Unplanned trips are the most adventurous and become even more
exciting with a bunch of crazy friends.
This time me and my crazy friends headed to Mahabaleshwar, a small
town located in the Satara district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It's a
lovers' paradise, a nature lovers' haven and a perfect place for someone
looking for ultimate bliss. Well known hill station situated at an elevation of
1353 metres above sea level surrounded by valleys on all sides.
A perfect weekend getaway for people staying in Pune and Mumbai as
it's only 125 kms away from Pune and 266 kms from Mumbai.
Most of us associate Mahabaleshwar with beautiful valleys,
plummeting waterfalls and not to forget the delicious strawberries. And these
luscious strawberries of Mahabaleshwar, grown in the hilly slopes of the region
accounts for about 85 percent of total strawberry produced in India.
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Strawberries were brought to this region from Australia by the
British
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I came across one interesting fact that Strawberry
cultivation was introduced by prisoners from China and Malay imprisoned by the
British in Mahabaleshwar from 1834 to 1864.Since it's a seasonal fruit, hence
the season lasts between October- November and April-May.
One can also enjoy the famous annual strawberry festival hosted by
Mapro garden, well known for their strawberry produce. The main attraction of
this festival is the fresh farm picked strawberries available for visitors to
eat and also various other traditional folk performances.
The city of strawberries has a great history of which very few
people are aware of. As the legend says, the city came into being when the two
demons atibal and mahabal in ancient period, around the period of creation of
the world tried to terrorise the people to the maximum extent. The recorded
history of mahabaleshwar dates back to 1215CE, when Yadav king singham of
Devagiri visited this place and built a temple at the source of krishna
river.After the fall of yadav dynasty ,the region was ruled by many other kingdoms.
Finally ,In the 19th century this place received its real recognition ,when
General P Lodwick ,the first European visited mahabaleshwar.It was he who made
mahabaleshwar popular among the british.Another prominent visitor Col Briggs
found this region as a perfect escape from the scorching heat of the nearby
plains .He persuaded the then raja of satara to build roads in this region for
better communication .He also requested the governor of Bombay, sir john
Malcolm to visit the hill station. In 1929, Mahabaleshwar was officially
declared as Bombay presidency's summer capital.
Well we started from Pune around 2pm in the afternoon and took the
route via Wai -Panchgani-Mahabalehwar. The roads were fairly good, and the
beautiful weather made our journey very pleasant. An unending drizzle followed
us till Mahabaleswar.
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| Highways decorated in green velvet |
Since we were short of time, we couldn't stop at Wai, a small town
located on the Krishna river famous for its seven ghats and many temples.
Another prominent tourist attraction in Wai is Dhom Dam Backwater.
This journey brought about some beautiful unexpected surprises
that took our breath away now and then. One such mesmerizing thing happened
while we crossed Wai and were moving towards Panchgini.
We came across a patch of land which had a beautiful view of the
other side of the valley. We were shivering and quivering with excitement and happiness.
A cool wind with drizzle took us into some other Utopian world.
Well this was
just the start....!
This place not only gave the most picturesque view but also
provided us with some fun activities like horse riding and camel riding. It was
thrilling to ride a horse in such a pleasant weather.
Once it was also a place to enjoy paragliding where the entire
paragliding gears were made available to the public. Now, one can do
paragliding here but have to arrange for their own gears.
From this point we reached Panchgani in roughly 20 minutes.
Another beautiful hill station near Mahabaleshwar famous for its various
sunset / sunrise points and scenic valley view. It’s surrounded by five hills
and hence the name Panchgani. Since we had to reach Mahabaleshwar the same day,
we decided to visit Table land, a popular tourist place in Panchgani and
skipped all other viewpoints. Table Land is the highest point of the entire
region of Panchgani and offers some breathtaking views of the valley.
It was nearly 8pm when we
reached Mahabaleshwar .It takes about 40 mins to reach Mahabaleshwar from
Panchgani. Since we went there in mid-August, due to heavy rainfall there was
lot of fog and mist. We couldn't see anything clearly on the roads and it was a
bit difficult to drive.
We had booked a hotel through OYO just an hour before reaching.
But to our utmost disgust, the maintenance and facilities of the room didn't
match the actual pictures shown on the app. Hence, I believe it's always better
to book the hotel after visiting it. Since there was no dearth of hotels around,
we settled in a hotel near the market with comfortable tariff rates.
We started our sightseeing next day in the morning. The very first
place we visited was the Mahabaleshwar temple, located 6 kms from the main market.
This temple was built around eight hundred years ago and the shiv-linga is
believed to be much older, around thousands of years old. Inside the temple
there is a 6 feet long Shiva Lingam, in the shape of Rudraksha, of which only
the tip is visible.The temple also has old articles belonging to lord Shiva
like Damru, Trishul, a bed and carvings of his sacred bull and Kalbhairav .It
is believed that he still visits the temple and uses them. Like any other Shiva
temple, this place offers a lot of peace and a feeling of nothingness.
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| Mahabaleshwar Temple |
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| Atibaleshwar Temple |
As we moved forward inside the Mahabaleshwar temple premises, we
found two more beautiful temples, the Atibaleshwar temple and Panch ganga
temple .
The Panchganga temple is constructed at the convergence of five
rivers Krishna,Venna ,Savitri ,koyna and Gayatri .Inside the temple one can see
a cow made of stone .Most astonishingly we found that the water from all the
five rivers was flowing through its mouth. And unbelievably it was the tastiest
and purest of water we could ever had.
Our next stop was Kates point from where two other points, Echo
point and Needle's hole were only walking distance. The Kates point offered a
beautiful view of the Balkawadi dam.
We were completely awestruck when we saw the needle's hole point.
It is another picturesque point where an overhanging cliff resembles the top of
an elephant and hence named The Elephant's head viewpoint too.
The beautiful Sahyadri Mountain range with magnificent waterfalls can also be viewed from
this point.Just another 4 kms away from Kates point, waited an enthralling beauty, The Lingmala waterfalls.
I would rather call this place as an epitome
of natural beauty. As we entered this place we got down roughly around 100
stairs and reached this small running stream of water .
At this point there were two beautiful waterfalls. Towards the
left there was a small waterfall called Doh around 100 mts away ideal for
playing and enjoying the cool dip in water. Towards the right around 500 mts away,
we came across this another stupendous and roaring waterfall .It's height was
approximately 500 feet.Also this point gave a splendid view of the Venna
Valley.
The Lingmala waterfalls was our last destination as all other viewpoints
were closed down due to heavy rainfall. Though, Mahabaleshwar is pleasant
through most of the year ie not so hot in summers and cold enough in winters
but its beauty increases exponentially in monsoon season.
While going back to Pune, we came across numerous small waterfalls
.We couldn't ask for anything more .
This delightful journey was coming to an end with the most exhilarating
experience I ever had. The people of Mahabaleshwar are very friendly and warm
and possess beautiful hearts ,as beautiful as their homeland.
I yearned to come back to this magnificent place again.
