Footloose: March 2015

If one is planning an impromptu overnight trip to Mahabaleshwar just make sure it is on a week day.

We have learnt how to travel without hassle – just travel midweek when there are no holidays. Well we made a short trip to Mahabaleshwar just before Holi, with our friends, Maggie and Dennis. The short drive of a 120 kms from Pune to Mahabaleshwar is quite pleasant except Rajeev did not do his homework and took the Wai route instead of turning from the Mahabaleshwar Phata, some 8 km before the Wai turn. Even then we reached Panchgani by 10 am (having started at 6am) after a breakfast halt of about half an hour at Satara.

Maggie modeling her new dress on the Satara highway!

The horse carts and the little pond on the Table Land.

Rajeev against the back drop of silver oak trees

The 2nd highest plateau in Asia after the Tibetan Plateau

A wagtail by the pond

The colourful carts broke the monotony of the landscape

The Table Land, a volcanic plateau (second highest in Asia after the Tibetan plateau), which we have always seen choc-a-bloc with tourists and horse-carts was totally empty and not dusty because of the heavy showers the previous couple of days. Panchgani gets its name from the five hills surrounding it. From the elevation of the Table Land we could get a bird’s eye view of the whole area. Had fun walking from end to end; encountered a friendly squirrel and some wagtails and Syke’s larks. A tea vendor gave us a low down of the surrounding scene – the Krishna River meandering in and out of the surrounding ridges made a captivating sight. The fringe of silver-oak trees just below the Table Land glistened in the morning sun. Incidentally, the silver oaks were introduced by the British (as also the poinsettia) to the region, they retain moisture and help keep the place cool (free info supplied by the chai wallah and memorised by Maggie). St Joseph’s convent (made famous by bollywood brats – again info provided by the tea vendor), peeping out from between the silver oaks made for a pretty picture.

St Joseph's school amidst the silver oak trees

A friendly squirrel which followed me around

The Krishna River meandering between the five hills of Panchgani

After a second breakfast of sandwiches and black tea which we had packed with us, we drove down (or up) to Mahabaleshwar. Some 10 kms before reaching Mahabaleshwar we saw a neat looking hotel called Travellers Inn. It looked new and clean so we decided to stay on (we got a rebate as incentive too). It was a wise decision because the Mahabaleshwar Market has become congested and noisy and all the hotels we had decided to explore were in the market area.

Traveller's Inn

The congested market

posing with the strawberry wine Rajeev bought

Maggie's penchant for buying shoes. She bought, as she says, a 'jhatak' dark pink one.

An old church near the market (estd. 1831)

After walking around the market for an hour or so and buying knick-knacks we had our vegetarian lunch at a restaurant called Poonam. A family with a shrieking child did its best to spoil the experience but we retained our good humour. Thereafter we thought of seeing a point or two, oft seen before. We decided to see the Haathi Mattha or Elephant’s Head point because I remembered having had strawberry cream in a shop there. Well at this time there were no shops, hardly any tourists, and we couldn’t find the elephant’s trunk!

The shady wooded path to Hatthi Mattha

We did, however, come across a nice family and helped take each other’s group pictures. We walked through the shaded wood and heard a few bulbuls and the Common Babblers. There is a monument built in memory of General Peter Lodwich, first Englishman to set foot in Mahabaleshwar. The plaque on the memorial proudly lauds his achievements of defeating the Peshwa army and capturing the various forts of the region. To digress a little we went for a heritage walk along the river in Pune and saw the memorial built for the Peshwas under whose rule the Maratha Empire reached its zenith and who laid the foundation of the city of Pune. The statue erected in the memorial had probably been stolen and the place was submerged in garbage. I now understand why I detested reading Indian history in school – because we studied books written by foreigners giving their point of view (many a times purposely misrepresenting facts) and did not feel the glory and the sacrifices of the Indian side.

The awesome foursome! (thankyou Sameer Bhatt)

Lodwich's memorial

Lodwich's laurels

Hathi Mattha

A road snaking along the mountain side

The afternoon sun proved to be a little too bright and we decided to take a siesta. On the way back we checked the breakfast timings at the Mapro factory and eatery and bought our first installment of strawberry from a young girl called Poonam (a popular name apparently) and they were so sweet we finished them all. The evening was spent playing cards in the room and just when I got a ‘’marriage’’ everybody decided to go out for dinner. A restaurant called Amantran sounded very inviting. It was very chilly outside and the shawls we had grabbed at the last minute proved most fortuitous.

The next morning I strolled around the vicinity of the hotel trying to spot some birds. The others joined me shortly and we just loafed around taking pictures till it was time to go have the great grilled sandwiches served by Mapro. We bought our pre-ordered next installment of the garden fresh strawberries from Poonam for people back home.