The Satara City Adventure

Good day ladies and gentleman I proudly present the satara city adventure.

On Monday this week Abhishek asked us (Anton, Alex and me) if we would like to join him on a crab and rabbit hunting trip close to Satara City. For Anton and me this offer came just at the right time: Lectures are cancelled due to placements going on in the college and hence loads of lectures are cancelled. The schedule was to leave Pune by 5 PM bus on Monday and return by somewhat 8 AM on Tuesday morning. So we would not miss any lectures even if they’d take place.

Anton and I reached the city on Monday 20 minutes to 6. Then we took a rickshaw to Katraj Dairy in the southern part of Pune. There this trip started. I headed towards Satara city as pillion rider whilst Anton had the comfort of a Land Rover. The journey was interrupted more than once for several reason. Just 5 minutes after departure the bike I was sitting on was running out of fuel. The driver dragged the bike to the next fuel station which was fortunately only 700 meters away. Here I bought some India travel basic necessities: biscuits and chips. Another interruption was when Abhisheks bike broke down short before Satara city. The engine of the bike suddenly stopped and the guys were not able to make it running again. This is why Abhishek dragged the bike to the next hotel – Hotel Mahendra Executive. Due to these interruptions our departure in Satara city was not as planned at 7 PM (haha who planned that?) but at 11.15 PM.

We had nice dinner in the hotel (for me Chicken Hakka Noodles) and discussed further plans afterwards. It took us another 45 minutes to arrange transport to another hotel outside of Satara – Nivan Hill Resort – because there are not many rickshaws at night. We reached there at somewhat 2 AM in the morning. The plan was to wake up at 5 AM and go for some rabbit hunting. I slept very well and woke up first time at 7 AM but nobody was awake at this time. So I decided to close the eyes again and have another  rest for an hour or two. A voice waked me smoothly at 8:30 and said that a bus leaves to the Plateau of Flowers which is somewhere near. Unfortunately we missed the bus. Another option was a rickshaw but there was only one coming down hill and this did not suit for 7 people. Right I was a bit pissed and so decided to have breakfast. The bus to the Plateau of Flowers at 11 didn’t come.

People decided to repair the motorcycle and organise a fourth motorcycle to have transport for everyone. Finally the transport was organised at 2 PM. How we used the time between 11 – erm actually between 8:30 – and 2 PM? I ordered more and more food, had some naan, cheese-veg sandwich, sweet lassi and more nice things. Prabha and Shreya motivated us to do a photo shooting in front of the picturesque landscape which was visible from hotels veranda. I also learned System Programming for about 45 minutes.

Once the transport was arranged we headed towards a lake called Kaas. The water/weather was everything else but inviting for a swim: It was raining, cloudy and not even warm. Abhishek and Prabha used the chance to have a swim in the lake. Afterwards we had hot chai to reheat our extremeties. I allowed myself a corn on cob before heading towards Satara city again. Once in Satara city it was to decide how to get back to Pune because one motorcycle had to stay in Satara. Hence there were 7 people who needed transport but only six seats on three motorcycles.

The solution was Anton and me boarding the bus whilst the others were going with their bikes. I reached Pune city shortly past 9 PM in the evening. Anton and I tried to negotiate a price for a Rickshaw back to the hostel and agreed for 1.5 of the price of the meter. Even though the rickshaw driver has seen the address on my college ID card he drove in the wrong direction. Hoping that my mobile battery will last I showed him a map of our destination. Finally he turned around and drove in the right direction. Another problem turned up when we reached the Pashan circle: The headlight of our rickshaw striked. Our rickshaw driver organised another rickshaw and negotiated a price with the other driver. We ended up at totally 800 rupee when reaching the hostel.

I haven’t counted the minutes we were waiting on the trip but it was not hard to count the minutes we actually enjoyed. Lets say there were 30 minutes enjoying the view from the veranda and another 30 minutes at the lake drinking chai and having corn on cob. To sum up, the trip was from 5 PM on Monday to 11:30 PM on Tuesday which makes a total time wasted of 1830 minutes minus 60 minutes of joy and 390 minutes of sleep.

I think we just go for the yellow bus we had for the Malshej trip next time to not freeze during the journey. And so enjoy the rest of it even more :-)

Enjoy the pics!

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