My trip to Mahabaleshwar
DAY 1 :
For us Mahabaleshwar has always been a go-to place during the vacations.And this year, with Kaka returning from London for a one month stay, it wasn't any different. We packed our bags on the very night christmas ended and left for our sojourn to the Hotel Girivihar
DAY 2 :
The hotel has a very serene looking temple at the entrance. Just in front of that , is the dining hall which serves very delicious food. The highlight of this hotel is a place called the Cool Point where people gather during the night and where we have ice cream. Also a trampoline and a Carrom board make it more enjoyable .
There is a bungalow just outside our hotel where we found two German shepherds.The image shows our family looking curiously at those dogs while our way on to the market.The first day was spent doing nothing but relaxing.On the same night, we went out for some sight seeing and our usual place-the famous Mahabaleshwar market. On my uncles request we decided to take a round of the outskirts of the market place which surely was nothing less than "A forest trail".We sung songs throughout the walk and even shared incidents we didn't know about each other ,since we were meeting together as a family after several years. Shriya , my elder sister was missing because she had an internship at the college and she could not miss it.We were tempted to have non veg food on the very first day but we held ourselves back.
DAY 3 :
The hotel served us a delicious thaali which looked somewhat like the image above with additions of a sweet and some chaas. We ate heartily and went back to sleep early. Next day morning ,the temperature must have dropped by a degree , but it felt as if it had dropped by several . Shantanu kaka went for a walk and we followed him after having poha for breakfast. We decided to go to the famous polo ground thereafter.It is a huge ground , about the size of a cricket ground ,where people come for horse riding.We use to go there when we were kids and still like it a lot.
I rode on a horse named chulbul which means mischevious in hindi. As you can see from the image I wasnt very happy with him.The ride cost rs.200 and it was not at all a good experience.Next we went to the one stop shop for all the honey products "Madhusaagar". This place has profound memories of me and my family carrying large boxes of sweets, syrups and honey for our relatives.And this time it wasn't any different.I was told to bring some Jambhul honey for one of my classmate and I did so without fail. We returned to the hotel thereafter after roaming in the market for some time.We were planning to eat non veg the day after and were all very excited .There is this one place ,right at the entrance of the market where we get good food ,especially non-veg .
We decided to hang around the famous venna lake for some time that day ,played some games and went to eat non veg food.We do not miss boating every time we go there ,but this time the place was way too crowded and we had no option.
DAY 4 :
Next we headed back to the market,packed some tikkas and came back to the hotel.We were to leave for Karad the day after where we were to meet my auntys parents.I had not been to that place for 5 years !.Next day morning as we set out to leave we found out that one marathi actress was staying right next to our room.To fulfill the excitement of my parents we had a picture taken with them and discussed about her upcoming shows in Mumbai and Pune.
Just last night we were playing with her two year old son and we didnt even realise that she was an actress :) .
We headed for a three hour long journey to Karad thereafter .The weather at Karad was cooler than that at Mahabaleshwar. Karad is a city in the Satara district of Maharashtra. When we reached there I suddenly remembered the place ,where a friend of mine and I ,used to play cricket and the feeling of nostalgia kicked in.The place retained an aura of joyfulness , of fun and of laughter all around .We were indolent on the first day because we were tired from the journey.We just watched TV on that day and went to sleep.Meeting "aaji and aajoba" after such a long time was a very enriching experience which gave me a sense of fulfillment. At first I thought I would be utterly bored at this place, with nothing to do , but I was wrong. The further story would tell you why,and at the end I could not leave the place and even wanted to stay longer.
DAY 5 :
We woke up next day morning to delectable breakfast by Aaji and to the green tea by Aajoba. Next we got ready to go to the ghaat ,but since the weather was way too cold we could not head out and had to spend our morning at the bungalow itself . We spent our time playing some cards ,games like "badaam saat " and "challenge", the latter being my favourite. I enjoyed both of them a lot.I read some pages of my book and then set out to go to the Ghaat in the evening.In the evening the ghaat was particularly cold and we all were shivering with cold, making sure we did not get frostbite. We returned an hour later , had biryani for dinner and went to sleep.
We spent some time on the ghaat on our last day where we got to see the confluence of river Koyana and Krishna.It was a one time experience. We even got to see the tomb of 1st CM of Maharshtra Yashwantrao Chavan.
This image above is from the last night that we were in Karad. We took the well-known Wai road for our return journey and ended up spending 5 hours more than the usual time. The overall trip was very memorable and we would never forget the fun we had. We wanted to stay for a few more days ,to avoid ourselves from going to the ever humid Mumbai weather.But there was the laptop waiting for me ,I had some pending admissions and had to go to Mumbai as soon as possible .
Comments
Post a Comment