Kolhapur Calling...

Well, it was Friday, 18th July'08 eve and we 8 travel freaks were eagerly waiting for the clock to strike 5. The gang members were Rohan, Joel, Abhijeet, Sagar, Amit, Mithun, Nitin and myself. I and Joel decided to take our first love Maruti Zen; may be the second for Joel after marriage :) 60 hrs of real freak and excitement; impossible to forget!!! Let me take you all along to this bon voyage.

Friday eve...
We started from Joel anna's house sharp at 6'o clock. The zen from Thane wrapped in Sagar - the Goan crab, Mithun - walking tall from Kochi, Nitin - Hattigre's only hero and myself - solo king as known by buddies... Whereas the zen from Tamilnadu had Rohan - the heavy rock solid metal from Ichalkaranji, Amit - the next Manuel Uribe of Ichalkaranji, Abhijeet - Dombivli fast and Joel - our own rajni... Ohh!!! forgot Suja - Joel's first love; his wife... We had to drop her at her relatives place in Pune's Bhavani Peth. Then what! it was all open ground for us... We reached the Pune-Bangalore highway near Sinhgad road at 7'o clock after crawling through city's heavy traffic. And Sagar's episode of 'Bukh lagali re', 'kahi tari khayala dya' began... Both the vehicles gained speed and we started marching towards our much awaited destination... I was crusing at 100 kms/hr and after paying the first toll at Khed Shivapur, we realized that Joel and others have halted way back. We came back 3 kms and this is how we took our first halt in the journey at Hotel Nataraj at around 7:30 pm. Now something interesting... time to place orders; and somebody said 'idhar non-veg milta hain kya?' Sagar quickly prompted - 'Bar hain toh non-veg milega na...' A indication of what he desired... :) Phir kya? we all went upstairs in the bar. Amit, Mithun and Sagar had 2 bottles of beers; we all went for omlet-bread bcoz this is what the waiter said he would serve fast. After spending 40min in the bar feeding hungry stomachs, we came downstairs and met Ravindra - our Approvian fellow. He was travelling down to Mangalore. Time to grab the moment! so Sagar took his 3.2MP camera mobile phone and captured the moment! We all took our positions and vroooooooooommmmmmmmm began the journey... Then we decided directly to stop for dinner at Karad. Songs and full moon accompanied us. 4 lanes, with complete dividers; what more can you ask for? I was really enjoying night driving... Lot many toll booths but never mind paying for such good roads. Attention!!! Near Karad, we saw a accident that might have occured just few hours before... One huge container truck had turned turtle...Hope no one was critically injured! We had to take U turn and go from wrong side... Sudden 90% drop in the speed... I followed Joel's car for about 3 kms and finally we got onto our lane. We then reached Karad around 10:30pm and got down to have dinner at Pankaj Executive Hotel. Shit!!! the manchow soup that we ordered had maggie noodles in it; God knows how many days old? The green salad plate had every other thing like onions, lemons and green tomatos; what was missing is the 'GREEN' salad :( But as told by some one, when you are hungry even the stones can be eaten! We pushed something in and finally left that hotel around 11:45pm. By the way, this hotel was suggested by Amit. Wonder what he liked here before! Here followed few censored words for Amit... @!#^, $*@!#@, :) hah hah!!!
Again, got into the cars and drove continuously without halt and atlast reached Hattigre, Nitin's home town, a small village near Kolhapur.The time is 1:30am. The house was locked for past 1.5 months. Nitin quickly cleaned the room and corners and made the sleeping arrangements for all. Good night eveyone!!!

Saturday at its best...
The day begins at 8. We all decided to visit Mahalaxmi temple and Panhala. But Sagar again!!! 'Bukh lagali re',... So after nature's call we went to place called Shiroli phata (7kms from Nitin's place) to have our breakfast. Anna and Abhi enjoyed the sabudana wada, Mithunda had 2 plates of wada sambar, rest all enjoyed cold poha :) Then we came back, had our baths and at 12:00pm went to visit the temple. It was 40 mins drive from Nitin's house. We took the darshan and then decided to have lunch. Amit insisted to go to Tandoor hotel

Sunday, homecoming...

To view our dazling scenes visit http://picasaweb.google.com/karuneshohol/KolhapurIchalkaranjiTrip

Trip to Lonava - Family outing

To see our photos, you see as http://picasaweb.google.com/sujajoel/LonavalaWithJoeAndPastorFly
We as group below:

• Joe & Family: Joe Duthie, Rhoda Duthie, Jerorna & Shekina
• Rev. Selvin & Family: Rev. Selvin, Lovely & Aron
• Joel & Family: Joel & Suja

Planned for a weekend trip for a long time. Unfortunately it gets postponed a day or two before travel. Finally decided to go to Lonavala :). Thought of leaving by 8:00 am atleast. Oh, there was one drop out. Opps, there was planned a rescue program to get the family on board. Yes, another emergency plan was created. We had pot-luck lunch at my home and Suja prepared Gulab-Jamun and Lovely Akka prepared Lolly-Pops (Chicken), were the highlights. We went by old Bomby-Pune highway covered with green meadows everywhere. Such a beautiful appearance... with some waterfalls here and there.

We had the wakly-talky with us, which help us to co-ordinate very well as we were are on two cars. Rev. Selvin started driving my car and his car was driven by Joe. Final after some confusions we reach Lonava Bushi dam. It was very pleasant weather with some showever. We all climbed up and walked thorugh chill stream, a nice eperience. Me & Suja shared some romantic moments :).

We all enjoyed being together as group and able share our thoughts and beautiful moments.

We left Lonavala around 7:00 PM and there you as usual, we did not have clear vision of the road because of clouds. The headlights of my car was horribly dim, that Rev. Selvin could not drive, but he managed it very well and did a good job of driving as back to home.

Then we bought some layered parotta and meat, cooked some noodles and enjoyed dinner at my residence. Rev. Selvin dropped Joe' family.

We all were tired, went to good sleep and the next day begins... with good smile and little pain here & there/