Asherigadh Trek

Wouldn't have blogged this normally since it's a fairly sedate out-of-town trip... if it hadn't been for a wailing, lamentatious, teeth-gnashing post of someone (be warned, pitiful misadventurer!) who attempted to do the same thing. While he nobly suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, technologically challenged passengers and Indian roads, I was sitting in the back seat of a Mahindra, doing eighty and eating potholes with nary a whisper, between two pretty women while a cigarette would be passed to me regularly from the front seat.

In fact, now that I think about it, we almost ran one poor guy on a bike off the road at one point...

The trek

Hot muggy jungle with rapicious mosquitoes, but R had industrial-strength Odomos. A preferred to wear foliage earmuffs, saying it was as effective.

Madhav the guide gazing in amused contentment at the antics of these crazy city slickers.

Contentment? Hey I got some of that too!

A novel new method of air-conditioning; soak your cap at every available opportunity.

An image that is a classic representation of a Maharashtrian summer trek in its' essence.

A local rural deity. Note the sun, the moon, and the panther.

Why panther? Because there's an active one in this area. Note the Panther Poop.

Also snakeskin.

R overawed with her first trek's vistas, going snaphappy with cam.

Me coming up the only difficult part of the trek - a narrow rock-chimney thingie.

R capturing me doing the same. I will need all this when they do my photobiography and take the publishing world by storm.

Cactus (Eriosyce napina) on a cliff. Batcactus (Myotis napina). The Adam West of Cactii. (Adamwestus napina)

Cave on the top of the hill complete with flag. Looks more like a bunker. Or the entrance to some top-secret underground lair.

The joy of cool dark quiet shade

Want cool? Check this out! Lake!

And what do you do when you find a lake on a hot dry sunny trek...?

Scenes from a rural India

Chalo... peaceful recovery trek.

R nearly collapsed with thirst on the way down, and discovered a full bottle of water she had dutifully carried up and again down the mountain, having forgotten it in her bag.

Y carried swimming trunks and bathed at the top, changed, and found another stream and bathed again in his underwear. Dunno what he wore on the way back.

Tea and missal pao at roadside hotel. AWFUL traffic getting back into Bombay, with roads full of suicidal frustrated-looking bikers.

Back home.

Happy ending.

Good night.

See the slideshow here