This is the third and last post of the Vashishti river tour. Day 1 – Mumbai to Chiplun and Day 2 – Along the Vashishti River were splendid. If you haven’t been through follow the link and have a look at them.

Day 1 – Ride to Chiplun  Day 2 – Along the river Day 3 – You are here..

Since my primary objective of the trip i.e. touring the Vashishti from source to the confluence was achieved, all I had to today was the homecoming. But it wasn’t going to be plain and straight. I left the town of Dapoli early morning and rode to Fort Goa or Suvarnadurga Fort followed by Mandangad, Mangaon and finally Mumbai.

26  June 2017 – Day 3

Left the hotel early morning. It was raining like hell. Konkan rains are quite heavy. Huge perpendicular raindrop is what you get 🙂

Following the coastal route reached Goa Fort near Harnai beach. Goa fort along with Suvarnadurga fort and Fattegad fort had a significant place in Chhatrapati Shivaji’s naval force.

As marked in the image below, Suvarnadurga Fort is at some distance in the sea quite visible from Goa killa and is accessible by boat during low tides.

The fort was in a bad shape. All that was left were a few walls on the fort perimeter.  Courtyard of the fort had some date trees. Couple of rooms on the ground floor were dirty and possibly used as trash rooms by drunkards.

Climbed few stairs to reach the fort wall. It was a nice sight of Suvarnadurga fort and Harnai-Paj beach from there. Couldn’t take much photos due to rain.

There isn’t any option to stay in the Bazar Mohalla (village next to fort), nearest best suitable option for hotels is in Dapoli some 16 km from the fort.

Just 4 km from Anjarle beach the road was broken and rains were quite heavy, so we skipped Anjarle and continued towards Mandangad.

Some pics from the way back home.

Churning from the trip

Rivers in India invites great reverence irrespective of its size.

It pains when I hear people calling rivers as a resource.

This is not our culture. We have seen each and every water body as a giver and this is the reason we refer rivers as Mother.

Resources are bound to subjugation and exploitation.  Can we link these words with the mother? Obviously not.

We have never seen rivers as something to exploit. I wish god give some sense to government officers when they prepare report and mention river as a resource next time.

But it’s not only their fault. In spite of considering the river as sacred, we have left no attempt at poisoning her.

The scene is, we can use the Ganga water to purify the house and purify the soul of dead but cannot think of drinking while being alive 😀

Issue is serious but it can’t be ignored anymore. The tiniest contribution we can make is creating awareness. Let as many people know that our future is not safe with the kind of development we are following and the time has come to think of a better and sustainable option.

Day 1 – Ride to Chiplun  Day 2 – Along the river Day 3 – You are here..

Reverence to Vashishti and may it keep sustaining the good humans for ages.

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