Dapoli Photo Diary – Day 2

Mornings that take all of your will power to get out of bed, and a manic rush of adrenaline that makes you cover an hour long trek to a long forgotten temple. Contradictions that made up our second day at Dapoli. Who knew a place so pretty was lying there in wait, hoping to be rediscovered? Call me crazy, but ‘neglect’ and ‘ruin’ have never looked more beautiful ever. After another delicious breakfast at our home-stay/hotel, a long debate on whether we should go ahead and make the long trek, we decided to give it a shot. Why should a viral fever that was refusing to die down since 4 days and a whole night of wheezing, cough and cold stop you from straining your already over-worked body? It just made perfect sense to walk and climb for an hour in the hot, humid mid-morning sun, with not a single sip of water (because the bottle was conveniently forgotten in the car at the parking lot), specially when we had a full day road trip planned for the very next day. Logic – 0, Manic adrenaline rush – 1After a walk through a hidden village, a roughly laid out path, a bridge and then about a billion steps, we reached our destination. And it was worth it to finally get to the top and quench our thirst with fresh mountain water, all the while wondering how ‘fresh’ it really was. The joy of getting to the top and the sudden realization that we had to get back down the exact same way, made us forget to take any pictures of the place. So basically it looks like we dragged ourselves up all the way only to have a drink from a (highly suspicious) clear stream of mountain water. Like I said, logic was still at 0.By the time evening came, we were craving another relaxing sunset by the beach. This time we went to the more popular Murud beach, which was not only bigger but also quite clean. A (bumpy)horse buggy ride which for some reason kept veering in the direction of the water while we were trying not to get thrown off it , dipping toes into the water, running on the long stretch of sand just for the heck of it, leaving #thegirlatfirstavenue imprints and finally a moment of peace as we looked at the sun go down – brought the perfect end to a perfect vacation.

p.s: The terrible 7 hour trip to Mumbai by road shall be conveniently left out of this otherwise perfect trip