Tourist Attractions and Places near Pune and Mumbai

If you are looking for the definition of a “Hidden Jewel”, then go to this place. Nestled on top of a small hill between Khadakwasla and Panshet dams, the Neelkanteshwar temple is the ideal place to experience nature as well as mythology. There is a Shiva shrine in this temple and it seems that it gets very crowded during shivratri, but the USP of this place are the hundreds of statues depicting every indian mythology story that you can think of. It is almost like “Amar Chitra Katha” coming alive in the form of statues. Added to this is the magical location of this temple with the backwaters of khadakwasla dam flowing down in the valley and the Panshet dam on the other side giving a “switzerlandish” feel. Click on the below image for a bigger resolution one.

How to go to Neelkanteshwar temple from Pune (Magarpatta City): A trip here would take you a total of approximately 5-6 hrs. 2 hrs to go, 2 hrs on the top and 2 hrs back. You first have to reach Khadakwasla dam (From Magarpatta: Go towards Swargate, Cross it and go on the one-way road to the t-junction, turn left, take the first right at the Mahalaxmi temple signal, this is the sinhagad road which will take you directly to Khadakwasla dam). Just before the dam, there is a road going down to the right with NDA on the sign. Take this road to go parallel to the dam and reach the other side. Once you reach the other side, turn left at the t-junction.

The above map starts from this road with the dam being on the top right of the map. The white line shows the route you have to take to reach the temple. After around 11 kms of winding road, you will see Splendour Country Club resort on your left. Keep going for another 3-4 kilometres and you should see an arch pointing to the left with signs for Shree Kshetra Neelkanteshwar. From here, the road looks bad, but it is ok to drive on with few bad patches in between. You will cross a bridge and come to a t-junction. Here, take left and keep driving. The map below is a zoomed-in version from this point (i.e. after taking the left after the bridge).

As you go along this road, you will see an arch on the right (click here to see the Arch’s photo). You have to take the right and climb up the hill. Going straight will take you to Panshet. Around 200 ms after you start climbing, you will reach the end of the village where you should see something like the photo below.

Many people park here (1st parking) and walk the rest of the way. The first time we went there, we had many kids along with us. So, we decided to drive as close as possible to the temple. A good decision! The distance between the 1st parking and the 2nd is at least 2 kms and it is all uphill. Unless you are in for a trek, better drive over to the 2nd parking. But, a big BUT, the road from the 1st parking to the 2nd is bad, full of rocks and loose gravel. I had taken a video of the road (with the camera attached to the bonnet) on the way down from the 2nd to the 1st parking. Check it out below and then decide for yourself whether your vehicle can handle it. The photo below is just before the 2nd parking. The cut part of the mountain is the place where you start your walk. For those with Google Earth, use this to see the location of the temple and this to see a flyover of the route from Khadakwasla.

From the 2nd parking, it is a steady uphill climb of around 20-25 minutes to reach the temple. Barring summer, this should be an easy and enjoyable climb giving you ample photo opportunities. The moisture in the air and the lack of a heavy lunch made us huff and puff our way to the top, but as you can see in the snap below, the local villagers made easy work of it barefoot!

Once you enter the temple, you are greeted by a huge sleeping Hanuman. Maybe he was too tired by the time he reached the top! Once you climb to the left, you see the Dasavataram and if you look beyond the statues and onto the valley below, you will be greeted with a view which i guarantee will stay in your mind for a very long time.

You can easily spend 2 hours on the top seeing each and every statue and trying to recollect the story behind the same. While Akshara was  busy identifying the characters she knew e.g. cow, snake and the ummachis all over place, we had a nice time discussing the stories associated with them. See the photos below and check how many stories you remember!

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written by Rajaram S

A new addition to the “Places near Pune” blog -> A forum where one can post travel experiences, trip reports, ask for suggestions, check on routes etc; basically a place to share information about how and where to spend the next weekend.

I have, on multiple occasions, heard friends remark that a friend of theirs had been to “some” place “some” where and that it was very good. Then, i start off tracing this “friend” in the hope of getting more details about this place. If all of us (and our friends) can share such information on a single forum, then we don’t have to unnecessarily strain our memory cells to remember “who was it that talked about a good route to Pavana dam, in one of the  birthday parties i attended last year”!

But, there are dozens of other forums already. Why one more? Actually, there aren’t, at least to cater to the specific need of people wanting to visit places close to Pune and Mumbai. Most of the existing ones are deep inside huge travel websites like tripadvisor and loneleyplanet with just 1-2 line comments from some stranger somewhere. Most of the visitors to my blog are friends and friends of friends. If we start putting in info on places we visit (as part of a family trip, project event etc) and start inviting our friends also to do so, we would have extensive information on lot of places, information that is first-hand and not just the 3-4 line copy-paste description available on travel websites.

So, go on to the forum, get yourself a login, start writing about your trips and also answering other’s queries. And, please forward this information to your friends too.

written by Rajaram S

Karla and Bhaja caves are kind of sister caves, as in most tourists visit both of them in a single day as they are less than 10 kms apart. Karla caves are also of Buddhist origin and look similar to the excavations at Bhaja.

How to go to Karla Caves from Pune: Take the old Mumbai-Pune Highway (NH4) from Pune. Around 6 kms before Lonavala, you will come to a junction where right turn will take you to Karla and a left will take you to Bhaje. Few kms from this junction, you will climb up a small hill and come to the official parking at Karla caves.

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Karla caves are actually much bigger than Bhaje, but the presence of a temple outside the cave makes this place extremely crowded and noisy. The place is a deadly combination of piety and pav bhaji with dozens of shops lined all through the way up to the cave. I don’t know whether it is us, the people of India or the government (or Archeological Survey of India) which is to blame for the utter lack of appreciation of places of natural or historical significance. There were large groups of rural and urban party-goers who had parked their vehicles all over the place. One particular group’s actions were to utter disbelief. The men in the group had sat down by the side of the road consuming alcohol, the women were cooking on a makeshift open-air kitchen and the kids were happily defecating in the open, all within a few metres of the so-called ASI office. If you dislike all this, skip Karla and go over to Bhaje. Otherwise, the climb is good, especially in the monsoon. it is moderate climb for around 20 minutes and if you take pav-bhaji/cool drink breaks, you won’t be even realize the climb.

Photographically, the place is beautiful with many small openings in the rocks to give you that perfect light, especially in the evenings. You can climb to the upper level through stairs , also cut on the rocks.

The adventurous can go to the side of the main caves and there is path which goes all the way to the top of the rock. I heard that it is pretty narrow and there may be lot of snakes in the undergrowth. But, i saw lot of guys going on that path. We too went ahead a small distance, but turned back as there were lot of dragonflies and it was difficult to balance on the narrow path while carrying Akshara.

It is a good half-day outing and if you have the energy and time, you can combine it with Bhaje caves.

written by Rajaram S