Nandgiri is about 25km from Satara via Koregaon. Once you reach the foothill, you won't even feel that you are close to such a beautiful spot. There's just a small village at the bottom and no signboard saying that THIS is Kalyangad. The place, anyways doesn't even look like a fort.
It takes you around 40minutes to reach the top. The path is is a very easy one with a very few spots where you actually need to use your hands for support. There are very small shrubs at the lower section but as you go up, the density of vegetation increases. The elevation also goes on increasing as you move up. However, climbing Sinhgad is much more exciting and challenging than Kalyangad. But trekking is not the reason why people visit this fort.
On the way up, you come across a cave where you'll find some very old stone pillars. People say that there is an underground pass that starts from the cave at top and opens up here and it is always filled with water which never dries up completely. This path was used as an emergency exit in old days. The cave can be seen in this photo.
Once you reach the top, you see a small hut where the Pujaris stay all day. And from there begins the most important part of the journey. A staircase leads you a few feet down into the hill and then into the main cave, outside which there are huge bee hives to welcome you. It is so dark in the cave and it looks so dangerous, that you will never ever think of entering it without a torch, more so when you have been told by others that there are deep trenches within the cave and you may fall off, never to come back. And as luck would have it, we were 8 people with only a single small torch. We made a chain and descended into the cave, the guy at front giving us instructions. Luckily, some good people have built railings(about which I dint know) in the cave keeping in mind the danger that the trenches possess. One important point missed is that this cave is always filled with water. It was knee deep that day, many times its waist-deep. This makes the experience even more thrilling. A dark cave, in which you have no idea about where to turn, where to stoop, which side to expect the railing, filled with knee deep water and the only light being that of our small torch and a diya lighted at the other end.
We flashed the torch on both the sides of the path to get an idea of the terrain inside and the trenches that we saw through the clear water sent chills down our spines. It was really horrible. Dark trenches running deep into the water, dunno how deep. What if there were no railings?
Holding each other's hands and following the instructions of our leader, we finally reached the other end. There was a temple dedicated to Lord Parshwanath and one dedicated to Datta. We prayed to these deities and returned back, now with less fear since now we knew the way. We entered the cave a second time, now without any torches. We performed aarti and ate prasad offered to us by some other visitor who had come there since it was a Thursday, which is considered to be Datta's day.
We then spent around an hour there praising the beauty and uniqueness of the spot and then returned back with some very unique memories of an exciting adventure.
People....., you got to visit this spot to get the real thrill.
Note:
Since we were forbidden to take cameras inside, I could not take any photos on my own. But some people who don't follw rules have taken some interesting snaps which I have attached below
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