Monsoon camping in the Sahyadris

Unlike most other trekking and camping destinations the Sahyadri range is best for hiking during the rainy season. Being lucky enough to live within a couple of hours driving distance from many great hiking locations makes monsoon season the perfect time for weekend getaways to one of these places.

So to make the best of the last leg of the rainy season I went off to one of my favourite areas - Gotha village which is about 80 Km west of Pune, near the backwaters of Mulshi lake. This is where Ecogrid has been set up - a green commune concept place which ultimately aims to become self sustainable; I'll write more on that in another post.

En route to the final destination

This one is going to be about the cave-behind-the-waterfall that was discovered about a 45 minute trek from Ecogrid and found to be a perfect camping place. 

 So we set off from Ecogrid, through the very green and lush landscape which is surrounded by hills. In the rains there are streams of water falling down the slopes creating lots of small waterfalls - what a sight!

 Our destination was a natural shelf formed behind one of the larger waterfalls. The picture below is taken from right behind the falling water, standing warm and cozy inside the 'cave'! We pitched our tents and slept off with the sound of the falling water as the background score. 

Behind the falls

The whole experience was as close as it could get to the kind of adventures I read about in Enid Blyton books growing up and always wishing I could be there. Well this time I was!

Bringing in 2010 along the Konkan coast. Part II - Goa!

It's impossible to cover all of Goa in one post, so I'm just going to try to capture the best parts of all the Goa trips I have ended up going for in the past couple of years.

This post is the conclusion to my previous post and about our final destination in the ambitious road trip - Goa.

View from our hut at Palolem

South Goa beaches are more scenic, less crowded and less ravaged by commercialization. Of course at New Year's time all those are very relative terms. We stayed at Palolem - Brandon's Huts - like most huts these were pretty basic, but our hut was right on the beach and that made up for everything else. I've been to Goa three times in the past as many years and have stayed in 1. house converted into a large guesthouse, very close to Calangute 2. a mid-level 'resort' place in Candolim. 3. coco-hut right on the beach. I usually like the idea of a house converted into accommodation mostly because these often turn out to be really old, restored houses and are charming. My only advise - ensure that it is!

As for activities - Palolem's calm waters makes it perfect for kayaking, I'd recommend highly. Anymore activity than that seems quite antithetical to the relaxed atmosphere. All the way to one end of Palolem was another knot of beach huts but they were done up in a manner that made you feel you walked into Alladin's world. The food was great too

Palolem

Not too far from Palolem is Galgibag which in peak season was almost isolated and the drive up (obviously on bikes!) is beautiful. Perfect if you want to get away from the usual mix of hawkers, shacks, beach-chairs for rent, water sports on most beaches, and just laze around, which is exactly what we did.

My previous trips to Goa have been more activity filled mostly because I've stayed longer and in the busier northern part. More on those later!

Horn OK Please

Part II of the Konkan road trip is taking a while to get written up, so it's filler time. And what better filler than the hilarious bumper sticks on the back of trucks.
While not strictly in the 'travel' category, I WAS driving, albeit to work, when I saw this sign and just had to take a picture. It's from my very low quality phone camera so the resolution is pretty bad.

Now that's an offer you can't refuse! You have to admire his generosity, if not his spellings.

Bringing in 2010 along the Konkan coast. Part I - Diveagar and Tarkarli

The Konkan coast being one of the most beautiful driving routes in India and Goa being the New Year hot spot, a plan for a 4 day road trip starting in Bombay, with stops in Diveagar & Tarkarli and ending in Goa was hatched.

Decked up camels at Diveagar Beach!

Bombay to Goa is slightly under 600 Km and if you start early in the day and have two people (three would be ideal) taking turns driving, this can be covered in about 12 hours so a stopover isn't necessary. We started in the late afternoon so took a slight detour at Diveagar for the night. The most common accommodation options at Diveagar are  homes turned into hostel-style rooms for rent. We stayed at Hotel Pinakin which turned out to be pretty basic but in and around New Year's time it was our only option. There's not much to do in Diveagar, the beach is supposed to a charming, peaceful one but we found it to be quite crowded not only with people but camels and horses too!

We started early the next day to Tarkarli, a fishing village in Sindhudurg district, recommended by a friend's friend especially for scuba-diving since the waters near Sindhudurg fort are supposed to be very clear. Because we hadn't heard much about Tarkarli we weren't sure of what we'd find but the recommendation turned out to be one of the best ones given. Quaint, off the tourist map with a beautiful beach and with backwaters reminding one of Kerala, Tarkarli was quite the find. To make things better our hotel - Saagar Sangam - was amazing, the rooms were beautifully furnished and full length glass windows opened up into the balcony to make the best of the view. Situated on Tarkarli creek, it's backyard opens up right onto the river, from where you can just hop on a motor boat for a ride upto the point where the river meets the sea. The staff is friendly enough to serve you ice-cold fresh lime sodas while you're lazing about in the backyard!

View from a  river-facing room in Saagar Sangam, Tarkarli

After our lime sodas we casually strolled off the backyard into a waiting boat for a ride on the river and saw another incredible sight - two big houseboats bobbing along the river. These are another Tarkarli specialty.  
In the middle of the river is a  sand bar sliver which, innovatively, doubles up as a refreshment stop and a general scenic point. The waters around it are crystal clear so even if you're not thirsty it's worth a stop. 

Sand 'Bar'!

Next stop was scuba-diving near Sindhudurg fort. The fort itself is also worth a visit and is a short boat ride away from the beach. Some local guides will take you for a walk around the fort and tell you the history, but you can also explore it yourself quite easily. The scuba-diving, for which Tarkarli is fast becoming famous, was reported to be also fantastic (I didn't go for it, a friend did), with the only problem being that the instructor is sort of tied along with you because of safety reasons. I'm not sure if they do that only for first time divers or for everyone.

In short it was worth every minute of the day and a half we spent there. So much so that we were very tempted to continue lazing around in the backyard, gazing out to the river and not go to our next destination - Goa - at all!