Yesterday, we finally got out of Bombay and went hiking in the hills in the surrounding area. We've been in Bombay for nearly a year now, and up until now have never been outside of the city proper except for flights -- an unacceptable situation we had to remedy with a day trip to go hiking in the Sahyadris. (For those getting vertigo at the length of this post: full set of Khandala photos on Flickr here.)
Just inland from Bombay is the mountain range known as the Sahyadris -- they extend in various form, as the Western Ghats, down almost to the southern-most tip of India. They are an area of extreme biodiversity, and have a great deal of human history as well -- there are massive ancient Maratha forts and Hindu temples on top of many peaks -- and are filled with endless hiking possibilities. Unbelievably, all of this is just a two and a half hour train ride or drive away from Bombay -- closer than going to Lake Tahoe from San Francisco! I had heard people talk about the Sahyadris, but had not experienced until now how accessible this beautiful area is from the city.
We got up at 5:30am to catch a 7:20 train from Dadar, the main railway hub in Bombay, which is a short train ride from our place in Bandra. As we have become accustomed to living in India with only rudimentary Hindi, there were the usual challenges: it was nearly impossible to figure out which 40 person line to stand in to get tickets and after gambling on the most promising line, when we reached the front, the man at the counter decided it was time for a tea break and closed it in our faces.
As is also typical in India, however, frustrations like this are often accompanied by unexpected good fortune -- some guys at the front of the next line beckoned us over to cut in front of them and we were able to get tickets easily. Also: cost of a 2.5 hour train ride? 40 rupees (less than $1). Not bad. So after a mad scramble to get on the train after much confusion about where the unreserved seating ticket-holders should wait, we found ourselves with a view out the window as the train pulled away from busy Bombay through the outer suburbs, and eventually into the mountains.
The train route that leads through the Sahyadris ends up in Pune, the closest major inland city to Bombay, but on the way, it winds through many mountain passes and rugged forested hills, through train tunnels, and past many towns that are weekend getaways for many Bombay and Pune residents. During the monsoon (July-Sept), the views are especially gorgeous as the hills are lush and green, and waterfalls pour from the cliffs -- I must have seen a dozen spectacular falls just from the train, and I was dozing off half the time! (We DID get up at 5:30...)
We got off in Khandala, just past Karjat and before Lonavla. It's a small town, with a few restaurants and shops along the main road, and hotels, B&Bs, and weekend houses stretching up the forested hills. We were planning on hiking to a peak known as the Duke's Nose (as the British called it, after the Duke of Wellington's apparently prominent feature) -- or to the locals as Nagphani -- the Cobra's Hood. I like Nagphani better.
In classic India fashion, there are no signs, dedicated hiking trails, or designated hiking areas. You're hiking through somewhat populated rural areas, cutting through people's fields, following abandoned roads and overgrown trails, occasionally walking through a village. We had a bit of instruction in our guidebook (follow abandoned railway track to top of hill, look for three paths, take the middle one, head vaguely right through the fields, look for the big hill, and climb it), but hiking in the Sahyadris turned out to be just like navigating Bombay: you ask 15 people where to go, and though you are confused the whole time, eventually you reach wherever you're trying to go. Except here, most people spoke Marathi only, so our Hindi was out for communication - it was just English and pantomiming.
The hills were gorgeous -- jungly mountains rising up everywhere, bird calls, mist rising up and obscuring/revealing views across the valleys. It reminded us a bit of hiking in Hawaii, with the mild humidity and wet weather and jungle terrain. It rained on and off through the day, but mostly was misty -- we carried an umbrella for the occasional 5-minute downpour.
We reached the summit of Nagphani after just 2.5 hours of hiking and route-finding, and enjoyed our PB&Js on top, along with a group of guys from Pune, and two local kids whose friends had offered us a ride in their truck as we passed through their village. Nagphani is a minor peak, really a giant hill (says the spoiled west coaster), but it has great views of the surrounding mountains and valleys, and some serious exposure -- three sides of the mountain drop away in sheer cliffs almost to the valley floor.
As we headed down, it started pouring rain and we tried to balance on the steep, eroded path -- which was already turning into a bit of a river -- both trying to fit under one small umbrella. Our pants, which were already muddy and wet by this point, quickly became soaked. Cotton pants are not ideal hiking wear, but shorts - especially on women - don't go over too well in rural India. Luckily, the rain stopped after a minute or two, and we were blessed with no rain for the rest of the return trip, so we dried out pretty well.
Beth and I were mentioning to each other yesterday how whenever you do anything in India, you don't really get to determine when the experience is over. India always has the last laugh. Even when you're just walking to the store, you never know when your plan might get derailed (you step in a foot-deep mud puddle, a street performer with a whip won't leave you alone, there are three buses trying to turn around in your residential street, etc.). This trip was no exception -- we got back to Khandala exhausted but with no difficulties, got our return tickets, and waited for the train, which was on time, but somehow things just seemed a little too...easy.
Of course, what India had in store for us this time was that the train back to Bombay was rush hour packed full of people. And rush hour on Bombay trains means mosh pit, means cattle car, means take every passenger on a BART train and cram them all into one car. Bombay trains are LEGENDARILY crowded, and this Sunday evening train coming into Bombay from the weekender's paradise was no exception. Of course, it was our own fault, since we got the 40 rupee unreserved class seating, but we didn't know we had an option until we were standing at the track in the morning watching the other train cars go by.
So, after 5-6 hours of hard hiking through jungle, rough trails, streams, and up a mountain, we now had to push our way into a train car and stand up for the ride home. I ended up in the aisle, with people pressed up directly against my body on every side. Beth reached a wall, so she had a little space on one side. And there we stood. What really took this scene from the ridiculous to the sublime was that an endless stream of chai vendors and candy/guidebook/food sellers continued to ply their trade in the train cars as usual -- picture a guy calling out "chai...chai...chai" in a nasal monotone, lugging a giant silver pot of tea over his shoulder, and arduously pushing himself down the aisle through a sea of shoulder-to-shoulder standing people.
I was thinking, "Why in the name of God would these guys torture themselves by continuing to try to push through this train car, and who on earth would inconvenience everybody else by stopping one of these guys to actually buy a guidebook?" Apparently, everyone else was thinking, "Hey, nice guidebook!" Because as crazy as it seemed to me, people would regularly flag down one of these vendors -- forcing the nearest ten people to shift over to let the vendor put down his tea pot, or hand over one of the guidebooks, or reach in his bag for more candy.
Was there outrage and frustration? No. Was there even the appearance of inconvenience? Only minorly, if someone's toes got stepped on. But no one had any qualms about the right of these guys to continue plowing through the train car, or the right of anyone else to order whatever they wanted. Everyone was in totally good spirits, chatting away. One guy had cranked up some Bollywood tunes on his cell phone's speaker so that everyone in the train could hear, and everyone seemed to be enjoying that, despite the fact that if he were in the States, he would have been tackled in about three minutes by an angry mob. Since I had no say in the matter, I decided to just stand there and enjoy it all too. I would have ordered some chai too, if I could have raised my arm.
The corollary to the "India always gets the last laugh" rule is that just when you've accepted that the worst has happened and you had better get used to it, fortune smiles upon you and things miraculously improve. Most of the train cleared out when we hit one of the farthest suburbs of Bombay, and so after an hour of standing, Beth and I actually got seats, and I even took a much-needed nap. When we got back home, unpacked, stretched out, took a shower, and petted our cats, our apartment and whole surrounding neighborhood in Bombay seemed so easy. We know where to buy everything, how to get places, how to speak to people (in Hindi). And it was at that point that it struck me that we must have really come a long way from home if we're thankful for the familiarity and order of a 16+ million person developing world megacity...
in India, you don't really get to determine when the experience is over...
I loved this! thanks for sharing your adventure. looks like fun
Posted by: MarsViolet | 08/14/2007 at 05:34 AM
What a great story! I really felt like I was there with you, with all of your delicious detail and imagery.. I'm going to rush to starbucks and buy a chai :)
Posted by: Lydia | 11/02/2007 at 07:34 PM
Hi Chris, Beth,
I was just idly browsing your blog (after googling for apartments in Mumbai and Khandala) and loved it.
We are in Berkeley, looking to move to Mumbai by the end of the year, and your blog makes me feel so much better about the prospect :)
--sriram
Posted by: sriram | 08/02/2009 at 11:04 PM