Ratangad...memory wants to stay there..!!!!

This is my first blog as a "pravas-varnan" as i really feel like writing on this memorable experience i go through recently and will never forgot in my lifetime.so what is it??? it was my trekk to ratangad and then visit to bhandardara .
This all started after me and sachin finalised to do a ratangad trekk after seeing spellbound scenery on available photos of the place on net .Surprisingly all group became ready to came and we came to know ya its gonna to be big fun.But as usual in case of some ,this time due to some problems pravin and phansekar got cancelled and remaining group decided to go there on 25th july09 by our viechle.

Early morning I got a call from satam that driver yet not arrived and leaving time is going to delay...wah i said as day started with such a incident....after coming of driver maharaj ,we all gathered and moved towards bhandardara at around 7:50am .jokes,talking,laugh,tease were freely flowing by the time we reach ghoti village.from here one road goes to bhandardara from shendi village.we took a 14yr guy as a guide from shendi village and then marched towards ratanwadi,a base village of ratangad. we reached there at around 12:30 pm .In this village there is old amruteshwar temple of lord shiva which is hemandpanthi construction and 1200yrs old ,having ganesh idol with sword in his hand whcih usuallly cant seen on many places .seeing rather experiencing beauty of mandir took an hour ,as well frequnt showers were going on .

It was 1:45pm we started marching toward gad as we knew its time to come back from top but we were firm on our decision to complete this trek on the very day. the route was passing through few nalahs and then through river and through jungle .jungle was quite dense but not as jivdhan,way was quite good.when we reach on first pathar one way was going to harischandragad and other was towards ratangad where we wanna go.After lots of haults (of course much needed by almost everybody except vinayak) we reached to the point where metal ladders were placed .those ladders were looking so dangerous with mere 3 to 4 supports for them,as well their holding part was fully broken.if u see below it was heart-threatning scene thosound feet low valley.after crossing two ladders there were stone steps whcih are going at first darwaza og ratangad.satmya as usual fumble for quite some time there but then passed the patch successfully.

we were not much lucky to see the greenery and scenery aroung coz it was showled by dence fog all around .On top it was feeling like u r walking on white clouds all around just like white cotton . we even cant see deep down or unable to know exactly at what height we are!!!!

yet gol ghumat like structure ,cave , devi mandie,panyachi taki,old darwaza were the spots we had seen.Top of above the thing to mention is wind speed and the spot "nedhe" .nedhe means a natural hole in rock or mountain.in normal season one can eaisly get inside and view the scenery but in rainy season it was almost impossible to stand in front of it coz of wind pressure.wind was flowing at tremendous speed such as it can flew away a man standing in front of it.its unbelivable but true.one of the lifetime experience whcih every one of us experienced .we spend almost half an hour there .satam again stuck there and took 10 min to come to top due to dangerous wind speed.

Getting down was tough task too due to increased rain and water pressure and amount of water flowing down the path has been increased .ladders became challenging one during getting down.and by the time getting down before it gets dark was prime factor for us. we rushed down in speed to be in town before it gets dark.it was 7pm when we reached in town exhausted,fully wet.

In one hut in the ratanwadi as ordered in afternoon we then do our lunch as well as dinner whatever u called it at 8 o clock .it was thick roti,pithle, rice and onion...we were so hungry that such a simple food (rather costly 60 per plate of such a menu)was far better than five star hotel food for us at that time. now question of night halt was there.the villager where we eat was not much intrested to accomodate us in less than 1200 in his hut where no light was thre.so we decided to try our luck somewere else . At one hotel he was offering 2 beds(one with big hole in it) for 1200 .when enquired for some good beds he replied "muze room denahi nahi hai".by the time we sleepy one found another hotel offering one room for 1500 bucks which was leaking from top ,lots of moskitos,less number of beds,wet ground .but we managed happily thre and go to sleep.

Next morning sanjeev become bullish on mandar.mandar can well explain the scene that how bull can treat if got angry(sanjeev kiddin buddy ).after sight seeing at randha fall,bhandardara dam we were on the way back to mumbai.one thing worth mentioning that we took road of sangamner while coming which was long route and time consuming tooo.later on it became dhamal time with dada kondke cassete which change the mood of everybody.malshej ghat was impossible to drive on coz of fog rain and darkness .Even few feet away road was invisiable due to this and was terrifying experience to be there at such time.There we see three bikers crossing malshej merely in headlights.Salute to there daring to drive in such a bad weather in malshej where there are worst site conditions with no lights ,heavy rain ,damn cold and dence fog.It was ultimate experience overall .as it was subhash's last picnic b4 going to delhi i m sure he will remember it for lifetime .

we really missed harne and phansekar a lot ,but trekk was huge success.