By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
It all started one fine day when after having heard and read about stories on ‘Solo travels’, I decided to hit on one may be just for the heck of it. And after too much of contemplation, hesitation, deliberation and many other ‘tions, I ended up with this place, after all it does call for a toast when you are adding another year of life onto your calendar. Here I was for the toast on turning an year older, three years back. Situated in Pune, near the borders of Thane and Ahmednagar Malshej Ghat – a mountain pass in the Western Ghats range. A very rare combination of brown, green and blue of course. The idea was to spend my birthday in Shirdi, my evergreen favourite place to hang out and then may be hop around a little. What more could you ask for than the coolest darshan and a treat to almost 1000 people together at the Bhojanalay. Felt like they had all come down just to celebrate my birthday. It was the very next day, that I visited the Malshej – a great beginning to the year that went by. I got ready and rushed to the bus station to see if there is a bus that can take me to Malshej. Few local people suggested that I either take a bus to Pune or Thane which might make it easier to reach the place I was actually routing for. And the next thing I knew was that I was on this bus that goes from Shirdi to Nashik, with no clue whatsoever of how I was to reach Malshej. But I guess sometimes you got to ditch safe and sorted plans to see exactly what life has in store for you. The ride was nothing less than awesome. Probably the best way to enjoy the route from Shirdi to Nashik next to foot, was the public transport bus that was carrying us. After a while, which looked like it lasted just for couple of seconds, I realised I was actually at the Nashik bus depot. The people around at the bus depot looked a lot friendlier and knowledgeable. So I when I went around asking about Malshej, everyone had the same response – ‘you should have gone to PUNE instead….vedi mulgi (crazy woman)’. Suited me right. So, without wasting another minute there, I got onto the bus going to Pune. While I was having lunch at this place in Pune, I happened to notice that the street was filled with shops that offer travels to places around Pune. It took me a while to convince one of the owners that I just wanted to visit Malshej and get back to Shirdi and it had got nothing to elope with a guy, commit suicide because of a love failure, do weed / dope. My parents never asked me so many questions. Must say, the way up there was not that easy. And to top it there were no other visitors, cars, vehicles on the way, which made it even more weird for the driver to get on with it. But I decided to face it with all my gut and courage and asked him not to worry. For a while, his weirdness had managed to intimidate me. Or probably my queerness had managed to scare him. Whatever. Then came a whiff of fresh air (fresh air mixed with the aroma of Maggie and Corn). The Maggie and corn reminds me of the stall holder Kasiram who said that it was off season then (month of March) and that the peak season is when the monsoons start settling in (Jul). During the monsoons, he said that there will be about 30 – 40 stalls along the path and the business goes booming. He said it felt strange as he had never witnessed people other than locals visiting during off season. Apparently, corn is their major local produce around areas there. I somehow feel that we have devices to capture moments into photographs and videos but the experience stays with us, uncultured by any device. Can’t say the same will remain forever, thanks to Captains like Zuckerberg, Cook and Pichai.