As I am fashionably late everywhere, this time I made it a point to be on time and meet everyone at Dadar Station on Friday Night at around 10.30 pm.
We boarded the Kasara Fast at 11.05 pm from Platform 4 and reached Kasara at 01.18 am.
We then moved onto the Jeep that we had and the interesting commute began.
We played our music, vibed, some of us needed a sweet to survive the Sahyadris and the vomiting stories began.
One by one the jeep had to be stopped for one of us to relieve themselves and all of us tried to sleep but in vain.
Suddenly there's no network so the music stops and we only have each other to keep company.
We reached the Samrad Base Village at 4.30 am and crashed till 9.00 am! Since I have friends all over the country I happened to meet one of my college friends who had come there with another Trek group and was going to AMK!
We headed towards Sandhan post a breakfast of poha and snacks that we'd carried and then the real adventure began!
I thought I'd back out during the rapelling but my daily meditation and yoga and workouts proved to be helpful and I was able to smoothly scale the cliff at 120 feet.
Then we moved onto the descend of the valley and the icey cold water reminds me of Chandratal Lake and the time I had there was ecstatic! The tiny fishes in the waters kept us company and as we kept going ahead there is a big water body for which the local villagers have built a bridge which is charged at INR 20 for going and INR 10 while returning.
Alot of photo opportunities here and also lizards and snakes to greet you!
We headed back from Sandhan Valley without the descend to the other village as we had opted for the easy level of the trek.
We reached the base village by 2 and had a lovely local lunch of thecha, pulses and chapati and I met a kid there who I gave a Chhota Cadbury Dairy Milk to because I'm a softy like that.
Then we crashed but I just couldn't sleep because two people from the group were sharing Horror stories which I was forced to listen to and lose sleep.
But transferring pictures is so important too so I got to that as a content creator there's so much that I've got to do - upload on Instagram, create video content for YouTube and write here on Tripoto.
At around 5 pm we headed towards the Konkan Kada to enjoy the sunset and that's when I realised I sprained my left ankle and I kept limping and running at the same time.
The sunset view was so glorious that I played some music and totally zoned out without realising who's around me or who's not.
Post sunset we returned to the base village and decided to play dumb charades and they asked me to act. Personally I didn't want the attention but then when such situations arrive you can do nothing but give in.
After having a sumptuous meal at the base village with egg curry, chicken, dal and rice we headed to our camping site but it wasn't as cold as Kutchh or even Chandrataal so I could bear the cold.
The stars in the night sky, the fire at our feet, the music in the air, my twisted ankle and inability to poop because of dirty bathrooms kept us going.
By the end of it we were chilling till 2 am talking and letting the fire die down and relaxing. It was a vibe.
I set the alarm for 5 am and actually got up and then we ended up getting the night stars and the crescent moon in the sky and I was mind blown. The morning I woke up to was surreal, I've got all the pictures attached!
And then we had our jeeps take us back to Kasara at 7 am. We reached the station by 10 am and missed our local so we waited till 11 am and hopped onto the train with so many memories and stories and pictures to capture the emotions forever!
I reached Dadar by 1.00 pm IST and that was that! Something profound happened at Sandhan Valley though where I was meditating and doing yoga. Something shifted for me in terms of my energy. I found myself again.
