Campings @Ghatgar

Incredible! To understand this tag more, one just needs to journey into the interiors-villages of incredible India. Our drive from Mumbai wasn’t too long as such, only 200 odd kms; onto the highways off nashik in my own incredible Maharashtra. Firstly going towards malshej but as more then ever happens, changing plans and veering towards bhandhardhara. That too after dissecting 5/6 other options all while enjoying the drive.

Finally we select that we will be taking our two day sojourn @ghatghar which is nestled after bhandhardhara towards the forts of alang-malang!

Roads are not that good and the sun too beats on us hard most of the day, but the vistas nature offers us is more then enough a compensation that too in the august company of passionate friends. Dams, Stonerugged mountains, backwaters, lushgreened plains, forts, sunsets, sunrises, stargazing, simple village people, cattleherds, bonfires; 2 days of exuberance and journey is welcome escape from the cacophony of daily life!

We pitched our base on top of hillock just by the waters at few walking steps, we pitched our tents having a hard time to control them in the face of wild night winds. We lit huge bonfires collecting all the hard earned drywood and hay needed for the night! Dinners and breakfast were a mix of sumptuous humble maharashtrian food of waran, rice, pithla, bhakris, chapatis, sabji, eggs, pouha, and to end it all my fav hot milk. Morning business is too enjoyable in campsites as it is all out in the open behind huge boulders surrounded by flowers; where else does one get 360* panorama view of mountains and lakes as the wind washes our bases while emptying the past energies.

We stargaze into millions of twinkling stars in the unpolluted night sky, we bond by the red flames lit in middle of nowheres, we partake the views by the waterside, we chide each other like siblings as we try and settle for night inside the cozy tents, we sing the melodious tunes that play in full volume during the drive, we stop @random places wherever the heart pleases to breathe in nature and exhale out our tensions/worries whatever holds us back!

Journeys never end
Its only different paths, different roads, different places that life is to be lived