Kailas Gad - Easy trek with mind blowing views

Had been to Kailas Gad on saturday. Not many know about this fort mostly because it is surrounded by more famous forts. It must have been only a watch fort during Shivaji's time because it does not seem strategically important considering that it is surrounded by Loh Gad on the Lonavala side and Sinhgad on the other side.

A road going right from the base of Tamhini Ghat takes us to a village named Waghwadi from where the trek starts.This road goes along the backwaters of the Mulshi Dam which is what makes a trip to this fort a refreshing experience. Also from the top you see the whole view of the backwaters surrounding the fort on three sides.

Here are a few snaps of the trip.

Some classic photography on the way

The bikes....The enfield looks the best as always :)

 A Classic view on the way to Kailas gad. We could not resist waiting here for a while. Besides since we had cousins Digital SLR with us it was worth waiting.

 The lush green mountains just made us feel refreshed already.

Whole group except for the Photographer...

 Nice view half way from the fort. Mulshi Backwaters.

 Beautiful view of the Kailas Gad. We had to still climb the mountain seen in the snap.

 The queen of the fort we called her. She does not look less beautiful than Katrina Kaif. Thats the beauty of SLR. I was a little afraid that after clicking the snaps she would ask for her modelling fees. some 100 Rs per snap or something. We had clicked quite a few snaps of this lady.

"Gai Humari Mata Hain, Agey kuch nahi ataa hai" 

Have you seen a flying Human? No it is not Milkha singh. It is our own SLR owner.

Finally the tired, exhausted group with a thought in the mind that we need to still travel 90 Kms.

All in all not a difficult trek, but a very refreshing one. Or you can say can be a romantic trek rather than a hectic one.

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Mr Aurangzeb's city

Had visited Aurangabad on a weekend in May on my new unicorn. Was a great experience and I proved myself the quote that "Four wheels move the body while two wheels move the soul".

We were just two of us on two different bikes to attack Aurangzeb in his own city.

Here are some snapshots of the experiences we had.

Me with my girl friend...

It seems this is the famous Delhi darwaza at Aurangabad. I wonder what is it doing at Aurangabad. It must be an consequence of some silly demand from one of aurangzeb's wife that she wants to stay in Delhi and Aurangzeb must have fooled her in this manner. Believe me, when it comes to wife's wishes the mughals could go to any extent...

The tar on our way to Ajanta Caves.

Ajanta Caves view. They are basically monastries from the 5th century. They have some amazing architectural desings and i must say the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) have preserved them with care. No camera flashes are allowed in the caves so that the bright light does not deteriorate the paintings.

 

An example of the architectural intelligence of the 5th century men.

 

Ghrisneshwar Temple. One of the shiv jyotirlingas. The place is called Verul. We had a real good learning experience the previous night. We reached here at 12:00 from Ajanta caves as we got so engrossed in the caves that we did not realize the time. We could not find a lodging and were thinking to stay on the road. But by God's grace we found one just besides the temple. Moral of the story: Stay wherever you are by 9:00 PM when you are at an unknown place.

We two exhausted with the experience we had the previous night. We had slept at 2:00 AM in the morning and we were back on tar the next morning at 6:30 AM.

She was the only one supporting me whole heartedly for anything i wanted to do :). This view was on the way to Daulatabad fort.

Daulatabad fort. It gives you an measure of Mughal intelligence. It is not easy to rule almost whole of India when other kings like Shivaji, Pratap singh rana and brave rajputs always on your look out. It had in all 5 safety layers. The most interesting was a dark cave which was the only way to enter the fort. It seems the troops use to hide there and in case the enemy manages to cross all the earlier safety layers and reaches the dark cave, the troops hiding in the dark cave would attack them.

This is called the "Chand Minar". It was a sort of announcement point. This is one view from the top of the fort.

Great experience. Would be visiting this again in the rains. Should be more fun.

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