“Starry Starry Night, picturesque and heavenly ways,
Look up for a shooting star by laying on a mat with an unadulterated gaze,
Leave out all the luxury with the last travelling car,
It’s faraway from the city maze but having so much left just to amaze.”
If Bhandardara had to be explained in a few lines, this would be it!
Travel was and never has been about luxury for me, the simple task of exploring new places by just picking up a bag filled with necessities coupled with exuberance and spark is what travel is all about!
Ask me to come on a luxurious trip and I’ll crib about the money being simply spent when I know it can happen for lesser than many think it can be.
A haystack or simply just a mat looks more of a bed away from home than the comfort of a bed I can easily receive at home!
A little off the usual route, Bhandardara is the perfect place to go for an overnight trek over the weekend.
The Land Out There organises weekend getaways from the crowded city of Mumbai and that’s when I grabbed the opportunity to see and do something different rather than rest in the luxurious confines of my neighbourhood.
Having meals under trees for shade, soup and noodles cooked on a campfire, no luxurious toilets, but the trees and bushes, experience outdoors from the most basic level and finally star gazing while resting on a mat, eyes looking intently in the night sky to spot at least one shooting star!
Interacting with people from different places sharing the same love for travel, eating around the campfire to escape the biting cold, sleeping underneath the inky blue sky with only a blanket over us and finally immersing ourselves into the stories of backpacking all over the country from Ladakh in the North to Andaman in the seas!
It was much more than we had asked for in nothing more than a thousand rupees!
That is truly the essence of travel which I have been looking to dive into for a long time!
“Cover the Earth, before it covers you.”
– The Land Out There
SkinnySportyTraveller 