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..