Lohgarh.. The iron fort

"The adrenaline and stress of an adventure are better than a thousand peaceful days" said Paulo Coelho. Now I know why he might have said so. And yes travelling may not always be pleasant and comfortable, sometimes it may hurt you and leave you broken and tired. But still I have no regrets. It was my decision to go solo and so I did it too and I did it well. I discovered myself more than ever I did. It turned me more independent. It taught me to be smart and selective in particular decision. Which shortcut has to be taken and which path has to be chosen. That's what we have to learn to do in our lives. Travelling simulates life journey. Yes it does. 

So after giving a lot of thought, I chose lohgarh as my solo trek destination.. As it is pretty easy trek so can be dared to make it solo. But it's easy when you have company and you go the base of fort with some sort of vehicle. What I did is I went all the way including way to base village, ascend, descend, and back from base village to malvali station on my foot. If you are willing to visit to lohgarh and that from pune too then the best way is you catch a local from pune station which is available at frequency of an hour almost. Better you catch early morning local. Sooner you reach fort base, lesser you will be torment of sun. In my case I was much late. I caught 11:20 am local from shivaji nagar station and descended at malvali station just one station before lonavala at around 12:20 pm. I began to walk and luckily got lift up to bhaja village. Bhaja village to lohgarh fort base is 1:30 hour walk ( 7 km, constant speed with no halt.) 
If you got vehicle then lucky you are. Since road till the fort base is very well maintained. Reach malvali village by old pune mumbai highway and then there you can find left turn for bhaja village and further to fort base. You can help yourself with breakfast or anything you need as there is market kind of thing set up at the fort base. Fort base to summit is easiest thing, staircase will help you all the way from base to summit. (Around 500 in numbers).

Pointed end that's the vinchu kada of fort.Imagine the distance

View from the top is always be like"worth it"

First dazzling thing one could notice is the doors of forts which are all standstill with no sign of fatigue. (Ganesh darvaja, narayan darvaja, hanuman darvaja). One will find variety of beauty from upside the fort. Mahadeo temple, hatti talav(also called 16 koni talav as there are 16 angles formed inside the structure) and the best thing that caught my eye is the vinchu kada.( As it has shape of scorpion sting so called vinchu kada). Don't dare to bend down from up there and try to measure the depth, since you cannot do so.. 😋

Thats vinchu kada for you

I was done with sightseeing till 3:30 pm. Later my plan was to visit visapur fort as well which is standing next to lohgarh fort which I didn't go for since I had time constraint. If you wish to visit bother fort at once then you better be there early morning and have your own vehicle to reach base.(on foot its exhausting.) 

Bhaja caves and Karla caves are other enticements nearby that you can go for. I took 5:30 pm local from malvali and got back to the same world I belong to. But as it is said that traveling changes something and that changes everything... ;).