Bhimashankar

Planned Destination : Bhimashankar

Route Info (Pune - Bhimashankar) : Pune - Nasik Phata (Old Mumbai Pune Highway) - Bhosari - Chakan - Rajgurunagar - Manchar - Ghodegaon - Bhimashankar

Dates : 2nd Aug' 08

Info in brief :

1. A spiritual place with one of twelve Jyotirlinga(s)
2. A great place for wildlife lovers and trekkers
3. Not many resorts around, if you are planning to stay check out The Blue Mormon
4. A beautiful drive with clean road and full of greenery
5. Not much sight seeing (If foggy/cloudy)
6. "Just after rains are over" is a good time to go to enjoy this place full of lush greenery
7. Not many shops / restaurants. Pack your own food.
8. Wikimapia link : http://wikimapia.org/#lat=19.0543298&lon=73.5213661&z=13&l=0&m=h&v=2

As soon as I finished up with the last post, I started with this to keep up the promise made in the last post. But I got busy a lot and later on could not find the time and mood to complete the same. Never mind, below is what all I remember from this fabulous journey.

I along with my family made a quick trip to a place called Bhimashankar situated in the woods approx 124 kms away from Pune. Before going to the place I tried to collect info like how to reach, best route, places to stay and eat and places for sightseeing but not much info was available on the net. I checked with few of my friends and one mentioned that it might not be possible to make this trip alone in one single day coz although its just 124 kms but bcoz of the road condition you will end up taking more than 5 hrs on one side alone and then including the time for sightseeing. There are not any good restaurants or dhabas around this place and there is just one good (or you can say the only one) resort, The Blue Mormon, around to stay at.

Although i was anxious to see all the places like Nagphani, the wild jungle, the gupt bhima, but because of being with family decided to make it a single day trip only. We left early in the morning at around 7 am from Pune, touched Rajgurunagar in some what around less than two hours. A signboard advised to take left for Bhimasankar and another to go straight for manchar, i enquired with someone and he was keen to tell me that its better to take route via Manchar as it is comparatively better. Went ahead, crossed some ghat and reached manchar, another signboard advising to take a left turn for bhimashankar. Soon after taking this turn, the road is more or less single, extremely narrow and a up hill drive which signaled that it's time to slow down.

Soon after we reached somewhat top of the mountains the greenery and small waterfalls started to show up. To my surprise the road was really smooth and almost for first time I was enjoying driving in my car, I literally felt like as if I am back in Himachal and driving up & down the mountains. It took some time to reach the top at the base of the temple primarily because of some of halts we made in between to enjoy the weather. It was thankfully not raining (so far).

Some 3-4 kms of road just before reaching the temple is full fledged jungle and pretty dense as well. Road was patchy a lot for this whole stretch and fog was also not helping so I had to slow down to literally some 20-30kms speed limit. Once this patch is over one's land directly at the parking near the temple and then it’s a 5-10 mins walk amidst plenty of shops trying to sell prasad and this and that. You will find such shops almost near every temple. Beware of what you carry in your hand while on your way to temple because of the presence of plenty of monkeys around. The temple is not very huge and is very old; most of its beauty is lost because of tent build up around over the bars to keep people in queue. Inside the temple people are pushed around like anywhere in a big and busy temple.

Once done visiting the temple, we soon started our journey back as we didn't time have much time in hand and no one else was keen on going inside the jungle for any sight seeing. As I started to enjoy my driving again it started raining very very heavily and we had to make a halt at some local dhaba. We feasted on local dish Pithla-Bhakri, enjoyed it a lot and ended up ordering more number of plates than the persons we are, as it was really delicious. After having a special shakkar-kam tea (believe me you really have to mention that in locals here, else you will end up having whole week sugar quota in a single cup of tea) it was time to click some photos and head back home.

It took some time to reach the highway, and man I started to hate myself for being in Pune. Traffic started to show up like anything, and I started to wondered.. Why am I back?

More photos at Picasa - Bhimashankar

I promise it won't be long!!

Well, there are few reasons for this post to come up. Firstly, its been a long time i have posted anything on my blog, where as initially my idea was to post all my traveling info with piks. Secondly, i don't want to wait another year for another post giving away idea that Feb is my favorite month of the year, with both the previous posts coming in the month of Feb in last two years.

So in the coming posts i will be talking about two of the recent trips i had to Bhimashankar and then to Harihareshwar / Srivardhan.

I promise it won't be long!!

Where's the beach???

Planned Destination : Murud / Harnai Beach, Near Dapoli (Ratnagiri, Maharashtra)

Route Info (Pune - Dapoli) : Pune - Chandani Chauk - Paud - Mulshi - Dongarwadi - Tamhini Ghat - Vile - Nijampur - Mangaon (NH 17) - Lonere Phata - Goregaon - Ambet - Mhapral - Shenale - Mandangad - Dapoli - Murud / Harnai

Route Info (Dapoli - Pune) : Dapoli - (Towards Mandangad) - Latwan - Mahad (do not enter, take bypass) - Varandha Ghat - Bhor - Pune

Dates : 17th Feb'08 - 18th Feb'08

Info in brief :
1. A great place to enjoy whether you are with family or friends.
2. Beaches where you can take your car as well.. (be careful though)
3. A great weekend getaway.
4. Check booking status before going at preferred resort.
5. Kamat resort is good if with family, Silver sand resort is good enough if with friends.
6. Not much sight seeing, except beautiful beaches and temples.
7. Not sure of preferred time to be here, I went in mid feb-08 and weather was awesome.
8. There are not many shops around, so get yourself loaded before getting here.
9. Detailed info of places at http://www.konkaninfo.com/ / http://www.konkandarshan.com/
10. Wikimapia link

First things first.. A big thanks to a very dear friend Rahul Bapat, who lend me his camera, Canon S3 iS, and making this trip truly memorable to both me and my wife, Gargi. (My camera 'Canon S1 iS' screwed for no reason and yet to be given for repairing)

So before I get out of the mood of a truly amazing weekend I just had, let me pen down my very first (big time) experience on a beach...

We planned to start early in morning at 7 from Pune. Ya! I know many people will question.. That’s early?? But believe me, a guy who doesn't get up by 10 or 11 on weekend that is actually early. So I got up around 6:15 in morning and as I started to get ready (with bags packed last night itself, to save time in morning) and went into my balcony I realized how sunrise looks like, which I don't remember when was last time I had experienced a sunrise. We finally started our journey at around 7:45 am from home, reached paud and then mulshi pretty quickly. Clicked few pics at mulshi and then crossed tamhini ghat.

Driving through tamhini ghat was real fun for me, as I belong to Himachal and most of my driving I have done in the hills, so this particular stretch was making me feel at home (or u can say on roads near home). After crossing tamhini ghat we touched NH 17 at managaon and took a turn towards dapoli at Lonere phata.

There were 2-3 things I was very much impressed with, all this while. Firstly condition of road, which was very good except for a patch of 2-3 kms where road work was going on, then the route markers and plenty of road signs at ghats and finally route info I had in hand. I picked up destination and route information much from www.konkaninfo.com, got to say who ever mentioned route info on this site was very good, except at only one point when I was about to reach mandangad, there was a left turn towards dapoli (where there was no sign, or probably both of us missed).

Anyway so after driving few more kilometers, when dapoli was now 3-4 kms, I was still driving up and down on mountains, making me feel.. where the hell is the beach. We reached dapoli and took a turn towards harnai which was approx 10-15 kms ahead.. and more mountains.. Now I had really started to doubt.. where the hell am I.. (I had checked in http://www.wikimapia.org/ that there is a beach at harnai.. but where has it disappeared now). On reaching murud there, we finally saw some board signs for resorts as well as the sign of the beach, so were relieved a little for finally reaching our destination. It was almost 1 pm now.

We started to check out different resorts / hotels, Kamat, Silver sand, Balaji, Garambi, Sea princess, Sea face, Sagar hill etc. We spent more than an hour roaming around all the places and then finally settled for Kamat which was the most expensive (1500 one night) of them all but at the same time the best among all as well. Where others were rated around 700-800 rupees but all of the them had a negative factor to add to them, silver sand was nicely placed but rooms were not decent enough, sea face was good but it was way far off on karde beach, road was not good and it was more of a hotel than beach resort. So verdict here is if you are going with family go for Kamat and if you are with friends then stay at Silver sand. Don't even bother to check out other ones, especially Garambi, it was the worst of the lot (no wonder there wasn't anyone staying as well).

After having a nice spicy lunch at resort restaurant we head for the beach, and wow what an experience it was.. Beach and the water were very clear. I had been to beaches of Mumbai and Alibaug but they were nothing compared to this.. After spending some time and clicking few pics we head for the room for a short nap and after and hour or so we were back at beach all ready to get drenched (and at the same time to keep camera away from water). Another set of photo shoot and Gargi giving some poses as a model and I am trying whatever little skills I have with photography.

We enjoyed the most beautiful sunset we had ever seen (so far), so now I can bet, sunset at beaches are much more beautiful than sunset in some hilly areas, the reflection of setting sun on the water, it’s just an amazing view (not to be missed).

And what's that.. oh! they have parasailing as well (though tied behind a jeep rather than a boat..) ok I said to myself and Gargi, we got to try this.. Rate 300, ok, that's pretty much affordable (though for a short ride), so here it is my first with any form of parachute.. and its immense amount of fun, and I did not fear anything, something which I was expecting was probably when coming down, and one thing more.. it was not easy to steer this particular parachute, it’s very hard to pull it. After few convincing acts Gargi (who is scared of heights and of giant wheels kind of things) also agreed to give this thing a try..and boy she too had a lot of fun with a mixture of excitement and fear.. :)

Well the sun is all set now and its time to head back to our room, had a nice shower, rest a while in the beach facing balcony and then head for the dinner.

I was in a mood of having a walk at the beach in the moonlight, which was looking and sounding very beautiful, but Gargi was scared of that feeling, so after a short walk (not so close to the beach but within resort premises) we head back to the room for a good night.

Next day, planned to get up early, but a little tired from last day managed to get up at around 9 only, some more quality time spent on the beach and then it was time to check out and look for some sight seeing.

Don't expect much sight seeing around (except beautiful lonely, quiet beaches, but then they all are same), we went to a fort called Kanakdurg Fort, which is more of a 'khandar' (in ruins) now. Another fort called Suvarnadurg is also visible from here which is in sea and one will have to take a boat to get there.

On our way back to dapoli we went to 'Chandika mandir' at Dabhol, not having correct information earlier went on a wrong route and ended up wasting time and fuel.

We started our journey back to Pune at around 3:30 and this time took an alternate route via mahad - bhor. Now this route was good in a part coz there was no traffic at all, hardly meeting any vehicles till I crossed NH 17 at mahad and then reached bhor. But a very bad part of this route was that there was a total of approx 10-15 kms of road which was in bad shape with 4-5 being in real bad shape (for my new car specially). On the way there was this river 'Nira' where we clicked some beautiful snaps and then finally touched NH 4 somewhere before Shirwal village and then head back to home...

This place has won our hearts and we look forward to go to this place again & again.. so if you are looking for a company, do let us know.. :-)

I'm yet to upload photos onto my webshots community (http://community.webshots.com/user/sharmaparas) page of this trip.. Will do that in a couple of days as and when i will find some time..

Golden Grass & White Snow

Let's start with the picture which is, so far, favorite of mine. I call it "Golden Grass and White Snow", and i captured this beautiful moment at Prashar Lake.

Prashar a place on top of a mountain situated at the height of almost 10,000 feet (2730 meters) above MSL and almost 50 km from Mandi town (Himachal Pradesh, India). Its a beautiful drive all the way to the top crossing various mountains and then a dense forest to reach this place. It is named after the Saint Prashar and has a pagoda style temple and a lake (which is also known as Prashar Lake).

It was bright and sunny when we reached at the top, but soon it started raining and then snowfall, with sun behind and the clouds coming towards me... It was then i got a chance to capture this view..

For more pictures from this trip visit : http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/555218017Scphtd

Looking forward to hear your comments on this..