Exploring History and
Heritage on trek to Ancient Fort and Caves dating back to almost 2000 years
old.
Fort Name: Visapur
Fort and Bhaja Caves
Altitude: 3567
feet above mean sea level.
Difficulty Grade:
Moderate (2 hours and 30 minutes to climb and 2 hours 30 minutes to descend).
Nearest Railway
Station/ Bus Stand: Malavli (You can reach here by local train from Pune or
Lonavala).
Budget for the One
Day Trek:
Rs.950/- Ex. Mumbai
Rs.500/- Ex. Malavli
Budget Includes:
(Travel Ex. Mumbai or Ex. Malavli by private transport)
Local Breakfast or Packed Breakfast
Local Evening Tea/ Coffee Biscuit
Trek Management, Safety Gear and first aid
Budget Excludes:
Lunch (Carry your own packed lunch; snacks and water bottle
2 liters per head).
Entry fee for Bhaja Caves
Bottled Water; Beverages etc.
Any kind of Insurance, Personal Expenses, Any other
meals/food, Tips etc.
Anything that is not included is excluded.
Cancellation terms
apply.
Details for Internet
Banking Transfers (RTGS / NEFT / IFSC):
Account Name: OFFBEAT MANDALA
Account No.: 50200006370273
Bank Name: HDFC Bank Limited
RTGS/NEFT/IFSC: HDFC0000019
Branch: THE AMALDAS CO-OP HSG. SOC. LTD.,
JUHU-VERSOVA LINK ROAD,
WARK-K, (WEST), ANDHERI (WEST), MUMBAI – 400053, MAHARASHTRA
Planned Schedule:
Pickup Points (Ex. Mumbai)
6:00 am Andheri S. V. Road, Near Merwan's Bakery
6:15 am Bislery Western Express Highway, Andheri East
6:15 am Santacruz East, Vakola, Western Express Highway,
below bridge and after signal
6:20 am Bandra, Kalanagar Junction bus stop; Exit of Sky
Walk; off Western Express Highway
6:30 am Sion Station
6:40 am Chembur, after Diamond Garden Signal
7:00 am Vashi (Junction of Station Road and Highway; below
bridge)
7:20 am Belapur Juction
7:35 am Mc Donald, at entrance of Mumbai - Pune Express
Highway
Pickup Points (Pune
participants)
08:30 am Meeting at Malawli Station
09:00 am Trek to Visapur Fort
12:00 pm Arrival at Visapur Fort
Exploring fort / Lunch at Fort
02:00 pm Return trek
4:30 pm Explore Bhaja Caves
5:30 pm Leave for Mumbai / Pune
Checklist:
Attire suitable for trekking and preferable made of quick
dry material
Track Pants; Trekking Pants; Long Shorts
T-Shirt
Trekking Shoe or Tough Canvas Show with Socks
Hat and Cap with Good Shade; Sun Glasses; Sun Screen
Packed Lunch; Snack with 2 to 3 liters water bottle per
head.
Flash Light; and Personal Medical Kit.
General Medical Kit will be available with trek leader.
A Little Bit of Visapur Fort History..
Our first major destination for the day Visapur stands tall
at a height of 3567 feet; this fort is located next to another fascinating fort
Lohagad. These two forts are separated by a small khind called Gaimukh. These
forts were built during the period of Satavahana reign. After being under the
control of Nizamshah and Adilshah, the forts were then conquered by Chatrapati Shivaji
Maharaj, Later in a treaty signed by Shivaji with Mirza Raje Jaisingh, he
handed over twenty three forts to Aurangzeb. Subsequently he recaptured these
forts; after his death the forts came under the rule of Mughals before Kanoji
Angre won it back. During the time of the Peshwas these forts were used quite a
lot. The last rulers of the fort were British.
Visapur Fort Trek
Routes
Visapur can be
approached by two routes; one route is to climb the trail leading to Khind
between Lohgad and Visapur; follow the trail to your left leading towards
Bhedse hill; along this route you will find a path which steeply climbs through
a arête ending up into the fort, this is not regular entrance; we will use
another route which starts from the stairs leading to Bhaja Caves; after
climbing few steps you then take diversion to your left where a small trail
climbs above the Bhaja Caves hill to takes you to a small plateau. From this plateau you can see
the fort very clearly. You maintain your progress keep to the left hand side of
the hill as you climb up along the walls till you come across a small waterfall
(will be dry when we trek from here in November) and then from here a small
trail leads you the start of stairs leading to the entrance of fort which has a
Maruti Temple just few steps short of the entrance.
Adventure Diary
Adventure Diary – Exploration of Visapur Fort and Bhaja
Caves
September 24, 2006 – we were scheduled to meet at Andheri,
SV Road, near Ahura Bakery as usual at 6 am. Team size anticipated around 32 to
33. Team Nature Knights for Exploration Trek to Visapur Fort and Bhaja Caves
was a mix of some old and new members. We started at around 6:30 am; picking-up
members at Bandra, Sion, Chembur and finally last person after Mankrud bridge.
After picking up the last person we immediately started a
theme based introduction; the theme was to brag about oneself and what was
their fantasy for a dream one-day trek. The imagination for fantasy was
stretched from dream one day trek to a full fledge expedition at Amazon Forest
to an ambition to explore entire world going to the extend of scuba diving and
flying a fighter jet; this was coupled with a brief about oneself.
As the introduction got over; we were almost at the express
highway food mall. The breakfast was stretched from originally announced 15 min
to 45 min; due to slow service at the restaurant. This at the cost of annoyance
of few sincere members who strictly stuck to the agreed schedule landed up on
time at the bus in 15 minutes. Killing time while waiting for other can be one
of the most annoying times to pass.
We reached base of the Visapur hill; at Bhaja Village
exiting express highway Lonavala near Walvan Dam, then taking left around 15 km
further down on National Highway NH4 at cross road junction with one road going
to Karla Caves and other to Malavli Village where we were heading.A quick
session on Dos and Don'ts; followed by a quicker script on Visapur / Lohgad
background we started with our local boy-scout Vishal who was our route guide
for rest of the day.
Express History of these forts
Our first major destination for the day Visapur stands tall
at a height of 3567 feet; this fort is located next to another fascinating fort
Lohagad. These two forts are separated by a small khind called Gaimukh. These
forts were built during the period of Satavahana reign. After being under the
control of Nizamshah and Adilshah, the forts were then conquered by Shivaji,
Later in a treaty signed by Shivaji with Mirza Raje Jaisingh, he handed over
twenty three forts to Aurangzeb. Subsequently he recaptured these forts; after
his death the forts came under the rule of Mughals before Kanoji Angre won it
back. During the time of the Peshwas these forts were used quite a lot. The
last rulers of the fort were British.
My Philosophy of
enjoying a trek, and few etiquettes
Important factor to enjoy trekking day after day and year
after year is all about understanding one self (understand your physiological
and technical capabilities); understand the environment and terrain; co-op as a
team and understand the agenda for the day and/or trip. And most important
enjoy your trek and company.
A trekking party; especially having 32 or more varying
degrees of dynamics will have all kind of characters; There will he ones whose
objective in life for a trek will be to reach the top as-fast-as possible; dig
the flag post and then also start back ASAP. Then there will be other end of
the contrast who will want to laze through the entire trek; for various reasons
from being tiered due to lack of sleep and or fitness level at that time and
date or simply don't want to rush through the things; nothing wrong with that
but we also have a tentative time table to maintain. Most of the members (90%)
will lie between the two extremes. And
we will exclude the two extreme exceptions when we decide on ideal trekking etiquette.
Route to Visapur
Visapur can be approached by two routes; one route is to
climb the trail leading to Khind between Lohgad and Visapur; follow the trail
to your left leading towards Bhedse hill; along this route you will find a path
which steeply climbs through a arête ending up into the fort, this is not
regular entrance; we took another route which starts from the stairs leading to
Bhaja Caves; after climbing few steps you then take diversion to your left
where a small trail climbs above the Bhaja Caves hill to takes you to a small plateau. From this plateau you can see
the fort very clearly. You maintain your progress keep to the left hand side of
the hill as you climb up along the walls till you come across a small waterfall
and then from here a small trail leads you the start of stairs leading to the
entrance of fort which has a Maruti Temple just few steps short of the
entrance.
As we climbed our team was soon split into two as we huffed
and puffed arrived over the first hump of the hill and let our bodies get
acclimatize to the semi-hectic activity planned for the day.
Acclimatization is very important; there I various rules; I
as an individual like to take my first break after 20 minutes to 45 minutes
depending of the gradient of slope to be ascended upon; this allow my body to
get ready for the activity planned. Thereafter we take small breaks of 5
minutes after every 30 to 40 minutes of walk.
The sun was smiling; breeze was having a swing with blooms
of flowers all over the hill. There were colours everywhere yellow; blue; red;
purple and shades of green below and on the top sky blue with fluffy whites.
Soon the two teams assemble on top of the first hump; from
here we could very clearly see the express highway on the northeastern side of
the hump and exactly the opposite was the hill on which the majestic Visapur
fort stood; most of the fort walls looked unapproachable from all angles; the
entrance our guide told has was behind the face of rock and in the arête formed
by between two extending arms of the hill; As we climbed we came across a
trickle of water fall; some of the last few steps were slippery with a temple
of Maruti just short of around 50 to 70 steps before the entrance. There were also few natural caves
and a few small accommodation chambers carved in the rock face. The first group
reached the top; we were waiting for the remaining members to catch-up. There
was a large cannon placed in a static mode to welcome the enemies approaching
the main gate of the fort; the structure of the fort was such that remaining
around 50 soldiers guarding the fort entrance could also join in welcome party
by contributing stones; hot oil; arrows; spears; etc etc.
We found lot of water holes; tanks on the fort which seemed
to be pretty large. Few buffaloes we enjoying their holiday in couple of such
muddy water holes eyeing us suspiciously that we may disturb their territory
and tranquility of holiday in a paradise which had plenty of green.
After some debate we decided to shift our venue for lunch
banquet from sun basked courtyard of Shiva temple to a small watchtower located
to the South of Visapur fort. The lunch as usual was nothing short of lavish
with lots of cultural mix from parathas; theplas; bread; wada; vegetables;
biscuits; honey; curd; our royal baked beans in tomato sauce; idli (rice cake);
sweet lime; I lost count of the variety; the most out-going personalities
enjoyed the most of it and those who felt shy may have lost to make most of the
party.
Soon after lunch we decided to explore the other side of the
fort; followed by a debate on which exit to take the original entrance or the
more adventurous one climbing down from the arête on the west side of fort
facing Pauna lake. From the west side of the fort we could very clearly see
from from left to right starting from Bedse hill; Tikona Fort; Kathingad; Morvi
Dongar, Jambuli and finally the majestic gates of Lohgad. The decision was made
to explore the remaining fort and then descend from the original entrance,
which is towards southeast side of the fort.
The walls on the North east side of the fort are still intact
and in good shape; we spotted the large chakkis(mills) where lime and jaggary
was once upon a time mixed for cementing the wall of fort and also the one used
for grounding grains to flour for the habitants. We explored few more
structures which were well preserved before starting our descend back towards
Bhaja Village. Few new comers found descending the hill a bit more difficult
due to few slippery steps and rocks. We
reached entrance of Bhaja Caves around 5:45 pm; it was time to shut the doors
for visitors at Bhaja Caves; we managed to negotiate with the caretaker to let
us explore the caves for few minutes. We found three chambers of this caves
very interesting; the first one near the main entrance; the main chaitya having
a single large prayer dome at the end will the pillars supported by wooden
frames; then there was this chaitya having around 16 prayer domes (Stupas). We
tried humming OM in different locations and styles to get the feel of positive
vibrations at this place. There also one very interesting chamber towards the
end which has carvings of a prince or king riding a Chariot of 4 horses and
also one where he is riding an elephant.
After cave exploration; we descended to the Bhaja Village
for a round of fresh lime where we had our windup session; which is a feedback
session. We had all kinds of suggestions; criticism for not being too tight on
timetable; blessing; we could see the 32 degrees of dynamics playing. Overall
the adventure was satisfactory except we were one hour behind schedule overall;
but then I feel that is acceptable delay.
The final phase was in the return journey; we sang all the
ways back till Andheri till we bade each other Phir Milegee.
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