Life’s good… Mahabaleshwar and back.

Hmmm… life’s good. Was on a short vacation to Mahabaleshwar over the last weekend. I was expecting a lazy weekend outing, but it turned out to be quite the contrary. This post is a travelog…

There are two routes from Bombay to Mahabaleshwar.

One route goes from Panvel, Pen, Mahad (along the entire Raigad district) then turning east towards Mahabaleshwar. The fort, Pratapgad, is on the way if you travel by this route.

The other route is via Pune. Take the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Then drive south along the Pune-Satara road and turn right (go west) at Surur junction. Along the way you encounter the Wai ghat and Panchgani. Finally Mahabaleshwar!

Here is the shoddy sketch which served as my tour guide…

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We decided to drive it along the Bombay-Pune-Mahabaleshwar route. The road from Pune is a bit longer. But the condition of the road is much better. In fact, the Pune-Satara highway is now a six lane road; Thanks to the golden quadilateral project….

There were several things to look up to… a pleasant weather, strawberries, the lake, some sight seeing and lots of Gujarathi food.

It drizzled on the evening we went there and it seemed like a perfect time for a boat ride on the Venna lake. This was the second time I ever rowed a boat. (Seems a bit surprising since no self-respecting Thanekar would miss the opportunity of rowing on the popular Thane lake - Talao Pali). My cousins have been at this for a long time though…

After some false-starts I finally managed to make the boat spin round-and-round. So there we were, in the middle of the lake, going nowhere. Finally the boat capsied!

Now, that would’ve been a real adventure. With uncles, aunties and bacchas on-board, we were fortunate that my rowing session was not a disaster. Actually I got a hang of it pretty soon and managed to row it across the lake.

We managed to go further into the darkness where most other boats did not venture out. The fog on the lake created an eerie image. Visibility was a low and strange thoughts creeped in - underwater monsters, floating dead-bodies and others. (I was shit scared when I first watched What Lies Beneath. I was alone at home and had to turn on the lights!)

Back to the hotel, it was time for a sumptous meal. The place we put up at - Hotel Dreamland - used to serve Gujarathi thalis. Well, that was about 15 years ago. Sadly, they now offer buffet meals of several Indian cusines - Punjabi, South Indian, Marathi and Gujarathi. Was a bit disappointed over the change of their menu.

They more than made up for it by serving some amazing ice creams. Had a different flavour at each meal - Strawberry, Vanila, Mulberry and Butterscotch. The mulberry ice cream was AWESOME! No other past ice-cream experiences come any close to this one.

Mahabaleshwar had a strawberry festival going on over that weekend. You could walk into strawberry farms and eat as many strawberries as you want! We ate far to many… Also bought a lot of those exotic looking syrups from Mapro - green, blue and red colored ones.

On our way back was a visit to the table land at Panchgani. The table land is the second-highest plateau in Asia. (The first is somewhere in Tibet). The exciting part was flying a kite atop table land. We cousins (5 of us) had numerous false starts until dad managed to get it flying!

Mahabaleshwar was an opportunity to do things I’d rarely do…

* Plucking strawberries
* Playing pool
* Mulberry ice cream!
* Kite flying atop a mountain
* Rowing a boat

Life’s good: A few days after this vacation, I was treated at an awesome place… Lotus Suites on the Andheri-Kurla road has a pool-side restaurant called “Circus Circus“. Situated on the first floor, the restaurant is located under an atrium - flanked by the hotel on all sides. Sitting there under the sunbathed atrium by the poolside was an amazing experience.

I think this place serves as a great party-place in the nights - Seemed like an elevated dance floor over the pool, disco lights, a bar and a DJ console overlooking it all…

The “Mumbai Masala” theme for lunch included pani-puri, bhel-puri and some other chaats. The main course included pav bhaji amongst other things. I loved the mutton-fry too and savoured on some great desserts.

“Circus Circus” is a must-checkout place. 10/10 for ambience. 8/10 for food. 7/10 for service.

Continuing with the life’s good theme - had to make a boring presentation, tons of pending work, a few rejects in my job-hunt…