other side of bridge. On reaching there, we found the banks were muddy, and for about few feet, it was covered by algae and moss. In another 15 minutes, we knew, we need to find another location. Soorya, went ahead, got down near the bridge, tested the depth and gave us a green signal to come down. That’s it…we all ran like crazy nuts who have not seen water for ages… 
 
We played in the water till lunch time, dried and changed our clothes. We all started back towards the Sahastrakund station.  Since we all were exhausted to the core, and with four kids, we found it would be difficult for us to walk back.  We decided to hire an auto who could take us towards the station.  We wanted two to three autos, but we got only one auto, so it was decided that the ladies along with kids with go ahead in the first batch, then auto wala will come back to pick up the remaining people.  With that decision, we got into the auto.  But believe me that was the worst auto drive for us because the route taken by the auto guys had craters, not just potholes. At many places, we had to get down and push it…well that was fun. Somehow, we managed to reach market area. We requested the auto driver to wait for us as we wanted to have lunch before proceeding to the station.

Since, it is a small town, we did not have much option.  We found one decent place to eat, ordered masala rice, poori and aloo sabzi to eat.  Unfortunately, the poori was not cooked properly, so we could not eat them. We paid the bill, then got into the auto to proceed to the station.  The auto driver asked us to inform the remaining team members, that he will not be able to pick them up as the road was bad.  We somehow managed to inform them.  The guys walked all the way to station after finishing their lunch. We waited for our train, which was scheduled at 4 PM from Sahastrakund station. 

Since we did not get direct train to Hyderabad, we had to break our journey at Mudkhed. The train journey to Mudkhed was just fun, where we all discussed the pictures taken.  We would swap the cameras & smartphones to see the pictures taken.  Arif's photography was awesome, (let me mention it is here, he is a great photographer and has trekked with Soorya in too many treks). 

Arif had taken some of the pictures of us in the water.  That chotu camera (I forgot the name, I will try getting the name from Arif) has done amazing job. It was short trip to Mudkhed, before the blink of our eyes, we were all getting down. 

At Mudkhed, we had enough time to kill as we waited for the connecting train to come in. Finally, we all boarded the train, found that our seats were spread across the entire compartment.   We noticed that the our compartment had only few people, so we decided to sit together, play antakshri (complete mix of Hindi, Telugu songs), boys v/s girls.  Omg!! What fun it was….At Basar, we had to breakup as other passengers started to board the train.   

It was about 9 PM (do not remember the exact time), we all reached Secunderabad, bye to say goodbye for us. We ensured that it was not a goodbye, we exchanged numbers and still touch with most of the group members. 

Another beautiful memory made, with another set of strangers…


Photo Credit: Arif, & Soorya

Sunday, November 22, 2015

A day’s trip to Awesome Bogatha falls



Most of my friends who are seasoned trekker, always said, trekking in the rains gives an awesome feeling. I have never done that and was really not sure that how many of us would really love to try that.  The moment, you think about the rain, you just feel like snuggling yourself with a nice book, aadrak waali chai and hot pakoras or take a football, play as you get wet…Well, my dream of getting wet and trekking came true, when I went to a place called, Bogatha Falls. It was quite a coincidence that it was raining all through the day in and around Bogatha falls. 

August 15, 2015 was as usual and that Sunday was something that I was looking forward too as I had scheduled myself for a trip to Bogatha falls, in Khammam district. Honestly speaking, I had never heard about this waterfall, that too within the radius of 500 Kms. According to the plan shared, it was a day trip.  We were scheduled leave on Saturday night, trek to that waterfall on Sunday and back on Monday morning.  This was a complete new group of people with whom I had clubbed to make this trip.  The trip organizer, Soorya was the only person, with whom I was constantly in touch. 

Soorya had meticulously planned everything for the entire group and trip was awesome not just because it was planned well, but the group of people who had joined me in this trip. According to the plan, our train was scheduled to leave Secunderabad station at 11PM.   I had an early dinner and then took a bus to Punjagutta, where Soorya had asked me to meet him.   Soorya and Atul met me at the Punjagutta circle and then took me to Vamsi’s place.  There, I met most of the people who were traveling with me. They had dinner and then after sometime we all booked a cab and left for the station.   At the station, I met few more people and then we all boarded the train.    The initial few hours was completely hellos and hi and get together kind of time for all us.   Most of us were yapping away till wee hours of morning.   Few of us decided to catch with sleep for few hours. The entire travel route was chilly and it was feeling good.



 About 4 AM, my mobile alarm was ringing on top of its voice, telling me it’s time to freshen before disembarking at the station.  The enthusiasm level were at the top most level and I was eagerly waiting to get started. The entire gang got down at the station – Bhadrachalam Road.   

Since it was quite early, we all wanted to have a hot cup of tea before starting towards the falls. As soon as chai was done, we all walked out of station.   

Soorya informed us that since it is quite a distance, he had arranged a maxi cab for all us to the reach the closest point to the falls. The route that we took to the falls was: Bhadrachalam Road > Cherla > Venkatapuram  > Cheekupalli Stream > Koyaveerapuram (Bogatha Falls), was only beautiful, but scenic.  The drilling rain, hillocks, & greenery was worth the drive towards the falls.  Our Smartphones and cameras must have groaned under the amount of time we clicked pictures on the way.  

 Around 8 AM, at Cherla, we decided to take a quick break to fill our tummy. We had a good breakfast of dosa/idli, chutney and sambhar, along with piping hot coffee.  Some of us decided to have poori& sabzi.  Once we were done with breakfast, we freshened up.  Our breakfast point was a family run eatery, and just right behind the eatery, they had their living premises.  They were kind enough to allow us to use the washroom.  It was about 11ish, when reached the bridge, which still under construction, we decided to change into shorts and t-shirts and start walking towards to the falls. 


The walk through the open lands with puddle was just fun.  Those mud puddles, allowed the child amongst us to come out, jump and play. What awesome feeling it was!! Given an option, I would redo it without a blink of an eye.  As we neared the water, the sounds of gushing waterfall was thunderous and it goaded us to move forward.  WOW!! Ooh!! Omg!!...well these were the reactions that we had when we saw the waterfall. We were like kids and were all diving into the water to have fun. Because of the rains, the waterfall had grown into huge magnitude and was gushing forward in full force, which could easily pull a person if they are not careful.  We spent about 3 or so hours in water, playing, trying to swim in the natural body,  (honestly, I was found it tough to swim in here, though I know swimming pretty well – but still tried, went inside the water, got pulled up…;-)). We had an amazing photo session.  Pavan, who is an amateur photographer amongst us, was totally into his camera, he was least bothered if his camera was getting wet while taking photographs. He took some of the amazing shots to create the memories which will be long cherished by us, wherever we go…


Once done with playing and photography session, we had to come out. Though none of us wanted this session to get over, but time was crucial for us.  So we had a bye for that time and move out of water.  We all slowly started walking back towards our maxicab.  As soon as we reached our maxicab, we all changed out of wet clothes and started to munch on the snacks that we had with ourselves. Since we all come quite close to Bhadrachalam, we decided to make a pit stop at the temple.  We all had a good darshan of Lord Rama and then all boarded the maxicab. 

It was almost 7 PM, and we had our bus back to Hyderabad at 9 PM. We all decided to stop for dinner, at a nice restaurant. After dinner we had cake cutting as one of group member’s birthday was there the next day.  It was good party time for us.  Dinner done, we all boarded the maxicab. The driver dropped us at the bus stop.  Boarding the bus back to Hyderabad was the most poignant moment for us as we were still in daze, thinking about the waterfall.  But as it goes the saying, all good things have to come to an end, we had to accept the same. But still trip was awesome…

Met, made some amazing friends during this trip.  Now, am looking forward to another trip with this gang again….

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Going Crazy with Boulders at Khajaguda


Moving to Hyderabad almost 10 years ago was not my original choice, but a great career opportunity lured me here. The first thing that hit me when I landed in this City of Pearls was that Hyderabad and rocks go hand in hand. I was awe struck by these huge beauties. 

I used to notice these beauties while commuting to work on daily basis, my eyes would always feel the magnetic pull towards these rocks, and slowly and steady I was falling in love with these rocky beauties. Sounds crazy…right, but honestly when you look at these rocks and let your imagination fly, you can visualize various forms of animals or something more creative.  

These boulders and rocks are part of the old city and this place also known as Khojaguda, though I have no clue why, but this place is a paradise for trekkers and rock climbers. Though I love this rocky terrain, but never in my life had I imagined that I will have a lovely encounter with them which was not only fun-filled, but intense activities were involved, such as rock climbing, caving and chimneying.  April 05, 2015 saw me do all these activities with a group of 20+ enthusiastic people.  As per the plan, we all met at the cross roads near Rai Durgam police station bus stop. It was about 6 AM, when we all pooled ourselves into various cars and bikes that were available to reach the Khajaguda village.

Though some of us had already introduced ourselves while waiting for others, but we still had to go through the drill of breaking the ice amongst ourselves.  This ritual was more fun as we had to say “sagadi sagadi sa pa pa”words, and each word was punctuated with one of the exercise step.  Now, now…there was a hitch here, if we forgot the words or uttered wrongly, then we had to redo it again from the start. Before the start of these unique words, we had to introduce ourselves. We had this session and then we all started marching towards the rocky hills.   

Since we did not have any fixed path and it was fairly easy for us to trek. We reached the top and once we assembled together at a particular huge rock.  One of the organizers, showed us how to climb these rocks using the gaps and cracks to reach the top of the rock.  Man!! That guy was amazing on the rock, he reached the top as he was some sort of a reptile. Two of the guys stood near the rock so that they could help the others to identify the gaps, indentation, and cracks. One by one each of us tried and finally we all reached the top of the rock. We cheered and clapped for the members who were little sacred to give it a try. Once we all reached the top, we got the chance to look around, the morning sky, with sun peeping through slightly – had a beautiful look to it.  At that spur of the moment, I felt wish I was a painter who had the capacity to capture to such a beautiful thing on a canvas….well dreams are dreams.

Anyways, now we had to concentrate on climbing down the rocks, which seemed tougher than climbing the rocks, but eventually we all managed to get down. Honestly speaking, I jumped off the last bit which was not very high, as I was not able to find my footings properly.  Once down, we all started exploring the terrain, as some of the team members were trying to scramble down from the top. The organizer ensured that each of the group member was down and then we were asked to assemble so that we could follow his lead through the rocks. Before we started our trek through the rocks, he pointed towards the flag post and informed us that the flag post above those rocks was our destination. We trekked through the rocks and which was quite fun, then we started to trek up the hills. We reached a spot where we saw that it had a huge crack between the rocks. We were told that we all need to leave our bags out and walk through this crack and then pull ourselves up through another small crack which was at the ceiling of the cave. Here again, we had to use our rock climbing technique that we learnt to climb up and then pull ourselves out. 

I could not imagine that I would be able to pull myself through as the crack between the rocks at the ceiling looked too small for me. Here, I should mention that one should not judge the book by its cover.  I was trying to do the same when I looked at the crack. Finally, I reached the top and tried to squeeze myself out, but I could not find the indentation or any crack to hold and pull myself. While trying to look around, I found that the only way to do was somehow get to hold the “V” rock which was acting as lock between the two rocks.  Finally, after lot of twisting I was able to pull myself out. As soon as I came out I gave a pat on my back, thinking…wow!! I could do it, not bad…

Slowly we started moving, we came across chasm of rocks, which we needed to jump from one rock to another. If we missed while jumping across the chasm, then we would get stuck between the rocks. Doing that gave me another high and these are things which we have done as kids, now lay under the layers of dusts of adulthood, norms of society to name a few.  Here, we saw a beautiful outcrop of rocks, which gave an illusion that it is a tortoise made of rock from one angle and from another it looked like a snake head. We all rounded up from the back and climbed up and had a beautiful view of the still sleeping city. Now, was the time for the cameras to go whirling round to take the pictures.   

This group snap of ours was awesome….the backdrop showed the height at which we were sitting and the rocks….


Once we have our fill of Kodak moments, we had to move on as we had to chimneying to do. To reach the location, we had to do the rock climbing, then roll on our stomach as the rocks were lying too low to walk through. The rock was so smooth that it was difficult for us to hold on. One roll had us moving ten rolls as the rock was smooth and one wrong move would have us slipping down.  The rocks were literally sandwiched together and we called these rocks as “Sandwich Rock”. 

I asked these the organizer if these rocks are granite, as they were too smooth. He nodded his head in affirmation. Once back home, I did some more research and found out that these rocks were formed during the earth was being formed some 3000 million years ago.  These beauties which has withstood the natural calamities and disasters is now succumbing to human wants to expanding its horizon. Feels sad, but there are some groups, such as “Save the rock” who have initiated some programs where they educate people and save these beauties. 

Coming to our location of chimneying, one of the girls showed us how to do it. I was thinking, how I am going to pull my weight up like the way she is showing and also, I do not have a great height to boast about… It is going to be a tedious task for me, but the encouraging team and tips and suggestions had me chimneying up the rock and reached the top.  We all encouraged, helped each other to reach the top, or rather the flagpost. Once again, we had a photo session and we spent about 40 minutes there.  Suddenly we realized that the sun was getting too hot to bear and it was indication for us that we should start chimneying down and then trek back to our starting point. Slowly, we all came down and then we gathered and shared our thoughts about the trek.  We all shared our mail ids and ensuring that we will be in touch.  

Slowly, we all trekked down and reached our starting point where we had parked our vehicles.  It was time for us to say bye, but we could not, so we all decided to have thanda thanda lassi and then move on. The discussion of the day's trek, and then there people who were seasoned trekkers, who shared their experiences. Some of us who have traveled to various locations, also shared their knowledge. The time just flew and we did not have much choice left as it was past midday. 

Finally, goodbyes were said with a promise to be in touch...and that one promise we have maintained till date...;-)