Mahabaleshwar Photo Diary – Day 1

There are some destinations that are never on your ‘to-be-visited’ radar only because, for reasons unknown, you have sorely underestimated the place. Mahabaleshwar was one such place that I never expected to find myself in because I honestly din’t think it was my kind of place. So when I got the chance to go there for a couple of days, am glad it proved me wrong in many ways!We (me & family) went by road from Pune and reached in about 3 hours. The moment we entered the hill station we were greeted with an amazing view of the road, greenery and chilly mountain weather.

After a brief rest at the Bella Vista Resort, we set out to explore the place. The best way to see the sights and sounds of a new place (according to me) is to avoid the overtly touristy spots. So basically the ‘points’ were something we were keen on avoiding. Well every point has the same spectacular view but from a different angle. So we din’t want to be rushing to all the nine (or maybe more) points and pushing through crowds and trying to avoid monkeys grabbing our bags (And there were so many!)

So we decided on Kate’s point, which was nearest from our resort, had almost zero crowd and of course offered a breathtaking view of the Deccan traps.

After a couple of hours of frolicking around the mountain streams, enjoying the fresh green view and worsening my cold (sniff), we decided the time was perfect to go for a boat ride in the famous Venna Lake. It’s one of the major tourist attractions of Mahabaleshwar. It’s a man made lake where you can enjoy a boat ride in a row boat (no electric boats allowed). Ten minutes into the boat ride, a huge mist descended upon us making it impossible to see beyond three meters of our boat. Typical hollywood movie thriller where you except some sort of alien sea monster to jump out of the fog and swallow your boat whole.

Unfortunately all we managed to spot was a spooky looking tree branch and of course my cold got worse. After the boat ride, it was back to the resort, piping hot food while it poured outside and snuggling in bed with a hot lemon tea!

Holiday so far so good.. eh?