Before I start writing about my current experience, I would mention my previous experience about traveling in Maharashtra. In summer of 2007, I was doing my internship with an FMCG company based out of Mumbai. And I was to travel in & around Mumbai, to understand consumer behavior & then recommend strategies to increase sales for one of their brands. Initially I was happy with my project, I would get to travel to new places, good organization, nice guide, etc. But then Mumbai started showing its true colors. It was a series of bad incidents spread across those two months, which made me hate the place till even today. Some bad incidents related to local trains, some bad experience as a customer, bad weather & end result being the fact that I still do not like going to Mumbai. And I am sure that this hatred is mutual, as even post those two months I have had bad experiences in Mumbai. But the only mistake which I made was projecting the same image on Maharashtra.
I recently got an opportunity to spend 2 months in & around Pune. The areas to be covered were Pune, Ahmednagar, Nashik, Satara & Raigarh. Riding the perception developed during summer internship (4 years back), I was skeptical this time as well. But since that was a long time back & my disappointment was more from Mumbai than other places, I went with an open mind. The idea was to travel as much as possible & form fresher opinion.
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| View from halfway to Parvati hills |
After landing there first thing which I liked was weather, it would drizzle throughout the day. Not so much as to drench anyone, not so less that you wont feel the tiny droplets. There is something about the rains that you can keep walking for long hours without feeling tired. So the start was perfect & I was beginning to look forward to all the weekends I was to spend at Pune. Pune city itself has plenty of greenery everywhere, making it look better. Inside the city there are plenty of hills & two rivers (Mula & Mutha) runs through the city, adding to the beauty of the city. This does not mean that development wise city is behind, there are plenty of malls, hotels, restaurants, IT parks, SEZs, official complexes, hi-end residential complexes, etc to qualify the city for being called a mini-metro. It has a perfect mix of both natural & man-made elements, which no one city has, at least not in India. I like the city so much that out of the 2 & a half months stayed there only once i went to Mumbai for spending a weekend, even though i had no friend in Pune & plenty of them in Mumbai.
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| Pataleshwar Caves |
So out of all the places visited in pune city, my favorite is Parvati hills. Its on top of a hill, from where you would get a perfect view of the entire city. Most of the junta which comes there is either for spending some time with a view to die for with their loved one or for taking a hike in the morning/evening. Very few of them actually come for visiting temple. Now there are other temples on hill in pune, like chaturshringi, etc, but view from the top & more natural feel, wins it in favor of Parvati hills. Its a must visit place for someone who wants to do sight seeing in pune.
Aga khan palace, there is nothing great about this place. Its a nice place, with peace & quiet, where people come to visit the place where Gandhiji spent some time & Even aga khan did his bit during the freedom struggle. Small little museum is there, where i liked a statue. But nothing which would make you think about visiting again. Wada- There are plenty of fort like structure in the city, which are not well preserved & are used by youngsters as a place to spend time with their love of life or by families to have a weekend picnic. Nothing to like about these places as they are not maintained, people working have no sense of ownership, they couldn't care less is someone is dirtying the place & overall you come out disappointed after the entrance had showed promise.
Lal baug- This was an interesting place as they have entire history of Pune town on display here. I spent a decent time here & liked what i saw, only thing which i didn't like was that at places they had just mentioned things in Marathi, with no translation. For someone who wants to know about history of any place or dynasty, this is a nice place to spend a day.
Jangli Maharaj Temple & Pataleshwar caves- Mandir is a normal mandir, nothing to write about. Cave though was a place where one can decently pass time for more than an hour. And the place have plenty of good restaurants around, so overall it was half a day spent well.
Saras baug- The biggest mistake of my life, which i realised as soon as i reached the place. It was as if i had reached a local train station of mumbai at the peak hour. A sea of humanity, doing god knows what. It was used only for picnic & religious purpose, there was a temple there.
Katraj- Yes I did go there. Its like a advanced version of Zoo, where animals are kept in pseudo natural habitat. Didn't like it much, would not go there again.
Even though it does not have many places which makes you go 'wow', because of the weather & greenery the experience was good.
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| Enroute to Raigarh |
My first trip outside was to Raigarh district & right from the journey to the trek upto Raigarh Fort, to the towns i visited, everything was breathtakingly beautiful. As soon as you enter the district, its lush green hills all around & in between again there would be some water body here & there. I was in love with the place & driver had to face the brunt of it as i made him stop the vehicle almost after every half an hour. Spent 3 days in the district, best experience being trek up to Raigarh fort. It is not as crowded as the ones visited in pune. It is at a considerable height hence the views are awesome. Even the climb up was amazing as the path was made in a manner that not until last 30 mins, you get to see the fort. One has to cross 3-4 hills in order to reach the one where remains of the fort is there. Also the path is beautiful making the experience even more exciting.
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| Waterfall on the way to fort |
I loved the walk up to the fort as I got an opportunity to click loads of pictures & nature had a nice mix going there. Deciding what to click & what not to click became difficult as it looked great everywhere, in all directions. It was also good because there was no one else on the way & you feel like you own the place. After catching the first glimpse again it took me some 20 minutes of fast paced walk up to reach the point where fort was. It was completely foggy & hence it took me about 30 minutes to find a guide, who would give me details about the fort. Even after i found a guide, both of us didn't have a common language. Hence he had to go to the other side & get a decently Hindi speaking guide. As you keep moving out of pune you find little less acceptance of Hindi, and more and more preference of Marathi.
There was a small pond named Ganga sagar, which was created by a pandit, who brought water from varanasi at the time of coronation of Shivaji maharaj. Today it still have plenty of water, majorly through rainwater & the water is clean as well. And the best part is that it adds so much to the dilapidated fort, it is a unique thing to find at a fort at this height. |
| On the way down from the fort |
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| Stairways to heaven @ Raigarh |
After taking a decent tour of the place, I had to go down quickly as it was a working day & even though I had started early & climbed quickly, I was cutting it thin. So I climbed down in 30 mins, took the cab back to Hotel. But before this I had a detailed chat with the guide about the Life of Shivaji. There is lot of pride involved when people talk about him & the same was visible here as well. He spoke about Sinhagad, Aurangazeb, Shivaji's wives & reason behind multiple marriages, current literature on Shivaji, myths about shivaji which are not true, etc. And this was the second occasion post Daulatabad fort, where i was given a brief about the great man, but the level of passion was exactly the same. I was staying at a place called Mahad & there were some good restaurants which would serve you awesome thalis.
Post this I went to Alibaug, which was not great. Even though i just spent a day there, I dedicated my entire evening to explore more about Alibaug & I realised that its an average place at best.
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| View from Nivant hill resort |
Next up was Satara & I was to be impressed, big time. The first reason to be impressed was the beautiful journey to Satara, I loved the 3 hours spent. Post that we had lunch at a Gujrati hotel, which offers awesome thali. But the best part was the Hotel at the Kaasgaon. Now Kaasgaon is not that well known a place, at least I had never heard of it. But when I was told its just about 30 mins away from satara town, i readily agreed. It was on a hill overlooking satara town, & the view from up there was just to die for. You just had to step into the balcony to get an awesome view, which was a lush green valley surrounded by hills, followed by Satara town. So major time went just looking out from the balcony, took a little walk to an old temple. Also there was a valley where lots of different types of flowers would bloom & ahead of that there was a river. So we woke up early morning went to see the flower valley, sadly it was not in full bloom because of lack of rains. Then we went to the river, which was the favorite picnic point for the locals. It was a nice place with nice view, we did spend some time here.
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| River near Kaasgaon |
After finishing the work for the day we decided to go back to pune via Thoseghar, a place with waterfall & huge windmills. Waterfall is called 'Dhabdhaba' in Marathi, term coined by someone who heard the noise a waterfall cause from close point. It was raining bad when we reached & visibility was getting worse, so we decided to brave it up. We went down took some pictures & went to a tea-shop-cum-restaurant & had a much needed tea. Then we went to the place where they had windmills operated by Suzlon & the place again was beautiful. A combination of fog, huge windmills & good looking flowers & plants worked for us, hence we decided to spent some time there even though pune was some 4 hours away & we would reach only close to midnight. Overall Satara was the best place for me in the entire trip, even though i missed out on tourist attraction like mahabaleshwar & panchgani. |
| Bhandardara |
Next on the agenda was Nashik & surrounding area. I had planned to cover Bhadardara also on the way. So the idea was to spend one night in Nashik town, one night in Bhadardara & return post that. Bhandardara is one of the weekend getaways from mumbai, its a small villages build around a river. Wilson dam is built on the river & acts as a tourist attraction here. When they open the Dam & let the water flow, more often than not, there is a decent human population watching the beautiful scene. And there are a few properties here for travellers, one being MTDC guest house, which is basic & cheap, also offers a great view of the place. And there are couple of private resort which are tastefully made & offer all the modern amenities which can be expected, namely Yash resorts & Anand Van resort. I put up at yash resorts, but since the stay was for a night only there was nothing to write home about the place apart from the fact that they serve good food & locational wise they have got a great property with all kind of amenities, like gym, sports room, swimming pool, etc. But the fact that the place is surrounded by nature in its best form, is the top draw. I woke up early & went for a walk to the dam & it was beautiful. There is a full trail which makes you circle the river, taking about 4 & a half hours, but since it was a working day i had to be satisfied with a little walk around the place.
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| At Kalsubai withGanpat |
Post that I checked out & went towards my next destination which was Kalsubai. Early morning, the village of Ghoti was already awake & school children were on the street as it was time to reach. With a colleague of mine i started the trek, we reached the first point which was a small temple. Post that my colleagues said he would not move ahead, I can go on my own if I want to. Keeping time in mind i decided that I would be back by 2 hours. The idea was to cover as much as possible & reach the top in 1 & a half hour. But path wasn't that great, it was full of sticky red mud, making it difficult to walk. Still we went at a decent pace, but half way i was told that it would take a longer time & normally it would take 6 hours from that point to reach the top most point. We still covered 70% of the path, and it was already 2 hours. Hence we had to start descent & that too at a high pace, as I didn't want my colleague to wait for too long. We covered the downward journey in less time & on the way found that quite a few of villagers from the village below own land on the way to the top. They carry their tools & do cultivation there. Goes without saying that the terrain & views were great & the path was such that i managed to look around the mountain completely. Came down & we started off for the market where we were to spend a decent time. But it wasn't the best of the day & we had to travel a lot visit far off markets & we returned to pune only post midnight.
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| Kalsubai- Random stairs that you find on the way up |
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| Sinnar bus terminal |
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| Random flower @ Sinhagad |
Post that the only decent venue which I covered was Sinhagad, but the sad part was that the entire plan was ruined by an extremely strong rain. Initially I though that it was manageable & hence I started walking in the rain, but soon I realised that it was futile as visibility was zero & nothing could be seen. Still I spent as much time possible, but as soon as i gave up and came down the rain stopped. It was sad, but since it was getting late I decided to spend some time & start moving towards pune. It was during this small walk that i clicked a few pictures, which came out rather nice. Quite a few would trek up to the fort, but I could not see a single trail. If I ever get to go back to Pune, I would definitely go back to Sinhagad Fort, with much less rain.
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| People clicking themselves @ Sinhagad |
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