travel diary 1

I had been waiting for this for too… long, first team outing in 2 years of my professional life. I’ve always envied friends when they don’t get enough of retelling about the fun they’ve had, At last it’s my turn now J. Boy was it good? It was fantabulous, much better than the usual team outings to a resort for lunch/dinner or a movie. So, what was it? Where had we been? Let me start with a prelude to how I accidentally happened to join the gang for this trip.

Debu came up with this idea of going on a trip to Murud a week ago, while making the list of people who’d be joining, I realised the day of travel was scheduled to be on the same day I was supposed to meet my cousin after 4 long years, so I had no chance of making it. Nothing changed until Friday, by when all plans were finalized.

On Saturday, I managed to meet my cousins after work, which meant I could join my friends on the trip next day. So, it happened again, I jumped into it in the last minute, after all how could I miss the chance of traveling to such beautiful place.

So, at last, 20 of us, packed in a bus set off on a trip to Kashid-Murud-Janjeera on Sunday, 14th October. Our plan was to travel 120kms to Kashid and then proceed towards Murud-Janjeera and back to Bombay by night. Just as we had crossed the Bombay city limits at about 900 hrs, we stopped for breakfast. I have to mention this because I had Idly-Vada for breakfast for the first time since I left Bangalore, and then not to forget my first filter coffee for the first time in two weeks, I hope people who know my love for coffees, dosas, idly-vada would have by now realised how much I am missing them L, can somebody please send me a Butter Masala Dosa or two from CTR please.

After the heavy breakfast, we set off towards Kashid, the drive through out was great barring a few patches of bad roads, but what impressed me again was mother nature, She’s a beauty and especially in the Konkan region lined up as western ghats. Apart from the beauty outside, there was plenty of fun on the bus too…After about two hours of drive, we could see the sea for first time and I was just waiting for the journey to be over, at about 1100 hrs, we finally reached our first destination for the day, a small stretch of sea, a popular beach picnic spot called Kashid.

There were a couple of petty shops selling the usual wafers, soft drinks, tender coconuts etc and hammocks under the tree shade (we have to buy something from these shops to use these hammocks). After a drink of tender coconut, most of us jumped into the water straightaway, we continued to play in the water, a bit of football and water splashing, only to finish it with poha for lunch. Anything tastes so good when we are hungry, for I had finished two plates of poha in no time at all. We set off from Kashid to Murud at about 1400 hrs once hunger was doused off at least momentarily.

After a drive for about 30 mins, we reached Murud and before entering this small town we could spot a fort about a mile away in the sea, this fort called Janjeera fort, which was last under the control of sultans until finally Government of India recovered from them in 1971, when most of it was destroyed. What still remains is yet beautiful and most of us didn’t want to miss the boat ride to the fort and back.
We walked up to the dock were these boats were anchored and as it happens any where in our country, 40 people were thrown in one boat, and the boat set off towards the fort. What made this ride more exciting is that I was on a sailboat for the first time in my life; it just looked like the scene from the movie Swades where SRK is on the sailboat (I’m definitely not comparing myself with SRK… don’t take me wrong J). I find the method of adjusting sails according to the direction of wind very impressive; have a couple of shots of the same which I hope to upload on web very soon.

After a 20 minute ride, we reached the fort and were privileged enough to listen about the history of the fort by our guide, of which I doubt if even 50% was true J, of the things we saw there, the most impressive were the three cannons, the largest of which could fire up to 15kms (not sure how authentic the figure is), also a 60 feet deep pond in the middle of the fort, a passage way under the sea which supposedly connects the fort with the town of Murud, through which even elephants traversed long ago, alas… as always, its not accessible now, so nobody can check how true this information is too. Also we could spot another fort built by the Maratha King Sambaji, which is almost twice the size of the Janjeera fort we were in. Most of that seems to be destroyed in cannon firing, it’s accessible no more as Customs Dept has sealed it off.

After staying up there for about an hour, we were back in Murud. It was about 1830 hrs when we finally left after the last session of photo shoot. On the way back, all were too tired after a game of antakshari of Tamil v/s Hindi songs, only to leave our seats when we reached home.

That is it, I’ve written my first blog on travel. Hope people who read it, will enjoy as much as I did reliving those moments.

Keep your comments flowing, will be back soon with another master piece ;)