Of This and That

If you are looking for a place to go and relax; kind of de-toxicate, then Ark Wellness Retreat, off Paud, on Paud Lonavala road, is the right place to be.  Our daily chores keeps us busy all week long, so when we planned our vacation, we wanted to go to a place, where we will not have to get up and go visit echo point, or lovers point or suicide point etc. All we wanted was a nice and cozy place to go and relax. We would be fine to not go out of the resort at all and just stay put in the room or roam around the resort and literally do nothing. Ark’s website  looked promising and so did the rooms. The place is just about a year old and extremely well maintained, so looks the same as you would see in the pictures. I called the resort and the person on the other side was very patient to explain the various options and the facilities available. They have only 8 rooms of which 4 of Deluxe and 4 Standard. Both rooms are good, well maintained and with good interiors. The de...

Come long weekend and the trend these days is that you need to be going out with family for the long weekend trip. However this also means that one has to make the bookings well in advance as otherwise usually nothing much is available at the last min. For the 26 th Jan weekend, we did realize a bit late and unfortunately as expected, didn't get any bookings anywhere. Spending the 3 days at home, wasn't making any sense, so we decided to rather make do with day trips so that we don’t have to stay anywhere. With this intention in mind, we looked up Rajaram’s PlacesNearPune blog site, and like in past, I did find options near Pune that were within 30-40 km range. The first was the Kodit Maskoba temple and the other was the Kanifnath temple . Both are on Pune Saswad road and hence easily doable in a single day trip. Given that many temples tend to close during noon, we decided to start early in the day so that we get sufficient time to spend in the temple, but the g...

One visit to this place and you wonder, why such a beautiful temple (one of the best temple’s I have seen) is not on the regular tourist map of Pune. In fact it is almost as if this place doesn’t exists, for not many people are aware of it. The temple is named after Lord Shiva and depicts his blue throat due to the venom that he had swallowed during sagar manthan. It is a huge temple, with lots of open space, space to sit and enjoy the exquisite sculptures that tell different Hindu mythological tales. I have never seen so many sculptures in one place. See some of the pictures to get a sense of what you are missing, if you haven’t been to this place as yet. These pictures still don’t tell the complete story. Now that you have seen some of the pictures and want to make a trip to this place, note the following. The temple is on a small hill, maybe around 700-800 ft high. Physical walking distance maybe around 1.5 km, but given the steep climb that...

Bhandardara , a place I had not even heard off till recently, turned out to be one of our best holidays till date. I had recently seen this place in a friend’s Facebook updates and when we had some time at hand (in between my changing jobs), we decided to give it a try. About 165 km from my place (about 4 hour drive), this place is almost like heaven on earth. A place you can visit all year round due to its lush green mountains, Wilson dam, Arthur Lake (also known as Pravara lake), Umbrella falls and many other points worth visiting. We stayed at a place called Anandvan resort . There are only 2 other places worth staying – Yash Resorts and MTDC resort. The MTDC resort was in a really poor condition and was in a state of renovation. Didn’t notice Yash resort, but Anandvan is by far the best place to stay, as also rated on trip advisor . The experience at Anandvan was just great, right from the reservation call I did. A friendly person advised on various options and shared the...

This was our second trip to Alibaug and unlike the earlier one, was intended to be a pure relaxation weekend. One of the best places to stay there is Radisson Blu and this is where I got the booking, with a great deal which had all meals inclusive. It worked best for us since our intention was to get away from routine work and have weekend where we will just relax and eat and sleep. The last few months had been busy (trip to our native and then home renovation work) and hence the interest of a work free weekend and also enjoy a weekend before kid's school would reopen. We spent the weekend of 7 th June 2013 there. The monsoon arrived a few days earlier, so this weekend ended up with a rainy spell, but it did mean that we had a lovely drive to Alibaug and nice stay at the hotel. We had left from home around 1 pm and drove down in our Mahindra XUV. Since the time I had bought XUV, this was first time I got to take it on the Pune Mumbai expressway and it sure was a ple...

Every time I was on the Pune Mumbai Expressway, I would notice the huge Ganesha Idol and make a point in mind to visit it, but such points don’t always convert to reality easily. Finally last weekend, for lack of anything else to do and after a failed attempt to find ourselves a place to stay at any hotel/resort for a night, we decided to revisit open points in our todo list and picked the Ganesh temple. It is a short drive from my home, given that I am close to Hinjewadi, Pune, so I was quickly only to the express way by-pass and the passed the expressway and went on ahead to join old Pune Mumbai highway (NH4). The idol pretty big and hence there is no way you can miss it, but even then you need not worry till you hit the toll plaza near Shirgaon. You need to cross the toll plaza. I wonder if that was intentional to have made the toll plaza just before Shirgaon? Anyway a return toll is for Rs. 39 and having paid this we crossed the toll plaza and took the immediate left. The roa...

I was searching for a good place for a short weekend trip and found this reference to Hadshi temple. The pictures looked good and my mind was made up to visit this place on the weekend. With my birthday on 1 st December, family had no objection to visiting a temple. In fact they were more than happy. The place is about 45 km from my home, which is close to Hinjewadi. I took the Pune by pass till Chandni Chowk and then got onto the road going to Paud/Mulshi/Lavasa. The road till Paud bus stop is good. You will cross over many resorts on the way, will cross the Pirungut ghat, and continue straight past Pirungut on the way to Paud. Cross the Paud ghat as well and reach Paud ST bus stand on your right. Immediately after this take the right turn and drive about 15 km, crossing Girivan on the way, to reach the Arch on your left for the Pandurang temple. The arch is on bang on a right turn and very noticeable. You would need to be sleeping to miss it. Another landmark on the way that y...

I was searching for a good place for a short weekend trip and found this reference to Hadshi temple. The pictures looked good and my mind was made up to visit this place on the weekend. With my birthday on 1 st December, family had no objection to visiting a temple. In fact they were more than happy. The place is about 45 km from my home, which is close to Hinjewadi. I took the Pune by pass till Chandni Chowk and then got onto the road going to Paud/Mulshi/Lavasa. The road till Paud bus stop is good. You will cross over many resorts on the way, will cross the Pirungut ghat, and continue straight past Pirungut on the way to Paud. Cross the Paud ghat as well and reach Paud ST bus stand on your right. Immediately after this take the right turn and drive about 15 km, crossing Girivan on the way, to reach the Arch on your left for the Pandurang temple. The arch is on bang on a right turn and very noticeable. You would need to be sleeping to miss it. Another landmark on the way that you...