Harishchandragad 2005

This was my first trek after leaving school. So its been almost 5 yrs since i trekked and i was really excited about this one.
All of us, i.e. Neha, Prashi, Isha, Prashant, Sarvesh and Me were supposed to go to Amol's (Neha's brother) place first at dombovili and from here we would be going to Kalyan. So we left in the evening at around 8pm from Kharghar to go to Dombivili.
From Dombivali all the other guys, i.e. friends of Amol joined us and from here we left in train for Kalyan. From Kalyan we were supposed to take a bus to Khubi Phata. The scheduled departure of the bus was at 12:30am. We reached Khubi Phata at around 2:30am. It was pitch dark as there were no street lights on this highway, only the ocassional lights of the oncoming vehicles which are also very few.
It was so dark around, I felt i had gone blind. But the best part was I could see all the stars in the sky. I have neva seen such a beautiful sight in my life. The sky was filled with twinkling stars. After almost half an hr of star gazing, we decided to move ahead. We took the dam path, which Amol spotted out for us. We were totally 14 of us and we had only 4 torches amongst us.
Walking on that dirt road was a difficult job considering it was strewn with small rocks. And at night time with a limited supply of light, it was even more difficult. It took us an hour to complete that stretch of road. We reached khireshwar village, which is the base camp at around 4am. Being January the weather was damn cold, and all of us were shivering even after the long walk. So as we sat at the tea stall, we lit up a small bonfire to keep us warm. All of us sat around it and sang songs. At around 5am when the tea stall opened, all of us had tea and then got ready to start the trek.
The route upto harishchandragad is a beautiful path. It is a good mixture of jungles, rocky patches and plains. The route is not very tiring and not boring either. At every stage you will find something interesting to see. And there is a cold breeze blowing all the time so u dont get sweaty either. The route from Khireshwar upto Harishchandragad takes about 4-5hrs depending upon your speed. Our group had splitted up into 2. The first group reached the top at around 10:15am. The rest arrived at around 11am. After having tea and kanda poha at the small tea stall situated up there, we went up to the caves where we were supposed to spend the night.
In the caves everyone relieved themselves of their backpacks and rested a while. I was so tired that I slept off, having not slept even the night before. All the rest went to temple to wash and freshen up. The cave floor was so cold that I woke up shivering from the core and I had to be taken into the sun to sunbathe and get some warmth. Later i too went to the temple to freshen up.
For lunch we had cooked maggie. Its easiest to cook. We also had tea. Amol makes amazing tea.
In the evening at around 4pm we left to see Konkan Kada. It is a cliff which is concave. I dont know the exact height of the place, but what i do know is that the view from up there is damn scary yet breathtakingly beautiful. The most amazing part about Konkan Kada is the force of the wind. The wind blows from below upwards. And its force is so much so that, whatever you throw from the cliff, goes up instead of going down. Even heavier objects like stone, fall in slow motion. Its the most amazing thing to watch.
We sat at Konkan Kada to see the sunset. It was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. After sundown we headed back towards the caves. We came back exhausted having again being travelling in the dark.
On getting back to the caves, all of us laid down on the front porch to star gaze. We kept pointing out wierd shapes in the form of constellations. The sky was so clear that we could even see the manmade satellites orbitting around. Obviously they were just a speck in the sky, but yet we could see them. As the night wore on, it was steadily getting colder, hence we lit up a big bonfire. Dinnertime was approaching and it was time to get a decent meal cooking. I offered to cook khichidi for all of us, and Amol was more than delighted (well that was only because he was spared from doing the cooking).
Cooking food for 14 people was hard work. I've neva cooked for so many people before. Plus cooking on a makeshift choolha had its own novelty. Well took me close to 2hrs to cook khichidi dat ways, as the rice simply refused to boil. But in the end the khichidi had turned out good. We got kadhi from the teastall where we had poha in the morning. After being properly fed and watered, all started feeling sleepy. Some of us went of to sleep and the rest sat chitchatting around the fire.
A little later into the night, we started hearing rumours that that there was a leopard prowling around (There was another group of trekkers who were occcupying the next cave). So we all decided to go an have a look. Outside the field of light of the fire everything was pitch dark, so we took our torches along. Amol was leading and the rest of us were sort of crouching behind him. He shone the torche into the distance to where it was rumoured dat the leopard was spotted. Amol kept searching the area with his torch. After some time we saw a pair of eyes that were shining red (A cat's eyes shine green in the dark) so we concluded this was most probably a rabbit. But after some more searchin we found those green eyes and everyone panicked. But it turned out that the leopard had come looking for the rabbit, coz it didn't come anywhere near to us. Well one of the reasons could be that we had bonfires burning. Yet it was one helluva experience.
Night time sleep was the worst. The other group that had come were more than 30 men. And one cave was not enough for them. So some of them were sharing our cave. And my goodness, all of them kept snoring and farting all night. Bleagrhhhh.... It was disgusting. Plus the noise they were making was incredible. It sounded like an orchestra playing. Apart from a few people, none of us could sleep that night. And I was just waiting for it to be morning so that I could run out of that cave...yuckkkk.!!!!!
But at dawn, all of those men got up and left, so we all decided to sleep on. We needed our rest to make our journey back. We woke up at 10am and went to the temple to freshen up. After getting back we had bread butter for breakfast. We packed up our stuff and got ready for the usual photo sessions. At around 11am we started trekking back. The back journey was uneventful, so we kept cracking jokes and telling stories. And as the sun got overhead, the sun was becoming unbearable. Hence the journey back took longer than expected. We reached Khireshwar at around 4pm. We rested here for a while and again started walking towards the highway. From here we caught the bus back home.

How to get there:

Regular bus and train services are available from all parts of Mumbai to Kalyan.
Kalyan to Khubi phata : by bus 3hrs (Any bus going to Nagar)
Khubi Phata to Khireshwar : 1hr on foot (follow the dam road)
Khireshwar to Harishchandragad : 5hrs trek

Best time to visit: Dec-Feb

What to carry:

Lots of water, change of clothes, light nutritious food, cap, good pair of hiking boots, rope, first aid kit, torches and spare batteries, a jacket as it gets cold up there in the night, sleeping bags, mosquito repellent.