Matheran & Alibaug

Matheran & Alibaug

Although it’s little late to tell about these small tales from yesteryear's, but I believe in better late then never! So here is one of them.. 

These travel stories are from the time I just passed college with zero level of maturity & stability in my thoughts. I was staying alone in Hyderabad with no friends in the city, may be that was the trigger for my never satisfying desire of travel. To fulfil those I did two things: One made lot of friends in Hyderabad to have some travel companions for nearby places, Two I used to pay monthly visit to Mumbai where I had quite a few friends and a lot of options for weekend excursions.

Unlike current me, back then I had no idea where I am going, whats the itinerary, what should be the must dos, how are we travelling and where are we staying, where ever it is, I am ready to go!! 

This was in 2008 and still the memory is fresh like a lemon juice.  Matheran and Alibag was the destinations, (I didn’t even know that what are these) where I travelled by my 6 colleagues, except two, I hardly knew anybody, and we two were the last minute inclusion in the plan, arranging bus tickets from Hyderabad to Pune was a little difficult but not impossible. Friday night we boarded the sleeper bus and left for Pune from there 4 more were about to join.

At Pune we got in to a Tempo-traveller and started-off towards Matheran accompanied by some of the nicest weather at the Western Ghats. We halted at some unknown hillocks near Lonavla. This was my first trip to Western Ghats, lush green mountains (not having even a single patch of brown soil) with misty weather and cool breeze had every element to turn your mood on and I immediately fell in love with it!! With many more such trips to follow!!

The road as seen through the Wind Shield of Tempo Traveller

With lots of stopover for clicking pics, for bathing under a small water fall, for enjoying the weather and of course filling to stomach we reached Matheran around 6.30 in the evening. 

We tried to get the toy train (the only means of transport to reach Matheran) but the entire track was submerged in water due to rains so it wasn’t operating. So we had to rely on the pair of own individual feet. The walk through the red soil path with drizzling was memorable. Finally at around 8 PM we reached the hill station with no electricity and no room and no network in our mobiles. So all got divided in group of 2-3 people each and started looking for hotels.. After an hours hunt we finally got a hotel with basic facilities.. The first thing was to change and relax as we all were damp and tired. Then after dinner enjoyed the night roaming around the streets.

Plan for morning was to walk inside the jungle, walk by the lake side and getting drench under the water fall again near Charlotte Lake, while doing all this visit few touristy points such as King Gorge point, Echo Point & Suicide point.. 

Morning Views inside the jungle

Somewhere in Matheran

I have this inclination towards these suicide points as most of them offer spectacular views of the valley while clouds play hide and seek (especially in monsoon). And the thrill which you feel when you are standing on the most external edge of the cliff where one small push and you are gone forever.

Dangerously fascinating Suicide Point

The drive to Alibaug was through the lean beautiful roads, having greenery both sides. And suddenly out of nowhere you reach the Alibaug beach. It has small hillock at one side and beach on the other side (though you can find quite a few such sights while driving through the Konkarn region.

The Greenery that can blind you

Again the fight was to find a hotel with atleast 5 vacant rooms at 11 PM.. We could find one though very bad one, but that was the only option we had, with dipping celling, damp beds smelly pillows, and small fungus spots on the bed sheet, I was definitely in for a sleep. 

After checking in, me, yogita and abhishek went for a walk towards the Alibaug beach.. The high tide was predicted that night.. I sat on the stairs, watching the very high tides breaking at the shores, giving an occasional gaze to the full moon peeing out of the clouds at times, lost in my own world!! Suddenly I heard somebody shouting for help, I looked at that side and then realised that it was Abhishek, who slipped through the ramp right at the edge of shore, and he can easily we taken away by the shoring high waves any time. I couldn’t imagine how the hell he managed to slip down!!

Our mobile phone weren’t working so we couldn’t call our other friends so now Yogita and I had to pull him out. Somehow we managed to find a thick stem of tree, one of us stood right above the ramp another went a little down with holding others hand, Abhishek managed to climb and that slippery and damp ramp, and somehow we all three held each other’s hand in a chain and managed to pull rescue Abhishek.. Then again we sat at the edge this time much carefully then before and laughed our heart, spoke only about that incident/accident.

Entire night we spent chit chatting anyways I wasn’t looking forward to sleep. Early morning (4.30 AM) we went to beach to watch the Sunrise, but due to clouds there was no such sight. The water was atleast a km back from yesterday night and kind of still and very low. We took a “Tanga ride” towards the Undheri Fort (AKA Sea Fort) on an island inside the sea. It offered spectacular views of the sea. The water rapidly running towards the shore with the Rising Sun, we hurried towards the shore while playing with the rising water level.

Tarun posing at the beach

We went to another beach spent some time there while playing with water, before we headed back to Hyderabad. But that wasn’t end of our adventure, due to traffic jam we barely managed to reach the railway station for our journey back to Hyderabad. As Tarun read the wrong departure time, we were relaxing at the station and Abhishek went to pick up some burgers for us. Suddenly, the announcement was that the train has already started, we ran ferociously towards the train, while calling Abhishek. Finally he also managed to jump inside the running train!!

That’s how the fun filled trip was concluded with lots of stories to remember.

PS: Photographs are mostly clicked by my friends.