Vishalkhadi Trip

My first overnight trip with friends & colleagues! And as expected it wasn’t without it’s share of drama! 😉

I went home after office, all excited about the trip..making plans , packing.. but everything went down the lane as I got a message late at night saying — “Sleep well, trip has been cancelled.” Was seriously disappointed, but then since there was nothing else to do I slept. And here is where the sad part gets over!!
Early morning I woke up to the sound of someone banging on my room’s door! Turned out to be friend and colleague Krutika. Apparently the plans were remade and people were waiting for me to join them. Though a few friends pulled out of the plan, but nevertheless 8 of us still went B-) .

After an enjoyable ride we reached Vishal Khadi, a campsite situated on the way to Rajpipla-Netrang road, Gujarat. It is around 20 km away from Rajpipla. Our first reaction to the site was Wow! Surrounded by lush green forest areas of several forests, namely Karjan , Dediyapada & Dang, it also had a beautiful river valley. The campsite has cottages for the tourists visiting the area.

Our cottage & the open hut…where we spent almost half of the night .

First view of the Karjan river valley from our cottage! 🙂

The only downer was mosquitoes and torrid heat. But there was no stopping us! We started on our mission to find snakes!

Just the bunch of us, without any tour-guide to guide us the way, we explored the forest area ourselves. After playing around and taking pictures, it was time to head back to cottage. It was then we realized that none of us particularly remembered our way back to campsite. After a little inquiry with the locals, we got to know that fisherman’s boats keep coming to that part of the forest area. A little hike to the river, and some funny signals later we caught the attention of the boatman.

A small thatched roof hut we found while our unguided exploration of the jungle! 🙂

Then followed an hour of peaceful boating in the Karjan river, green valley surrounded us from all the sides. Watching sunset while lazing around in the boat was one the high points for me. The only thing I was missing at that moment was my sketchpad and watercolors..which I unfortunately forgot at my home.

Sunset captured by my friend and painted by me..

We came back to our campsite. The night time fun consisted of food, Garba practice, dumb-charades, antakshari & gossiping while sitting in one of the open huts in the camp.

The next day was even more fun, but that story I’ll keep for some other day… 🙂

Here is the link for the Eco-Campsite :- http://www.gujarattourism.com/destination/details/5/186