A TRIP TO VASAI FORT AND BEACH

Date: 5th August 2007



Continuing with the Monsoon adventure in and around Vasai, I decided to explore the West side. I had explored little bit of the Eastern side, Tungareshwar and Chinchoti Waterfalls namely. I had venture alone that time around. This time Srinivas Rao joined me. He stayed at his friend’s place on Saturday night itself. We were to meet on Sunday morning in Vasai.

On Sunday I reached Dombivli Station by 5:20 a.m. The train was some 4-5 minutes late. This time also I was lucky to get a window seat. However there were no rains lashing out on the window this time. I reached Vasai Road Railway station by 6:40 a.m. Srini told me to come to his friend’s place viz, Maitree Park. The fare from the station was 14 Rs. Srini was standing out side the building and led me to his friend Hemant’s flat. His youngest brother, Sumant was getting ready to leave for a trip to Vaishnodevi and Kashmir along with his friends. He left before us. Hemant’s mother packed Idli and Chutney for us. We kept the same in the bag and left for the Vasai Road Bus stand. We took an auto up to Bus stand and reached the Stand by 7:40 a.m. Along with the fisher-folk we boarded the near-empty bus. I read in a blog that the fare was 7 Rs for the Bus trip, but found out it to be 5 Rs. We reached the last stop by 8:10 a.m. After getting down we walked towards the west side. What we thought as the fort entrance might be the Chor Darwaza that Professor K Ghanekar describes in his Book on Sea forts.

Somebody told us we were in the wrong side and the fort was on the other side. We started walking back. We found an old church just beside the walls of the fortress. We took snaps from inside and outside the church & then moved towards the right-side entrance. Due to the rains and the dense vegetation the place wore a scenic look. We got out of the church & started walking towards another structure to the left side of the road. There was dense vegetation here too. A narrow path going to the opposite direction looked very serene. However we did not venture through it.

There were two temples on the opposite side of this structure. One was of Vajreshwari Devi (not to be confused with the one having hot water springs) and the other of Lord Shiva called Nageshwar Mandir. We visited the Vajreshwari Devi Mandir first. The Priest there was getting ready to perform ‘Aarti’ Govind, for that was the priest’s name allowed us to take snaps of the goddess. He told us about how Chimaji Appa, the Maratha warrior had installed an idol of the goddess at this very place. He had the good fortune of seeing Devi. He was victorious in the battle against Portuguese. Govind also informed us that the Vajreshwari Devi temple (the one with the hot water springs) can be accessed from both the fort as well as Vasai Road Bus Depot. It was some 50 kms from Vasai Road. He advised us to cover Vajreshwari on another day & spend the day exploring the fort. We offered our prayers to the goddess and made our way to the Nageshwar Mandir. After having Darshan of Lord Shiva we asked the priest if we could have the breakfast comprising of Idli, Roti & Chutney, somewhere nearby. He told us that we could have breakfast inside the temple itself. It was a wonderful experience.

While we were having breakfast the priest had started decorating the Shiv-ling. We had just finished the breakfast when the priest called Srini to take snaps of the decorated Shiv-ling. We went inside the chamber and took some close-up shots. We then took leave of the priest and moved towards the East side. We came across a structure which resembled a church to the north side. We couldn’t go inside as there was too much water accumulated inside. We came back to the main road and started walking in the east direction. The road split in to two and we saw an open area which had swings and see-saws provided for entertainment of children. We took some snaps of the birds which were flying high and low. We returned back to the main road and took the road to the left side. Srini began chasing butterflies to catch them in his professional camera. The butterflies were giving Srini a tough time. While he was engrossed in his mad chase and I was observing the landscape we did not notice that the priest of the Nageshwar Temple was coming towards us. He briefed us about some more structures which could be explored if we continued with the road we were already on. He told there was a ‘Moochwala Hanuman’ Temple after entering the Darwaaza of the fort. Also there was a watch tower just near the Temple. He told us he would have shown us around the place if it was season, meaning summer. This being rainy due to the water-logging and dense vegetation we were likely to miss out on tunnels and structures. He asked us to come again in summer when he could show us the area. We bade him good bye and started our walk towards the opposite side. After walking for some 10-15 minutes we reached what might be a Jetty. There we saw a Darwaaza to the right side of the jetty. After passing the Darwaaza we saw the ‘Moochwala Hanuman’ temple. Just behind the temple on the left side of the path was the watch tower that the priest was referring to. We climbed the steps leading to the watch tower with the same enthusiasm as of children who had discovered an interesting playground. On reaching the top of the watch tower we found it to be a wider than normal watch towers. With a mild breeze flowing and rains not there we spent some time watching the sea front. We got down and moved along the coast. We found another huge structure which might be a church. After exploring it from inside, we moved towards the west side. There some people who had come to wash clothes cautioned us saying that there was knee-deep water ahead and we should take another route.

We took the other route and found ourselves back at the same church like structure we had first sighted. So we had indeed come full circle. We made our way back to the spot from where we had got down from the Bus. We had plans to cover the beach also as I had heard that the beach had a wonderful lining of cypress trees (also called as Suruchi Baag’ in local lingo) near it. It was around 1:30 p.m. when we started for the beach. We took the same route we had mistaken for the road leading to the fort earlier and then took the narrow road to the right. One can take a rickshaw from the fort to Naka and then another one to the beach. We however decided to walk. We enjoyed the walk. The stench of the waste dump ground is misleading however. We first reached Koli waada. From there we got to the Main road. Here somebody told us to look for Janki Talkies, from where we had to take a gully going to the left. After passing through the straight road then we took the road leading to the right. There was new construction going on. And we could see the cypress trees from the road. We reached the beach by 2:40 p.m. Srini had not traveled by the push-n-pull train. So, I had planned of returning back along-with him by the 3:25 Train from Vasai Road Station. However it was not possible now.

We relaxed a bit. A nice crowd was already there. A bunch of youngsters were enjoying themselves. They had found a fallen tree to play around with. They were standing on it and the others would shake the tree vigorously. It was their idea of fun. I walked along the beach to have my sort of fun.

Suddenly it started raining & we decided to scurry back home. The main reason that we needed to protect the cameras from getting drenched or else all our efforts would have gone in vain. On reaching the rickshaw stand we were glad to find that the rains had subdued. We took a rickshaw up to Vasai Road Railway station. The fare was 40 Rs. Srini got down near his friend’s place. I reached the station by 4:00 p.m. As the Push-n-pull had already left I had no other option but to take the longer route. So I purchased a ticket up to Dadar, as I had pass from Dadar to Dombivli. It was 7:00 p.m. when I found myself standing in front of my flat.