Mumbai-Poona trip

We ended 2006 in style with a family cum pleasure vacation, which was much awaited as much as was delayed. It was also a result of the numerous complaints from my close relatives all of who are in the Mumbai-Poona belt for having neglected to make a visit to them.

The trip was planned quite in advance with the onward journey booked by flight ( Jet Airways ) and the return journey totally unplanned on purpose. We left for Mumbai on 23^rd December, Saturday at 12 Noon and reached Mumbai at 1:30 PM. It was the first time I was flying with my family and had to experience the uncertain moments of how Diya would behave in the flight. I had seen many babies and kids cry with either fear ( or pain or just anxiety ! ), and was slightly anxious if I would be the one at the receiving end this time. Diya was quite playful for most of the time, which actually is an issue in a plane because you hardly have any space to move around. It was a difficult exercise to manage during the lunch and Vaiju and myself barely managed to taste the menu.

The first day was spent in Bhandup and we had been to Hyper Mall, in the lines of Forum in bangalore but much better since there is lot of open space and open air. Also purchased( gifted by Vaiju ) the long pending Corduroy trouser. The next day began with north-south Jaunt to Gateway of India in the car ( Tata Indica ) we had hired next three days to travel in Mumbai, Mahad, Mahabaleshwar and Poona. This was unusual since we avoided the local trains for the commute in order to cover more locations, houses and families all in 2 days. The infrastructure development in this part of the company is almost a decade ahead of that in bangalore.

We saw gateway of India and then proceeded to visit the famous Mahalakshmi temple before driving all the way to Ambernath. We drew down straight to Vaiju’s maushi;s home for a extra sumptuous lunch. We utilized the opportunity for a small afternoon nap to energize ourselves for the rest of the day. Later in the afternoon, we visited Baby Tai, whom I had not seen in the last one decade. It was nice to meet her, Arpita and Seenu after a long long time. Apparently, Seenu was enquiring who Raja was J After spending a couple of hours in her place, we proceeded to Dombivali to Dhruva Dada’s place where everyone was waiting for us. We had a late dinner and a cake cut by Diya on the family reunion. Finally, we left Dombivali by car and arrived at Bhandup just before midnight ( It took almost twice the time that it would have taken by a local train ).

Next day, we again left at 9:30 in the Indica to Mahad, which is on the Mumbai – Goa highway. We reached Mahad by 12 Noon and had a lunch. After that, we left for Raigadh fort at 3 PM, which was obviously quite late. We were also joined by Pandits brothers family. Reaching there, we realized what it can be on holidays..We had to wait for three hours to get into the ropeway that would take us to the hilltop and the fort. Finally, we reached there when it was pitch dark J. We saw ( whatever we could ) in the torch light as well as the light from the mobile phones..Neverhthless, it was a good experience and a good learning to know about the Shivaji era. The guide whose services we had taken was quite handy.

This is the Mahabaleshwar landscape. Great picture....I was trying to compare this with the landscape at Grand Canyon and there are some similarities as well. Though Grand Canyon is surely much bigger and is more reddish compared to these western ghat mountain ranges.

We had been to the boathouse, which are typical of the hill stations. I have seen such boathouses in Kodiakanal, Ooty and now Mahabaleshwar. The experience has been equally good. This time it was particularly nice and pleasant.

Next day morning, after a heavy breakfast, we left for Mahabaleshwar, Panchgani with an ope n schedule of either staying back at Mahabaleshwar or going ahead to Poona. We reached Mahabaleshwar by Lunch time and the first thing we had was a sumptuous lunch( I had a Gujrati thali and Vaiju had Jhoonka Bhakar ). After that, we started moving around to sightsee Mahabaleshwar for its various points ..Arthur point, Echo Point were some of the points I remember but most of them were very good. However, a thing noticeable was the weather. We felt that Bangalore is probably more pleasant J It may be selfish statement, but that is what we felt at the time that we spent there..We also enjoyed the were delicious Bhutta.

By sunset, were at Tableland spot where we also a Tanga ride on the table land spot.. One of the points I remember is the Panadava feet spot, where there is a mark on the earth of a giant feet that is supposed to be of the Pandavas..Later we felt that it would be wiser to drive back to Poona instead of halting at Panchgani since it would have been just for the night even if we halted..

This is again one of the beautiful pictures that I managed to take.

There is a significant difference in the Nilgiri ranges compared to the western mountain ranges. The density, colour as well and type of the vegetation differs..

We reached Poona by 10:30 PM and went to Padmaja’s place and chatted for couple of hours before retiring to the bed, in order to be ready to take on Poona the next day, which would be 28^th Jan.

We managed to do some shopping in Pune including the most wanted "Paithani" saree by Vaiju and some nice cure saree for Diya. What amused me was we could do shopping near Lakshmi road , see Shaniwar Wada and then return home all in 3 Hrs..It would have easily taken half a day in Bangalore on a weekday.

Afternoon, it was Pune darshan all the way..courtesy Sunil..Sunil can probably vie for any top level post in the Pune Culture, Travel and Infrastructure department of the government. We almost covered completely the western part of Pune that included the IT campuses mushrooming in Pune, the defence area, some of the the traditional spots, the Rajneesh asram ( the landscape created out of an open drane was amazing within the ashram ), Smriti's school and most of the important roads as well as some bylanes :-). We could also get some sense of the Pune traffic in the evening on our way back. One thing that I'am certain is that, anybody else that I know, would have done as good a job of showing Pune as much as Sunil did..



Next day morning, we left early morning to the Sinhgadh fort, which is also one of the important forts of Shivaji. Shivaji had some 248 forts in all during his era..The drive in the morning was nice and we were there on the top by 10 AM.







We also saw the house of Lokmanya Tilak where Gandhiji met Tilak during the independence struggle.











Apart from that it photo sessions and the most interesting time was the breakfast of Jhoonka Bhakar and Onion Bhaji.

On the way back, we managed to visit the Paa's new shop and did the shopping of the exclusive Bhakar Vada..Also bought the most needed Travel bag..Later, we left for Chinchwad by Auto and visited Morab family, Savita's house and Mami. We spent some emotional moments with mami and then were with Morab's just before dinner. It would have been ideal to have spent some more time but our bookings were already done for Kolhapur by the Sahyadri at night..Anil and Abhay accompanied us to the Pimpri station and were on our way to Pune.

Kolhapur visit turned out to be a time for reenergising ourselves after the hurricane visits across all places. All three of us were down with cold and cough ..Diya had some fever by now..We managed to visit the famous Mahalakshmi temple in the afternoon and then had the most sought Misal on the way back in the evening. We requested to stay at home the next day in order to relax..Next day morning, we were on our way to Belgaum ...The details ..Watch the Next Blog post ..