Murud-Janjira Trip

This Diwali, we planned to visit the Alibaug beaches. A friend suggested that it’s better to visit nearby Kashid and Murud-Janjira, as the waters are cleaner and sands are cleanest on ghats. I browsed through the Google, and found the suggestions real true. One of my seniors, hailing from IIT-B, even told me that it’s actually white color fine sand/silt beach at Kashid (Geologists’ can’t resist), and the beaches are not very much crowded. We were also advised to witness the sunset at Kashid beach.
Sooooooo, we were total 8 people, (3-me n my 2room-mates + my 3 frns + frmz’ 2 frns) for the day-long tour-de-Kashid-Murud-Janjira! We hired an 8-seater Tavera, and the driver was in his handsome 19, though very coooool n calm on steering.
We started at about 9AM from Ghansoli, Navi Mumbai and reached Kashid beach at about 11:30. The beach was so fascinating and inviting that we couldn’t control and run towards it!

It was a high tide time, so the waves were enough powered to topple us! We were all wet when realized that it would be better if we visit the Janjira Fort, before having fun at Kashid beach. Okay, so we had omelette at roadside dhabas on the beach, lying in the hanging-nets. Then we proceeded towards Murud-Janjira, which is at about 40mins distance from Kashid. As I collectd from diffrnt websites, the Kashid fort was most probably built by Koli (fisheman) King, and had never been conquered. We had ‘barf-ka-gola’ (ice-balls) at taxi stand, Murud, and two of us bought the classic Cowboy hats...certainly I was one! 8-)

Bought tickets, got into the old-style sail boat, and started for about 10mins journey towards the fort.

Though, on public domain we came to know that the fort is about 2km from the port, it didn’t appear so. We reached thr in mins, and truly didn’t find it very exciting. It was an old fort, like all other forts, ill-managed, without any potable water and having locked-toilets! We spent some time there, and then returned. Best thing we found there were sea-shells! Itz very easy to get some good conches there, I too collected a few. Most of them were alive, so had only two with me...rest thrown into the waters.

On our way back to Kashid, we had lunch at about 3PM in a ‘good’ restaurant of Murud...which turned out too bad! Everyone’s mood was screwed after that food, few of us who ordered beers were given some jus-cold ill-known thing. Guys were so exhausted that they took those, and ended with more frustration.
Leaving it, we came again to the beautiful Kashid beach....sun was ready to dip into the Arabian Sea...the view was awesome!

Some frnz tried to get snapped with diving sun...and some others including me....ran towards waters! It was low tide time, so we could get little more inside and even felt the basalts below our feet. Had great masti there...playing water-polo with someone’s tee and splashing waters on each-other. The beach is not as good as the Eastern coasts' beaches, but it’s the best I ever visited in and around Mumbai!
Okay for now, will keep posting my earlier and future trips....cheers!

Riders of the Nation of a Billion - Dimensions and Horizons

Incidentally I wrote a post of my tranformation from just around the corner corporate junkie into a Rider (for sure, still gradually) few days ago. Now, here are the Indibloggers with a Contest for the Bikers of the Nation with Castrol guys . Evolving Biker Code of the Nation When you look at the scenario of Biking in a general sense, you would be attracted by the road-rowdies and rookies who ride to spread nuisance and are mostly acknowledged for their deeds by the newspaper. Hooligans may be the right word. But, once you get involved with the passion, you would be able to see how the passion of Biking, or rather Riding, is evolving in the country where 2-wheelers over-power 4-wheelers by scores of galactic height, but have never earned respect on highways just coz they are the smallest-speeding machine there! I would try to let you through the Indian Riders tale, so that you be able to appreciate how the riders of the Country are working, though in a segregative way

An evening in the Chilika Lake

( This post has been published in TheViewspaper as The Paradise called Chilika ) This year seems to be much more happening than I expected. I realized it when I got an invitation from a senior colleague to attend his marriage at Bhubaneshwar. Hidden was another invitation to revisit the Puri- beach and also the Chilika Lake. I hadn’t still come out of the hangover of my pan-India ride , when the date to fly to the City of Temples knocked at doors. Packing the very morning of departure with least pairs of casuals and 3sets of party wears, I joined Kaustav and Abhimanyu bhaiya on our tour de Chilika and Puri, also the Odiya Wedding. Chilika Lake is the largest coastal lagoon in India and the second largest in World. It is an essentially shallow brackish water lagoon on the east coast, spread over the districts of Puri, Khurda and Ganjam of Odisa state. The lake, popularly known as Chilka, was designated the first Indian Wetland of International importance under the Ramsar

Trekking Ghansoli Gawli Dev (Parsik) Hill

It’s been there for geological ages, we have been looking at it for last about 4years and I have been planning to trek it since a long time. Finally, few weeks back, we trekked the Ghansoli Hill. Ghansoli Hill is located at the eastern boundary of Ghansoli town, behind our office complex at RCP. The hill or better hillock is a part of small range that separates Kalyan and Navi Mumbai towns. A search on Google Map returns with a name Parsik Hill for it, though there is one more rather famous Parsik Hill in Navi Mumbai. We also found a NewsArticle , that talks about NMMC plans to develop Nature Awareness Centre at this hills and calls it Gawli Dev Hill. Here, we would be calling it Ghansoli Hill . I asked my colleague about it and he readily agreed. The very next Sunday we did it with another friend. We weren't aware of the route. All we knew is that a Central Road runs along the western edge of the hill and can be reached through the Vashi-Mhape road. We later found that there’