Amidst Nature...

My much awaited break, after IMPACT Day- trip to matheran; turned out to be one of the finest encounters I have had with nature.

What a wonderful place ya….we had to walk a lot but didn’t mind doing it a bit…after all it’s a rare opportunity to be amidst nature. At the end of our drive from Mumbai, we came to a point where all cabs and taxis had to be parked, they couldn’t be taken beyond this point, called Dasturi. From there, we had options of either taking a horse, hand pulled rickshaws to matheran- however, these were super expensive, so we decided to walk. Our hotel was the farthest- being located the last in the mini jungle. It took us an hour and half to get there. The walk to the hotel took us by the toy train trail (which was sadly shut due to monsoons), path with lush green flora and fauna laden with mist of clouds. Our hotel was called’ Verandah in the Forest’ – which literally looked like one. It probably must have been a private bungalow earlier, before being converted into a hotel. It had 8- 9 rooms and all had interesting Indian names. Our room was located at the rear end and the best part was that the jungle was just outside the main door of our room. The room had a thick British flavor to it; nevertheless it was cozy and comfortable. The tin roof of the room, with monkeys jumping on it constantly added the ‘jungle feel’ all the more!!

Since the food served in the hotel was super duper expensive, we decided to have all our meals in the main market. Since our hotel was the farthest, every time we had to walk 2-3 kms to get to the market place. So the 2 days we stayed there, we used to get ready, go to the market place in the morning, have breakfast, walk around and spend time looking at various view points (Echo point, monkey point, Louisa point etc among dozen of others) until afternoon, then have lunch at the same place, relax for some time, pack dinner and finally leave for the hotel. Moreover, since the network reception was nil in the hotel, we had to make our calls while we were in the market place- this was fun somewhat, being cut off from the entire world for some time.

Just the day before we left, Matheran experienced extremely heavy rains. It started pouring from 3.00 pm in the afternoon and continued throughout the night with thunderstorms. At some point during late evening, with all the wind and the heavy thunders and deluge of raindrops on our tin roof, it was slightly scary- wondering what would happen if we were to be stranded in that place coz of weather conditions. Anyways, the rain stopped next morning but thanks to the monkeys all around our room, it took us nearly 15 mins to get them away so that we could leave our room.

So, that was my lil description of the Matheran trip.. Worth a visit only during monsoons!!!