Karla - Where Stones Tell Stories

Once, at 1 a.m., I searched YouTube for “was ancient India more advanced?” Ever since my YouTube recommendations have been a mess: mysteries, civilizations, battles, spiritual powers, archeology, physics, chemistry, aliens, and UFO, it was really strange to see this amount of recommendations. I went into a deep dark forest where I found a video, “Kailasa temple was built by aliens?”. Yes, I’m already trapped and watched the video, which did not tell me that aliens built it or not, but there were so many mysteries around the temple that made me curious to watch more videos. I shared a few of them in our WhatsApp travel group and finally ended up with a trip to Ajanta and Ellora caves.

Itinerary:
Day-1: Pune & Rajmachi Garden
Day-2: Lohagad Fort & Karla Caves
Day-3: Ajanta Caves (Covered in Part 2)
Day-4: Ellora Caves (Covered in Part 2)

Embarking our journey from Bengaluru and one from Hyderabad with a total of 5 people on board to Pune. After 24 hours of the lengthy expedition on the bus, we all reached the sprawling city Pune around 02:30 p.m. as planned. It has been a long time since I have been on a trip with my school friends, nothing could have been happier than this. Pune was just our gathering point and we had half a day to explore.

For an evening hangout, Rajmachi Garden sounded like a perfect spot and it wasn’t far away from our hotel. This place attracts a huge crowd especially in the evening because it’s on the Mumbai-Pune Highway without any entry fee or parking fee and quite an amazing view of Khandala ghat. We knew we were in an unfavorable season, but it wasn't a bad view at all. Immediately after visiting this garden, we walk down 100 meters to view eye-pleasing sunset from the sunset point. We had some hot pakora with tea and returned to the hotel.

Rajmachi Garden

The Real Journey of stones starts!

The next morning, we booked a cab to Lohagad Fort. Trekking in the middle of the day under the hot sun was less fortunate but enthusiastic enough to climb it. Monkeys greeted us as soon as we stepped into the fort. Most of the fort approached has stairs so it was not much like a trek. The Lohagad Fort is also known as the Iron Fort was built in the 12th century with a long ancestry and the great king Shivaji used this fort to keep his treasure. This fort was under Bahamanis, Chalukyas, Marathas, Mughals, Nizams, Rashtrakutas, Satavahanas, and Yadavas, it’s never-ending, better I’ll not talk about Lohagad history. After going through all the 4 main doors of the fort, we finally reached the top. Along with its rich history, it has awe-inspiring views of the Western Ghats which was quite a treat for us.

Lohagad Fort

Before heading towards Karla Caves, It was lunchtime and we were as hungry as wolves. So first we had a proper Maharashtrian lunch and brought some flavored milk drinks on the way to restore our energy. It’s a 10 km distance from Lohagad to Karla, covering the most delightful Western Ghats.

When we reached Karla caves, it was 04:00 p.m and we had a complete 3 hours to explore. At the main entrance of the cave, there is an Ekvira Devi temple which attracts a lot of devotees. Beliefs say that this temple was built in one night by Pandavas in their exile period. The temple is way older than the caves. Karla caves were built in the 5th century in a small town called Karli. The series of pillars at the entrance gave us the grand welcome, all of a sudden felt like a Hollywood movie. There is a Stupa (hemispherical structure) inside the cave, a place used by Buddhist monks for praying and meditating. It has multiple floors where we climbed using the curved stairs, the upper levels were having small rooms with windows, completely curved in the stones.