For some unexplainable reason, when it comes to weekend getaways, we generally go for places that are spoken of most often, visited by people you know or splashed across websites. It’s easier that way. But more often than not, we choose these because we really aren’t aware of the unsung wonders around us. How about exploring for a change? You’ll be amazed at what lies around you.

One such unexplored jewel of Maharashtra is Wai, located at the foothills of the Sahayadri range and on the banks of the River Krishna. A perfect weekend getaway from Mumbai or Nashik, this historical hidden paradise is nestled in Satara and blessed with the famous seven ghats, namely, Gangapuri, Madhi Aali, Ganpati Aali, Dharmapuri, Brahmanshahi, Ramdoh and Bhimkund.

Our impromptu weekend road trip began with five friends, a full tank and ‘where do we go’. Not wanting to go for the usual, we chose the unusually named Wai. I do admit we had no idea what awaited us. Only when we started approaching it did we begin to have some faith in our choice, what with the unending landscapes, towering mountains, fresh breeze and lack of crowd we noticed around. A pleasant surprise for a bunch of people wanting to get away from the hustle-bustle of city life.

Mini breaks en route, dhabba binging and chatting with the locals kept the drive interesting. A word of advice; if you’re visiting a place for the first time, reach during daylight and book in advance. We made a mistake by doing neither. Reached at 8 pm so couldn’t see much and didn’t book assuming getting a room would be easy. The two resorts we came across were booked, that too in the sweltering month of May. Luckily, the owner of Anandvan Resort, probably feeling sorry for a bunch of tired and hungry youngsters, handed over the last two rooms available; connecting rooms with bunk beds! Took me back to my hostel days. The rooms were simple, clean, comfortable and dinner, unexpectedly delectable. Spicy chicken curry, thin and hot chappatis, dal, rice, Maharashtrian style vegetables, fried papads, raita and chaas. All we wanted after that was a good night’s sleep.

For the first time in months I woke up at 6 am. Not with the shrill sound of an alarm clock, but as promised by our waiter, to the soothing sound of twittering birds. That’s when I got a good glimpse of Wai. Our resort overlooked a big lake nearby, mountains in the background and green valleys. Located in the heart of nature, here, you can either enjoy the peace and tranquility or experience the various activities on offer – trekking, boating and exploring the surrounding villages. It wasn’t long before the rest joined me and the day was chalked out over cups of steaming hot kadak chai. “If you love exploring nature, this is the perfect place for you”, we were told. Well, more than happy to explore, we set off.

Narrow winding roads through the ghats led us downhill, to Boat Club near the lake. Our jaws dropped at the picturesque beauty in front of us. Picture this; clear blue skies and still waters as far as your eye can see, surrounded by towering mountains on all three sides. No words or picture can do justice. You have to see it to believe that somewhere in the remote villages of Satara is a place like this. Swans strolled by, oblivious to any human presence. The area turns into a campsite at night with tents, barbecue and bonfires organized by the owners of Anandvan.

Even though the sun was beating down on us, we thoroughly enjoyed a leisure boat ride. The water baby that I am, my desire to jump in for a swim was cautioned by the boatman with a “Madame mat!! Hame pata nahi kaunse jeev hain paani mein par kuch bhi ho sakta hai. Aap please idhar nahi, swimming pool mein swim kariye.” My embarrassment at the chiding was pretty evident, much to my friends’ amusement.
Once back on land, a couple of huts at a distance caught our eye and curiosity got the better of us. As we got closer to the piles and piles of dried fish and houses made of blue plastic raised and held with the help of sticks and stones, a little girl approached us apprehensively. A family of seven lived here along the banks of the lake: a couple with their five kids. They caught and dried fish and then walked miles to sell them in the village. What did they eat? Fish of course.

Initially shy, the little girl and her siblings took to us after seeing our cameras. Rajesh, all of 11 and the eldest, enthusiastically gave me a guided tour of the patch of land they lived on. The pride on his face as he told me the entire patch was theirs and they could do what they pleased with no one to bother them was priceless. It was heartening to see how content this family was with whatever little they had. What I wouldn’t give to have a home in a location like theirs!
After a round of chai made by their mother, we set off to what we were really looking for; Dhom dam in the quaint village of Jor. Fifteen minutes of driving and we were there, being gawked at by the inhabitants of Jor. I guess not many ‘city people’ visit the village so the sight of a car going through their narrow lanes seemed some what surprising to them. Nevertheless, they were extremely sweet and simple people, eager to help and guide us to the dam. We came across quite a few of the famous temples we had heard of in and around the village. From a distance Dhom dam looks like a huge slab of blackish grey cement. On nearing it, you realize just how tall and wide it is.

Driving our car over the dam, along the length offered us a breathtaking view of the river far below and the rolling valley and hills around. If only time would stand still. If only city air was as fresh as this. If only Mumbai was as silent as this. We sat there, on top of (probably) a 20ft high dam, soaking in all the good things of life. I don’t know for how long we were there but it felt like forever.
The drive down led us to a small lake tucked away behind the trees. It was no pool but we had to take a dip. Swimming in the fresh freezing water felt divine. It’s only when the sun began to set did we drag ourselves int the car and headed back. The drive was predominantly silent. I guess each one was reliving the last two days in their head, amazed at our discovery, thinking about the silence, the beauty, and the tranquility of Wai. If you like places with character and spending a weekend doing almost nothing, if you are an explorer, a visit to Wai is a must. Because nothing you read can possibly sum up the novelty of this haven.
MUST VISIT AROUND WAI:
- Maha Ganpati: The tallest and biggest of all temples in Wai.
- Mandhardevi Mandir: Located on top of Shambhu-Mahadeo mountain ranges, from here one can enjoy the majestic beauty of the mountains, valleys, Dhom dam, Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar.
- Wakeshwar Temple: 2 km. from Wai, it’s by the riverside and surrounded by trees.
- Menavali: A beautiful ghat built on the river banks, it’s a favourite for film shoots.
- Dhom & Balkawadi dam: The dam backwaters spread over 25 kms. up to the foothills of Mahabaleshwar.
- Jambhali Jungle: At the foothills of Mahabaleshwar, it’s a site for many birds and animals.
- Velang (Campsite): A great place to enjoy trekking, star-gazing and other activities.

It has been a long long time and it is almost nostalgic . This is about Goa and Anindya and I went to Chapora Fort, which is also called the ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ fort.
” The heart is a bloom,
Shoots up through the stony ground…”
These lines are form U2′s immortal song, ‘The Beautiful Day’ and what a day it was!! Walk up the slopes,towards the remnants of the fort and you see the sea extend till the horizon. The lush greenery around made the steep slope inviting and you forget how tired you are. You just stride towards the gate,absorbing the ethereal beauty around you, wondering at the might of the nature and its forces.

You reach the gate, you get inside and suddenly the word ‘ruin’ no longer remains an analogy of destruction. The elements have worked on man’s creation like a sculptor and created an object which only keeps on improving with time.

You start moving towards the battlements and you have one of the most beautiful horizons greeting you. Right in front of you lies the infinite sea,with the sun playing hide and seek with the clouds. On the right side a river flowed towards the multitude,meeting it in a congregation of waves, symmetrically etched out on the blue-grey surface. All this was accompanied by the howl of winds blowing high and mighty. It was almost as if nature was telling man,” look, I can be the conductor and the painter at the same time!” Sitting on the battlements, spellbound by the magnificence around, you just get to realise how insignificant you are in the scheme of the cosmos. Man cribs, complains and struggles through life when all around him is the cogency of his father, provided to relieve him of all this. That day, two friends in the midst of a wonderful spectacle came very close to realizing this.

“What you don’t have you don’t need it now
What you don’t know you can feel it somehow
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
Don’t need it now
Was a beautiful day ”

We are driving through the mountains in Ladakh, listening to local music and our driver Dorjee turns out to be a die hard romantic. As the landscape changes, Dorjee gets a bit emotional talking about his family in Zanskar and the baby he is expecting in a few months.

And then he goes on an impromptu karoke session and sings out aloud . I ask him to translate the lyrics and he complies with a grin.

The chortens and the mani wheels whizz past us . The music suddenly changes and Dorjee is a bit silent. I tease him and he interrupts me in Hindi, “ This is not a romantic song madam, its a poem by Tsangyang Gyatso, our 6th Dalai Lama.” Dorjee does not elaborate further as we drive towards the lake Panggong Tso .

We spot a bit of green as we near the wetlands. And then something moves . The birder in me comes alive as I gesture to Dorjee to stop. “ Cha Tungtung karbo, madam..never seen them near Panggong before, “ he says as I move closer to take a picture of the black necked cranes .

The bird of Kashmir is a large whitish grey bird and has a black head, red crown patch , black upper neck and legs and a white patch near the eye. Another car stops by and we spend some silent moments clicking away.

Then Dorjee breaks the silence. “Cha means bird and tung tung karbo is long legged and white. That song madam, “ he says referring to the earlier melody “is a poem on the white crane . It talks about the rebirth of the Dalai Lama who was believed to have been murdered .”Cranes do have a spiritual significance in Buddhism as they symbolize marital longetivity. In fact I read later they have their own monastery and festival in Bhutan where they return every year.

Back home, I spoke to Gopi Sundar from the international crane foundation . I learnt that these Tibetan cranes visit Ladakh probably from the river valleys of Tibet for breeding between June and September. “When the snow melts, you will find these birds coming in pairs, marking their territories and dancing- a part of their hormonal activity. You would probably find 30 nests here, “ he says adding the remaining 60-70 are non breeders. The chicks later fly with their parents who are fiercely protective, guarding them from feral dogs. “Real estate is a serious issue here, “ says Gopi referring to the loss of habitat for these cranes as wetlands become lesser and tourism increases as well. Its tough life to be a crane now , “ he laughs. Listening to him, I go back to the walks around the lakes where Dorjee treated us to the prophetic song and dedicated it to his family

White crane, lovely bird,
Lend me your wings!
I’m not going far and away,
I’ll return through the land of Litang.

Peacocks from the east of India,
Parrots from the lower Kongpo area!
Though (their) birthplaces are different,
(Their) meeting-place is Lhasa, the land of Dharma wheels.

The willow lost its heart to the bird,
The bird lost its heart to the willow!
If affection concords in harmony,
The hawk cannot overpower (them).

They say you should save hyperbole for when you really need it. I say, travel writers should save their odes till they reach their paradise on earth. I have found mine. Only that it was not a picture postcard scenery with pretty hills, crystal blue lakes and lush green fields. On the contrary, the entire setting had a rather austere and harsh aura about it. Guidebooks alternatively describe it as “surreal”, a “lunar landscape” or a “fantasy land”. My first impression was, to put it very crudely, that of a crumpled up cloth, in shades of yellow, streaked in pink and white.

We have reached Cappadocia, “the land of beautiful horses”. It earlier referred to an extensive inland district of Asia Minor and now roughly corresponds to the area in and around Nevehir province in Anatolia, Central Turkey. The lyrical topography was created by volcanic eruptions about ten million years ago when the land mixed with lava, ash and mud, called tufa, was molded by the elements. With thousand of years of rugged winds and rains constantly eroding away the tufa, what remains are towers closely resembling gigantic circumcised phalluses, (referred to in more polite circles as “fairy chimneys”) that dominate the scenery. Cliff walls of the valleys are dotted with gaping holes which could be centuries old dwellings or chapels or even not-so-old pigeon lofts. Nobody knew who the original inhabitants of the place were or who first hollowed out the shelters in the soft rock. When a window suddenly opens from one of the occupied caves and a face peers out, you suddenly might get the feeling of having sauntered over to the homes of elves and gnomes.

I was even more thrilled as instead of checking into a pension, Turkish low budget hotels, I had booked into a cave hotel. But this was no ordinary cave hotel. For a change the backpacker in me, always looking for a cheap deal, took a back step and I decided to go all out and splurge. To be very honest this hotel, which I first saw in an email sent by a friend, was what pulled me to Turkey in the first place. As the car came to a stop in front of a rocky hill, I looked up at the dramatic and soaring structure, and I knew I had made the correct choice. The pictures on the mail could not do justice to this breathtaking view of the hotel- Yunak Evleri.

Carved into a mountain cliff in the ancient village of Urgup, the hotel includes eight cave houses all dating back to the 5th and the 6th century .A separate 19th century Greek mansion set on the base of the hill was bought by the owner, Yusuf Gorurgoz from a local Cappadocian family and now houses the reception, private dining hall,reading room and the lobby. An ex- Istanbul native, Gorurgoz realized that Cappadocia was fast changing from being a backpacker’s destination to becoming the ultimate city for troglodytes wishing to swim in the lap of luxury. Though the idea of buying crumbled hovels for a song and converting them to perfect idyllic retreat was not entirely new, Yunak Evleri, along with a couple of other hotels managed to set high standards for luxury living in this desolate terrain. The Greek mansion, renovated to keep the original style, was packed with antiques and some beautiful hand-crafted furnishings.

As the manager, Abdullah, a nattily dressed old gentleman, showed us around the place, I took in the smell and sights of the hotel -all reminiscent of a bygone era. Old plump peasant ladies doing laundry the old fashioned way, the smell of freshly baked bread, the quaint hand pump, the sepia tinted family photographs. I felt as if any moment someone would turn on the gramophone and the air would be filled with the lilting voice of Dooney Wilson crooning the famous Casablanca number “As time goes by”. The rotary dial phone seemed less like a show piece and fit in perfectly next to the transistor which I expected to crackle with news of the World War II.

In a stone house across, was the breakfast hall with an adjoining kitchen and a larder well stocked with local fare all produced within the village – succulent tomatoes, fresh orange juice, feta cheese and marmalades.

Yunak Evleri definitely prides itself as a private exclusive romantic retreat. To reach to your cave you had to navigate through a labyrinth of narrow passageways and curved stone stairways. This was because all the rooms were spread across the gigantic cliff and had their own private patios overlooking the Turkish mesa.

Until I stepped into my room here, the only way I could describe caves were dark, spooky and damp holes filled with bats. My cave, on the other hand, had dark hardwood floors, creamy whitewashed walls, old kilim carpets and handcrafts, writing desk, and a rocking chair all decorated in warm ottoman style. And not just a functional bathroom but a spacious marble one, fitted with a Jacuzzi. The carefully chosen lightning lent a romantic air to the cave.

The planter’s chair on my terrace gave me an uninterrupted stunning view and I resolved to stay here for the rest of my stay in Turkey. But then there was the so much more to explore.

Time seemed to have stood still in the sleepy small town of Urgup, where three left turns take you back to square one. As I walked down the streets I noticed that all shops, restaurants and houses were built of the same material and hence the town had the monochromatic yellowish tinge. Urgup managed to strike a balance between preserving its Anatolian traditions and cultivating an unobtrusive yet irresistible tourist infrastructure.

Not everyone in Cappadocia was lucky enough to get a cave with a view. I discovered that on my next day’s tour to Kaymakli. While the idea of pre historic people seeking shelter in caves is not entirely unique, what struck me was the sheer magnitude involved here. Within the entire region of Cappadocia over two hundred underground cities have been discovered and forty of these had atleast four levels or more. As a largely barren and desolate area, central Cappadocia was bypassed by many armies making it the ideal refuge for early Christians who built these underground cities to take shelter from the oppression of the Roman soldiers. These hideouts were again used after 6th century to escape from the Arab armies. The entry to every secret underground passageway was camouflaged by a circular keystone, which once closed could only be opened from inside.
As I crouched down the passageways, which now are well lit, I could not help but wonder at the tenacity of those people who have had to stay in these dark environs for months at stretch. The air shafts which allowed for ventilation were a sheer engineering feat. The underground city of Kaymakli could at one time accommodate upto 15000 people and was complete with kitchens, stables and even a grape press to make wine.
On the way to the Goreme, we stopped at Guray Comlekcilik, a family owned pottery in Avanos .Avanos has a history of pottery making that dates back to the Hittite times. I tried my hand at the Potters wheel, and if you happen to visit that place and spot a ceramic plate, shaped more like the map of Australia, you know who the artist is.
Goreme Open Air Museum is a monastic complex composed of churches, rectories and dwellings. This is where the early Christians preachers spread the message of Christ far away from religious persecutors. The frescoes in the church depict narrations from the Bible including the Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi and the Nativity Scene. As the frescoes continue to chip off the cave walls, it reveals a layer of earlier paintings underneath. While the later day paintings were colorful, the earlier ones used only red dye and were more simplistic. During the Iconoclastic period many of the frescoes and paintings were damaged while the eyes of the images were scratched out by the local Turkish population scared of the evil eye.

All over the panoramic view of Cappadocia, one can see, on closer inspection, niches carved into the soft tufa. Expecting another tale of blood and gore behind these mysterious carvings, I was a bit let down when I learnt that they were pigeon lofts, painted white to attract the birds, and built to collect pigeon droppings, an excellent source of fertilizer. On the way back we stopped at Uchisar, which must have had one of the greatest collections of pigeon lofts in the world and hence given the name Pigeon Valley. They were carved wherever space allowed including abandoned caves and the walls of collapsed churches.
In Cappadocia it is difficult to get a bad hike when you are surrounded by such spectacular scenery. I picked the Red Valley hike. It was like walking through an open air structure chiseled by Mother Nature. We saw the fairy’s chimneys at close quarters, walked over pink and yellow earth which changed colors as the day progressed. As the sun set down over the horizon and painted the sky hues of blue and orange, the colors getting reflected in the valley below, I knew I will be back to my Eden again.

I spent an unexpected four days in Shimla this September. I ventured into the northern parts of the country for the first time. I saw the capital city for the first time. I saw the Himalayas and snow-capped peaks for the first time. Here’s how it happened.

Club Mahindra announced a travelogue contest called ‘My Trip of a Lifetime’. The link was passed around quite a bit on Twitter and Facebook and managed to grab my attention on the last day of the contest. I sent in my write up of the Valparai trip along with the pictures I took there. Going by the track record of how my luck has fared in contests like these, I conveniently forgot about it until the results came out. I was pleasantly surprised and deliriously happy of course! This meant more travel, more photography and meeting more people. It also meant that I had to convince my manager to let me go for a full work week.

Luck still played along as I worked out my leaves and headed out on this journey. Also traveling from Bangalore were contest judges Lakshmi Sharath, a travel writer and Arun Bhat, a photographer and travel writer. The other two winners, Kanchuki and Kongkona joined us in the Delhi airport. Three other judges, Cdr. Satyabrata Dam, a renowned mountaineer, Arun Nair, the editor of Clay and Kiruba Shankar, a blogger and columnist joined us in the Delhi bus station where we boarded an overnight bus to Shimla.

The Club Mahindra Whispering Pines Gables resort is located on top of a vantage point with a lush view of the valley in Mashobra, 15 kms from Shimla. The sunrise that greeted us on the first morning there made sure that I woke up at 5.30 every chilly cold morning just to catch a glimpse of it. And shoot tons of pictures. And look for incredibly tiny, beautiful birds making merry in the golden light. And drool over the mesmerizing view.

This trip also turned out to be one where I ate. A lot. Starting from the delicious and mouth watering breakfast spread, proceeding to lunch and a scrumptious dinner, I only ate, ate and ate. The sous chef Vikas personally ensured that we were being over-fed and his able group of stewards never let a plate go empty or a cup run dry.

I particularly recall Balwinder, who was omnipresent. You just had to look up from your plate and he would appear out of nowhere, offering you more food. The resort manager Monish pulled all strings to ensure that our stay went well. Overnight camping trips, hosted dinners, barbeque in the lawn, packed breakfast boxes for an early morning outing, he took care of everything.
When I took breaks from eating, I did travel around Shimla. The group went to Kasauli the second day. A quiet little town, other than the customary mandir and market, there’s nothing else to do or see. The third day took us to Chail, which more than made up for the first day. Chail is a quaint little town with a very old-world charm, partly because there is a ban on new constructions. Long walks in the amazing weather, lunch at the Chail palace, some lovely bird sightings (Eurasian Jay in particular) and walking around the highest cricket ground in the world .. we did it all. We camped out one night. When sweaters, rugs and sleeping bags didn’t give any respite from the biting cold winds, we turned to raucous singing well into the wee morning hours. Tributes to Hemant Kumar, Rafi, Kishore and Lata ended with a grand finale of Govinda’s ‘Tujhe mirchi lagi to main kya karoo.’

We trekked back to the resort through the hills in the morning and met an old shepherd who sat with his sheep and a dog in a beautiful meadow. In the evenings we walked up and down the Mall road, eating corn and kulfi and also made a couple of trips to India Coffee House.

The return day journey from Shimla to Delhi gave me a first hand experience of road-travel up north. The lush landscapes of Punjab, massive highways, the lovely city of Chandigarh and New Delhi of course. I am yet to see a city as massive and well-planned as Delhi. The infrastructure took me by surprise and I inevitably kept comparing it to Bangalore.

So, this is how one trip led to another. The best memories of this trip will no doubt be the breathtaking landscapes of the Himalayas. However, I will mostly remember this trip for the people I met and spent time with.
The journey continues. Till we meet again…

Source: Information about India

Can you narrate your travel experiences or get philosophical about it – all in 125 characters ?!
If thats got your attention, welcome to the “Two Line Travelverse” contest. Here is an opportunity to share your travel verse with the world and also win prizes!

How do you participate in the contest…

1. If you don’t have a Twitter id, get yourself one!
2. Follow Club Mahindra on Twitter (twitter.com/clubmahindra)
3. Tweet your contribution to @clubmahindra.com.
   For e.g. refer to the image below.
   

 …there are also special prizes for retweeting (RT); the contestant with the most number of RTs also wins!

Whats in for the contestants?

Selected entries will win…

• Travel goodies which include books, travel gear etc.
• Featured in Clay, Facebook and Twitter!

The contest ends on March 14th, but early birds always have preference! So get started and let the verses flow.

The charm of the railways is unmistakable. But it was a nondescript railway junction that made journalist, Bishwanath Ghosh literally change tracks. The writer in Ghosh was inspired by life in these railway junctions as he went on to write about them in his maiden travel book – ” Chai Chai – Travels in Places where you stop but never get off.” CLAY spoke to the Chennai based author and here is his take on travel writing .

1.What got you to write a travel book ?
I decided to write the book about two years ago. I was travelling from Kanpur to Chennai, returning from my annual Diwali trip to home. The train had stopped at Itarsi station. Itarsi is a big junction. I was having tea at the platform and during the nearly 10 minutes that I spent at the platform, I heard names of stations from virtually every corner of India being mentioned. It suddenly struck me, “People all parts of the country pass through this place, so many cultures criss-cross this station, and yet I know nothing about Itarsi except that it is a railway junction. What lies outside the railway station? Who all live there? What do they do?” Subsequently, the publishers approached me to write a travel book. They wanted something different. So I chose seven junctions that people invariably pass through during train journeys but where they never get off. I made these junctions my destination and that’s how the book came about. I started with Mughal Sarai, came to Jhansi, then Itarsi. Moving down south, I covered Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai and Shoranur.

2. It’s not often that people choose their first book to be about nondescript places which hardly features on any tourist maps…
Mine is a travel book and not a guidebook for tourists. It is a study of your own backyard, which you take for granted to the extent of ignoring it. But these are places, the small towns and the villages, where the real India lives. My book satisfies my own curiosity, and perhaps the curiosity of hundreds of others, about what lies outside the yard of these railway stations.

3. As a traveller, what catches your attention about a place?
Anonymity. Anonymity leads to curiosity, and curiosity makes you travel and discover.

4. The book is full of sights and sounds of a destination and anecdotes. Is there a specific sight or a sound that still remains with you.
The bustling markets in the evenings – people shopping for groceries, chaatwallahs doing brisk business, small-time bars full of people, men loitering around in paan shops or chaurahas. No one is ever in a hurry, they have all the time in the word. That’s the life we left behind 20 or 30 years ago.

5. What is your take on travel writing today?
Travel writing is yet to evolve, in the sense we still have a Paul Theroux giving us his take on India. But on the tourist-writing front, yes, Indians are discovering a lot of off-the-beaten-track places, which is heartening. Just about 10 years ago, no one was making such discoveries.

6. “Real India” today as it is portrayed seems to have become ironically a perspective of the foreigners only. Do you feel your book has broken that mould?
In a sense, yes. Because if you look up the internet, you will hardly find any information about a place like Mughal Sarai. But now you have a book that has an entire chapter devoted to Mughal Sarai. And the book has not been written by a foreigner, but an Indian.

7. What is your take on more opportunities to aspiring travel writers today?
The idea is not to be blind to your own backyard just because you live there. Questions need to be asked all the time: how did your backyard come into being, why is it the way it is today, what it means to other people, and so on. A traveller and a tourist are two different people. A tourist usually looks for a bed of grass to walk on, while for a traveller it can often be a bed of thorns.

I wanted to begin the new year by indulging in my passions of travel and photography and did just last month. We drove down to Karde from Mumbai for a rejuvenating beginning to the new year and spent a couple of days gorging on sea food and gorgeous sunrises and sunsets!
We set out from home at 0630hrs on the first day of 2010 and got on to NH17. Had an idli dosa breakfast at Kamaths in Mahad and moved on to Khed from where we take the turn for Dapoli and onwards to Karde where we had booked a room in Hotel Kinara.
We finally reached the hotel at 1230hrs after covering a distance of 290kms. Our lunch order was confirmed on the phone by the hotel a day earlier. This is the practice followed by all the hotels in the area hence you cannot just walk in and expect to be served. The meal order has to be placed at least a couple of hours in advance.
The fish thali and the veg thali were delicious. We got back to the room and rested awhile before proceeding to Harnai beach to witness the fish auction.

Harnai beach is around 8kms away and we reached there via a treacherous path by car. The boats had come in and the auction was on in full swing.
What struck us was the way the fish was transported from the boats to the shore. The boats cannot come in right up to the shore due to shallow waters and hence bullock carts take sacks of ice to the boats, offload the fish onto the ice in plastic crates and cart it ashore!

Spent nearly an hour there, watching and clicking all the activity, after which we returned back to our Hotel to watch the sun go down that created a magical ambiance with paragliding activity on the beach.
Had an awesome dinner of, yes, fish! Retired early for the day as had to get up early to go for the ‘dolphin viewing’ boat ride at dawn.
The motor boat puttered in on time, and we, along with 8 other tourists, were helped aboard by the crew. And on we went in search of the elusive dolphins.
Managed to spot a few in the half hour ride that cost us only Rs.100/- per head.
The sunrise witnessed from the ocean was awesome!
Back to the hotel, had ‘kanda pohey’ for breakfast and got ready to visit the ‘Kadyavarcha Ganapati’ which is around 20kms from the hotel at Anjarle.

This idol is believed to have come ashore Anjarle from the sea and was installed on the cliff using wooden pillars in around 1150. Later it was renovated during 1768 to 1780. The Ganesh idol’s trunk is curved towards the right, which is very rare. Kadyavarcha Ganapati is also considered as the live deity (a jagrut daiwat) who responds to distress calls of common people (nawsala pavnara Ganapati).The dome of this temple has the ‘Ashtavinayak Ganeshas’ embedded on it.
We sat there awhile and returned back to the hotel for yet another excellent meal of fishfried and curried and ‘vaalaach beerd’.We spent the evening walking along the beach, watching a glorious sunset.
For dinner that night had an unusual prawn biryani. It was a Malwani flavoured biryani and absolutely yummy! And of course every meal was accompanied by delicious solkadi.
We got up early on the final morning at Karde as we wanted to take in as much as possible of the ambiance of a lovely morning on the beach.

We went for a long walk on the beach and around 0930hrs set out on the return journey to Mumbai. But had a stop scheduled on the way. There was this beautiful old temple at Murud Harnai which is just about 2kms from Karde.

Murud is also the hometown of our great freedom fighter Bharat Ratna Maharshi Dhondu Karve whose bust is erected opposite the Durga Devi temple.This Durga Devi temple was built almost 300yrs back and the pujari affirmed that his was the 6th generation looking after the temple. The carved wooden pillars in the temple are beautiful.There is a large bell at the entrance of the temple. The temple poojary told us that it was brought by Chimaji Appa after winning over the Vasai fort, from one of the churches there.

We finally had our breakfast at Dapoli and returned to Mumbai via Mandangad covering a distance of 249kms. The roads were largely good and the traffic minimal. We reached Mumbai at 1630hrs after a magical holiday at Karde.

Getting there
By Train

Mumbai – Karde
• Mumbai – Khed Station (via Konkan Railway)
• Khed Station – Dapoli (29 km) (via private transport – jeeps, etc. / state transport – ST buses)
Dapoli – Karde (20kms) (via private transport – jeeps, etc. / state transport – ST buses)
By Road
Mumbai – Karde
290kms Route Mumbai – Panvel – Mahad –Khed – Dapoli – Karde (Mumbai –Khed NH17)
250kms Route Mumbai – Panvel – Mangaon – Mandangad – Dapoli – Karde (Mumbai – Mangaon NH17)