“Soon the district administration discovered itself to be in possession of monies sufficient to build the King his long promised palace. A mansion had appeared on the hill side that faced the Residency. It came complete with a durbar hall, a gallery, outhouses, running water and a garage… All of Ratnagiri turned out to celebrate the move. Cheering crowds lined as the Royal Family drove out of Outram house for the last time… Its upkeep was found to require a small army: twenty seven gate keepers, ten peons, six hazurdaars and innumerable other attendants, cleaners, sweepers and ayahs – a…
-
-
A five-light junction. A cow and a calf wandering around. A small bus stop. A public tap. Two or three shops. A slice from the enchanting Malgudi town was coming alive, at Kulgi barely 12 kms away from Dandeli town. Arun Bandekar’s Hotel Apoorva is an extension of his small, non descript shop selling some snacks for the school children and perhaps a bit of grocery for the locals. Arun, who came from Sawantwadi in Maharasthra to Dandeli some three decades ago, runs his enterprise along with his wife. The Bandekars’ hospitality and culinary expertise eventually made Hotel…
-
In two days , we were done with the touristy stuff (the safari) and the explorer stuff (the extended crocodile trail). Yet there was a feeling of incompleteness. Two days in a forest country! The ever fascinating western ghats and rain forests. And yet! Something was missing! While we contemplated leaving Dandeli for a drive to Karwar, through some more dense forests and the Anshi National Park, on the advice of our guide, we checked at the Kulgi forest camp on the possibilities of doing a deep jungle trek. The camp in charge, Mr Naik was helpful and gave us…
-
Crocodiles, it is said, prefer dirty water. And the West Coast Paper mill at the banks of Kali River in Dandeli is pushing it down the river all the time. We are parking the environmental debate aside for the time being. Rajesh (our guide) had been warming us up on the idea of a short trail spotting crocodiles in the river. So we set aside a half day for this. A little over a kilometer from Dandeli town is a small village temple by the banks of the river. We started our trail through private farm lands, moved along the…
-
There is a warning board which says ’12 dead till now. Please do not add to it’. And there is a lone watchman by its side – Lost in his thoughts and bidding time looking at the ferociously flowing water deep down. Deep inside the jungle, in the middle of nowhere. . Syntheri is a good 30-km drive from Dandeli town. The narrow and pot-holed roads meandering through the forests rarely have sun rays touching the ground even on sunny days. Apart from langurs and monkeys, all we saw were a couple of snakes crossing the road. But trampled bamboos…
-
As we decided to go to Dandeli pretty late, all the popular resorts were full. On our first day, we managed to get a room at the State Lodge in Dandeli town. As we explored the ‘things-to-to’ in the next three days, we thought it would be a good idea if we could stay in a place close to the forest rather than in the middle of the town. The friendly manager at State Lodge suggested the Tree-House at the Hornbill resort. He called up the place, but it was full for the next few weeks, even at an exorbitant…
-
We prefer the subdued Diwali celebrations in villages rather than the high decibel gala in cities. So last diwali (2007) also saw us packing our bags, and this time it was Lonar that caught our fancy. An overnight bus journey to Aurangabad, and we were 145 km away from Lonar. After a 2-hour fruitless wait for the state transport bus, we caught a bus that took us a little closer to Lonar. One more bus, and 2 taxi-jeeps, the last one packed beyond imagination, and alas! Lonar was just a few kilometers away. The last stretch was covered in an…
-
While Outlook Traveller gives us 52 options to de-stress our weekends, in reality, the permutations and combinations of plans one can make out of that is far too many. So, if you are a travel lover, have two days and can manage your own conveyance, here is an option that will leave your senses rejuvenated and spirits recharged. Best done in September as the monsoons are just receding … A long drive from Mumbai through Pune (Chakan) to Narayangaon. From there, it is country roads through the fields and vineyards to Junnar. Climb the Shivneri fort. Stay in a…
-
Every trip of ours in Maharashtra reinforces MTDC’s marketing byline ‘Maharashtra Unlimited’. Be it treks, road trips or backpack trips. Numerous options that emerge from the combination of the long coastline and the Sahyadris running parallel to it, in fact gives one an unparalleled experience. Not to mention about the options in Central Maharashtra, which we are yet to touch. Last Christmas, we did a road trip that featured kissing the beaches, then climbing the hills, and hugging the clouds. A 4-day road trip with spur-of-the-moment detours, searches for a place to stay, warm hosts at homestays and much more……
-
It is unlikely to see really energetic animals in a zoo. Especially the big cats. We don’t recollect any images of healthy animals from the zoos we have visited earlier. But Pilikula Biological Park in Mangalore surprised us with its exuberant tigers. There were four of them. And it was the mating season. Understandably, excitement abound. One pair was frolicking in the water and the other on the land chasing each other and taking a few breaks to watch the ones in water. For a change, some lively tigers in a zoo instead of the usual sad, emaciated ones! …
-
A travel snippet of a different kind… some Bisleri moments. Brought to India in 1965 by Signor Felice Bisleri, bought over by Parle in 1969, ‘Bisleri’ has become another name of bottled water. Wasn’t there at least one Bisleri moment in everyone’s life? Reportedly, Ramesh Chauhan, the person responsible for building the brand and making it synonymous with the product, wants to buy back the Limca Book of Records from Coca Cola and rename it as Bisleri Book of Records. Coca Cola got the rights to the Book when it bought out Limca and a few other products from Parle…
-
A Sunday morning. A motley crowd in their 20s to 40s. A mighty mountain – Gorakhgad. We cribbed about the hot sun and the lack of rain only to realise later that descending would’ve been difficult had it rained. The wind at the top was strong enough to blow one away. One of us was reluctant to remove her backpack fearing she might lose her balance. Climbing down was a little hard at a few points especially for the first-time trekkers. Sliding down was the choice of many. But as usual Nature Knights pulled it off. A dip in the…
-
This June saw us and our group religiously (every monsoon) packing our bags and heading to explore the wilderness of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. This time the trail was to what is known as the Highest Point of Mumbai. This is an easy trek and the climb starts behind the Kanheri caves. There will be always one picture from every trek that is worth making the cover of that album. This is that picture. A rare display of affection or friendship or whatever… Rest of the photoblog of the trip is here.
-
Dang is a tribal district in South Gujarat, bordering Maharashtra. It is perhaps the tail of Western Ghats that stretches all the way up from Kerala through Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. A complete forest district, Dang in monsoons is nothing short of a bliss. Well laid and maintained roads snake through the teak forests and an occasional tribal hamlet. Saputara is a tiny hill station in Dang, a few kilometers from the Maharashtra border. It is unlike any typical hill station. No colonial hangovers. Simple and very tiny. You don’t need a local transport.From the sunrise point to the sunset…
-
This story will be done by a photo. Nothing to blabber. Nothing to explain. We saw this coconut tree inside Sindhdurg Fort, Malvan in Maharashtra. This is the first time we saw something like this. Surprised. Amused.
-
We reached Malvan on the third day of a Konkan trip. Being a popular tourist destination, we didn’t bother to book accommodation. Armed with a list of ‘home-stays’ and their telephone numbers, given to us by our home-stay owner at Kunkeshwar, we started calling up these places soon after we reached Malvan at noon. We were all damn hungry, but decided that it would be safer to find a place to stay before anything else. This later proved right. AD, the only person conversant in Marathi in our team, called up the first number. The person attended the call asked…
-
Guhagar, being 320 odd km away from Mumbai means fewer crowds. Or so we thought. We forgot that Pune was probably only 200 km away. We reached Guhagar a little late in the evening, around 7.30. We were a bit overconfident that in these little not so known places, hotels, lodges or home stays would be easily available. But as always Murphy has the last laugh. All (two or three) known hotels were full. People indeed are traveling. We drove a few times up and down through the main street knocking the doors of a few hotels and a few…
-
Where is the world’s smallest wildlife sanctuary? It is right here in India, in Maharashtra. At 5.15 sq km, Mayureshwar sanctuary is the smallest WLS (that we know of). Once while returning from a road trip to Ajanta-Ellora, somewhere between the Pune – Ahmednagar road, we took to the country roads. With a vague idea of its location, we kept searching for Mayureshwar, unsuccessfully checking the map and asking almost anyone and everyone on the road. Finally, at a place that one would never imagine as a wild life sanctuary, we asked a few more villagers. Not a chance! Since…
-
Eva is beautiful. Has naughty eyes. Very warm and friendly. But make no mistake. She is a 7-year old baby elephant. Malayalees’ love story with elephants is centuries old. No temple festivals are complete without a procession with an elephant. And it is not just temples. Even churches and some mosque festivals have elephants that add glamour and pride to the festivities. Kerala has a few elephant camps, where elephants used to be domesticated and trained by mahouts and other elephants. Since capturing elephants is banned in Kerala, these camps now cater to the injured or orphaned elephants rescued from…
-
Not too often you get some unusual travel opportunity where you get to spend on a training session for a bunch of energetic youngsters. To start with, this was not meant to be a ‘trip’. When one of our friends, a terrific training professional, mentioned about a two-day training programme, we volunteered to play some supporting role for him, though only for the first day. And quickly plugged into the itinerary was a drive to Pawna lake (17 km from Lonavala) next day for a dip and swimming. Spending a day with these youngsters, listening to their aspirations, dreams, their…
-
There is a road – for namesake. It was ok initially, like any other forest path. As we moved deeper into the forest, forget that the path became narrow; it was nothing but ditches as deep as 2 ft and boulders. Not to mention that it was an uphill climb. One moment we were climbing up at somewhat 70 degree, followed by a climb-down at a similar angle. At one place, we couldn’t find any track; instead we were climbing a rock face. Throughout this terrific drive, we were holding on to whatever we could to prevent our heads from…
-
‘Palarauvi’ is actually a misguiding name for a waterfall cascading down from more than 300 ft. Or for that matter, for any waterfall. ‘Pal’ means milk and ‘aruvi’ means stream in Malayalam. Perhaps the gushing milky white water in the middle of green foliage resulted in the name ‘Palaruvi’. The water falls at such a high force that if not careful it could just push you down inside the pool. Nevertheless, bend and bare your back for a great massage. Preserved by the local villagers, Palaruvi is yet another initiative that drives ‘responsible’ tourism. Palaruvi is in the laps…
-
A 120-m long elevated walkway touching the treetops in the middle of forest! Take this path interspersed with 109 steps and you could try out some adventure activities – all handled by trained professionals. This is part of Thenmala Ecotourism, a unique programme designed by Kerala Tourism department. A relatively less-known tourist destination, Thenmala is a nature lover’s dream destination. Nestled in the ranges of Western Ghats is the Thenmala Dam and around it is the Shenduruney Wildlife Sanctuary. If you always dreamt of doing something that would give you an adrenaline rush, but could never figure out what to…
-
‘Chicken rises’ from your chicken fried rice – bewildering? Then how about having ‘omblate, seanveg’s, pelpuri, and banipuri’ for snacks? These are some interesting and bewildering menu options at some of Munnar’s street-side stalls. If language is to communicate, never mind these localisation of English. Because it does communicate. Especially if you are hungry. No price for guessing what a “Seanveg” is.