Pune, the cultural capital and the second largest city in the state of Maharashtra. Pune is the hub for software industry in state as
well as Central India. It is famous for several research institutions and is also the second largest hub for automobile industry after Chennai. Many of these
facts are well known to everyone. But, it is not known to many people, especially from South India ,that Pune is also a hub for several tourist attractions,
most of them are being hill stations.
We are a bunch of 10 tourist
enthusiasts who love to explore places, eight of them had never been to Pune excluding
me and another friend. I had been to Pune nine times before this trip and I knew
all the places well. Pune lies center of Western Ghats, one of the hotspots for biological diversity in the world as designated by UN. It is a feast
for nature lovers like me to explore these lavish landscapes, exotic viewpoints,
rainy and foggy climate. We were waiting for Monsoons to start, so that we can
plan the tour. We planned for a three day weekend and booked the flight tickets in
advance before one and half month. Below is the tour schedule
Day 1: Lonavala and Khandala
Day 2: Mahabaleswar
Day 3: Lavasa
Camera: Nikon D7100 Lenses: 35 mm prime lens and 55-200 mm zoom lens Accessories: ML-7 IR remote control, Benro T-660EX tripod stand Budget: ~9500 including airfare, hotel accommodation, transport and food per person
Day 1: Lonavala and Khandala Maps:
Pune to Lonavala
Our trip started with an early morning flight to Pune, we booked cab (Tempo traveller) for 10 people couple of days before and directly started to Lonavala along the express way from airport.
Be careful with the transport providers, the usual service is 300 km per day outstation for 4500 Rs. Whether you utilize 300 km or not, you have to pay full and this does not include the toll and parking charges. One has to pay 200 bucks extra if we make it beyond 8 pm in the night. These travel providers try to cheat people in many ways. For example, they told us that it was 300 km per day but it includes the distance from their garage and return to garage which means you will be losing roughly 30-40 km per day based on your stay location. These terms and conditions will not be informed before.
We rounded off the trip to 750 km for 3 days. Since we were 10 in number, general small transport vehicles were not sufficient. You can book Indica, Innova or any other cab as per requirement. All the transport providers are same and you can select the vehicle based on the best deal provided.
We asked the driver to take us through the 6 lane Pune-Mumbai express way (The other route being old NH-4). From my experience, I can say it is one of the best scenic highways in India. It was an absolute pleasure passing through the tunnels, ghat roads on a cloudy day.
Pune-Mumbai Express Way
Pune-Mumbai Express Way through tunnels
Pune-Mumbai Express Way
By the time we reached Lonavala, it was a bit sunny and all my friends started teasing me about the weather (I told them
that the weather would be full cloudy & rainy, asked them to get umbrellas and
rain coats). As we headed to Tiger’s view point, the climate suddenly turned cloudy and foggy, the visibility of the road has become very poor on
reaching the top.
Believe me, it was an awesome experience walking through clouds with the drizzle. The view point was fantastic and we quickly snapped some photos
when there was enough sunlight. It started raining then and the clouds became denser by around 12 am.
Video view
We then proceeded to Mulshi dam point. Seriously there is not
much here to see and you can skip to some other point to save time. We visited
due to personal interest and memories I had 4 years back.
Views from Mulshi Dam
We stopped for lunch at a Gujarati restaurant, food was not so great , at least for a south
Indian like me. By the time we had lunch, it started raining heavily and we had no other
way than proceeding further to Khandala. It was fully foggy and I am sure
that you cannot see anything beyond 100m distance.
As you can see from below photograph, there is no visibility.
We were initially disappointed
that we lost some beautiful view points, but since we had time for rest of
the day, we waited for better climate and it paid off partially in an hour. The
climate and viewpoints had become clearer (not completely though).
That was enough for me to capture some sceneries. We were able to see and hear
a huge water fall (Kune waterfall) and its sound which was roughly 2-3 km vertically. That looked
like a Baahubali intro shot (sorry for showing my obsession with Baahubali here!) when zoomed in my DSLR. We returned to Pune by
7 pm in the evening.
Kune Waterfall, shot from long distance using 55-200 mm lens on my Nikon D7100
Kune Waterfalls
Day
2: Mahabaleswar Maps
Mahabaleswar view points
Panchgani to Mahabaleswar
Our trip to Mahableswar started
at around 8; It is roughly 130 km from Pune.
En route Mahabaleswar
It includes several places like Sunset view point, Panchgani, Arthur seat point, Kates point, Krishna river origin etc.
View from Sunset point
Sunset point
Me @ Sunset point
Sunset point
Mahabaleswar
has the 2nd highest peak in Maharastra. It is full of mountainous ranges, valleys
and forests. Great place for nature lovers.
Dhom lake , Krishna river view from Panchgani, Mahabaleswar
Once again it was a full foggy day with
rain.
En route Arthur seat point
Bike ride or self-driving would be an awesome experience.
List of view points near Mahabaleswar
Maps in local Marathi language
We reached Arthur seat point at around 5 pm, it was fully covered with clouds and therefore could not see anything nearby. As you can see from the image above, the view point is named after British governor Sir George Arthur of Mumbai presidency.
Zero visibility at Arthur seat point
We missed out
several viewpoints due to bad weather but the feel factor of climate was a heavenly
experience. Before returning to Pune, we quickly visited the Panchganga temple where the sacred river Krishna originates.
Krishna river origin temple
Day
3: Lavasa Map
Last day of our trip, we wanted
it to be a less exploring and more relaxing day. Hence we scheduled Lavasa, India’s
first planned hill city just 60 km away from Pune. En route Lavasa, we found a good view of Temghar dam reservoir.
Boat @ Temghar reservoir
Temghar dam reservoir
Tree @ Temghar reservoir
Temghar dam reservoir
Lavasa, originally planned
to comprise of 12 towns across seven hills, currently has one town completely built. The town you see in
several web photos is Dasve.
Dasve, Lavasa
Mutha river
Mutha river mountainous ranges
The other towns are under construction. The
architecture is designed to meet international standards and be eco-friendly in nature.
Lakeshore water sports, Lavasa
Lavasa International Convention centre
Me @ Lavasa
Several international restaurants, dining halls, conventional centres are established.
Food street and Dinning halls, Downtown, Lavasa
Lavasa roads
Lavasa overview from entrance point
Khadakwasla dam reservoir
We initially planned to visit Sinhagad fort and hill station, highest peak in Maharastra, but missed due to time constraints.
We wrapped our trip by the end of day reaching Bengaluru by 11.30 pm. It was a nostalgic trip for me and enjoyed it fully.
Note: Photos are enhanced with basic tools in Google Plus since I could not take RAW image files (NEF ~24Mb per file) due to storage problem. For the first time I had done this. I never enhanced any of photos I took till now but realized that editing them will give entirely a new look.
