Natural High

The raw, rugged hike to the alang, madan and kulang forts in the weathered western ghats is demanding—and fully worth the effort.

- Sanjiv Valsan

I had expected something a lot tamer. We had been scrambling through long, steep stretches of thick forests for over eight gruelling hours, occasionally zigzagging uphill on all fours holding on to steps cut into the hill that randomly disappeared as abruptly as they appeared, scaling a vertical rock patch and generally getting the wind knocked out of us.

We finally reached the ruins of the flat topped Alang Fort, just in time to catch a stunning sunset. Everything around us was bathed in the golden light reflecting off the fort, pouring into its caves from the horizon and mirroring the evening sky colours off its water cisterns, before plunging into the distant plains below and fading into the blue twilight.