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.

Munsiyari.. with an icing of Binsar!!

Generally managers (especially in India) believe that one should not get any holidays apart from Saturday/Sunday/Statutory Holidays (those too, only when you don’t have work)! In such circumstances asking a leave without some medical/legal emergency, without some relatives wedding is like a Non-Bailable Crime and I have been guilty of it not only once but many a times!  And yes, I shall continue to do the same in future also, as I can’t live without travelling to unknown routes, meeting people from different culture, breathing the clean and fresh air of some distant mountains, dipping feet in the cold stream of water.. and the list continues..

As I had recently switched job and took quite a few leaves when I got married (one year back) I started to think about the options I had for taking the leave.  After much of brainstorming I decided to try to convince my boss for the actual reason i.e. travelling. Believe me it was much easier, as I didn’t have to think of a lie for every counter question he asked. That was an unexpectedly pleasant start to my trip planning activities..

Early Morning View at Munsiyari

This time it was Munsiyari, the trekkers paradise and we were not going there for trekking! After the June Floods in UttaraKhand, I had to alter my plan a little, had to drop Dharchula from my itinerary as the road was completely washed-off especially near Jauljibi, so I included Binsar in our trip and struck Dharchula off with a heavy heart, not that I regret it now, as Binsar offered some equally awesome memoirs to remember.

We started from Delhi on Friday night, took a train to Kathgodam, from there on we had pre-booked a taxi. Morning 5.30 AM when the Sun was still asleep under the blanket of dark clouds, we started our road travel.

Total 12 hrs road journey through the broken roads, water crossings, few distant recent landslide areas, unmatched mountain views and awesome monsoon weather of hills, a normal drive through the clouds. We reached Munsiyari at evening 5 PM. If I have to describe the village in one line than: A small and pretty tribal village with a daunting view of Snow covered Pachachuli Peak from almost every nook and corner of the village. You are likely to find a lot of trekking groups as lot of small & long, easy & difficult treks start from here.

The distant landslide enroute munsiyari

Road through clouds

Next day morning I woke up early in the morning, to my luck it was a clear morning with awesome view of the Snow Cladded Mountains. As the day progressed the clouds come up and cover the higher peak. The only things to do in munsiyari either go for a trek or just laze around and embrace the stillness, calmness, and listen our own heart beating against the cool breeze. For a change I did the later..

View from our room

Nandadevi temple is located right in the middle of lush green high mountain peaks and offers some awesomeeeeeee paranomic views of snow covered peaks, The small walk till the temple is through the tall green pine trees. I thought of spending some time at one of the benches but the house flies were guarding the place like anything!

View from Nandadevi Temple.. though covered under clouds but thats a small price you have to pay enjoy weather that awesome

Rainbow on some unknown road @ Munsiyari 

Spent the evening walking around the village, sitting on the edge of some unknown road, watching the sun-set behind those huge Blue Mountains having small patches amber-pink clouds. That pristine sight was captured in my heart for ever and ever!!  To have an un-interrupted encounter with nature, I didn’t carry my camera that evening, to avoid any urge to click the photograph.

Next day we started early morning for Binsar accompanied by some heavenly view and landscapes. We halted at Kali mandir which is supposed to offer some awesome views but by the time we reached there, the entire atmosphere was full of clouds, though there is no comparison of such hilly monsoon weather but we were devoid of some spectacular views. We were walked amidst of clouds, removed our slippers and entered into the old open corridor of temple of Goddess Kali..

Suddenly, our driver stopped the car and pointed towards a distant falls and told that is Birthi Falls, from road it seemed a little far, so we decided that we will walk to have a somewhat closer look and come back.. As I started walking, my feet started itching to reach the falls.

There was not a single soul near the falls or enroute to falls. As we reached near the magnificent and loud falls. The Cool breeze of air, the water mist, the grey cloudy sky gave a feeling of rain though it wasn’t. It was totally worth to climb through that steep and very slippery route, just to experience that surreal environment. 

First Sight of Birthi Falls; I couldn't do any justice while capturing the magnificence but still.. 

It’s not that I haven’t seen huge and magnificent water falls, but there was something different about this one. Maybe it was the (rainy) weather, serenity, calmness & stillness, solitude or it was my state of mind, but it looked Divine!!

The broken road to Heaven

While driving to Binsar, we were accompanied by the Ganges for a long time, also the ‘Sangam’ (confluence) at Bhageshwar can be easily seen while crossing the city. By the time we reached Binsar the Wildlife Sanctuary was closed so we headed straight to our resort. The huge glass window in our room gave an un-interrupted view of the sun-set behind the snow-cladded white peak..

Sunset at Binsar

Early morning we went to the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, while tracking we saw few distant peaks. But could have the paranomic view of the Nanda Devi, Nanda Kot, Panchachuli, Chaukhamba and Kedarnath because of clouds, but the track itself was worth an early morning walk.

After a filling breakfast we headed to Rahul’s favorite hill station i.e. Nainital, and did some touristy activities such as boating in Naini Lake, visiting the artificial Caves, roaming on the mall road, taking a cycle rikshaw ride on mall road (must do in Nainital) etc..

The everrefreshing beauty: Naini Lake @ Nainital

With this pleasant evening our trip was summed up and we were refreshed to go back to our hectic corporate lives with fixed schedules, until the next holiday!!