Tourist Attractions and Places near Pune and Mumbai » dam

Drive to Lavasa, the hill city

Rajaram S — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:50:36 +0000

Set over 7 hills, Lavasa calls itself “India’s first planned hill city”. I am sure it will live up to this when the project completes. Lavasa city is in the midst of many mountains and almost every part of Lavasa has its own lakeshore (dam backwaters).

Lavasa is portrayed as the retirement place and it is quite true. I am sure everyone would like to just get up in the morning, go for a jog and spend the day doing nothing amongst scenic surroundings. But, I am not sure whether the concept of a retirement home has still caught on in India.

How to go to Lavasa city from Pune (Magarpatta City): Go to Chandni Chowk. Proceed towards Mulshi Dam. Once you climb down Pirangut ghat, you woul start seeing big blue coloured signboards for Lavasa. After Pirangut, you have to take a left for Lavasa. Once on this road, you would cross Temghar dam. Keep going on this road until you see an arch on the right, which is the official entrance of lavasa. From this point, the road goes down to the dam and the city.

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The distance to Lavasa from the turn on Mulshi road (after Pirangut) is around 30 kms. It is a wonderful hill road to drive on. If the management of Lavasa wanted people to settle down at Lavasa, they realised that they should make this place easily accessible. The road is very smooth (too smooth for indian roads) and the curves on the road make it a biker’s paradise.

The promenade on the lake shore has been modelled on old europe with many stone bridges criss-crossing the waters. This makes the lakeshore an extremely scenic place for photography, particularly in the evening light.

Lavasa entertains casual visitors and it is a good place to go for an evening. You can just walk around the promenade, go for all kinds of watersports, dine at the various restaurants or even stay over for the night at the many hotels inside the city.

Inside their main office, there is a Lavasa experience zone, where you can see about the future plans of Lavasa and other details about the city.

The ekaanth retreat in Lavasa is a good place for an overnight stay or a buffet dinner. Be sure to be at the parking lot of this lodge at sunset. The view from the parking is awesome.

Drive to Panshet Dam near Khadakwasla

Rajaram S — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:56:44 +0000

With the recent boating accident in Panshet dam, most the boat clubs were closed on the weekend we went. But we never had the intention of going for boating. We went for a monsoon drive to enjoy the scenery and we got what we wanted.

While Khadakwasla dam is more famous as an evening hang-out place for most Puneites, who come there to swim and have butaa, Panshet dam has always been famous for its boating scene. The backwaters of Panshet extend for a long distance and has high cliffs on the other side. So, even if you don’t go boating, there are lot of viewpoints of Panshet dam where you can have a nice picnic.

How to go to Panshet Dam from Pune(Magarpatta): Go towards Swargate i.e. on Solapur road vis Big Bazaar. When you reach the end of this road beyond Swargate at a T-Junction, turn left. Take the immediate right (there is a signal and there is a mahalaxmi temple on the left). The road on the right is the Sinhagad road. Keep going on this road crossing Parvati and towards Khadakwasla. You dont need to turn anywhere. This road will take you straight to Khadakwasla. Once you cross Khadakwasla, keep going on this road for another 10-15 kms and you will see signs for Panshet dam boating. Follow those signs and you should be climbing the hills on the other side of Panshet.

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There wasn’t much water in the dam backwater because of the poor rain in June and July until now, but the greenery was very much visible all over the place. We stopped at a place where we could walk over to the edge of the hill sloping gently towards the water. There was few house strategically built on the edge and i can imagine the kind fo view they must be having during the monsoons

We had been there with few friends and their kids. The kids had a gala time posing for our photo requests. The photos with the visibly darker green colour are from Sunil’s camera. All my photos are little bit on the overexposed side.

Akshara wandered all over the place and was up to her usual antics. It was difficult explaining to her that her request to go “keezha” (down the slope) was not something that can be done

Most of the time was spent on experimental photo sessions with us and the kids. It was a good day, could have been better with the Neelkanteshwar visit if only we had been prepared for the rains. More on neelkanteshwar in a separate post.

Drive to tamhini ghat during the monsoon

Rajaram S — Thu, 27 May 2010 10:33:23 +0000

When i decided to come back to India (pune) one year ago, i heard zillions of stories about the pollution in Pune, the traffic , the bureacracy at work , all trying to convince me not to take such a decision. But no one mentioned about the abundance of natural beauty around Pune. A drive to any such place near Pune is enough to free your mind from the stress caused by any of the above factors. Eventually, the sight-seeing options near to Pune took preference over all other issues and helped me make the decision to come to Pune. .

One such place is the Tamhini Ghat just beyond the Mulshi Dam. Though the roads through this ghat are at best bad, the scenery around would make you forget the bumpiness of the ride. A ride through this ghat is good even during the summer. But, this place opens up in the rains. Waterfalls all around, greens of the like rarely seen, you have to go there to experience this. I drove through Tamhini ghat late last August on my way to the Hans adventure resort. The other members of my team were in a bus and i was following them in my Xylo. The temptation was too much to stop at every corner and click a photograph of the panorama. Below are some photos from that drive.

How to go to Tamhini Ghat from Pune(Magarpatta): Go to Chandi Chowk. Take the road going towards Mulshi Dam. Cross Mulshi dam and climb into the ghat. The bad road usually start here. This is Tamhini Ghat. You can go beyond the Tamhini Ghat towards Mangaon (Mumbai Goa Highway) to reach the konkan side. Btw, it is not advised to go through Tamhini ghat late in the evenings. If you have to cross the mountains in the night, use the Bhor/Varandha Ghat instead.

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Picturesque wai village near Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar

Rajaram S — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:58:51 +0000

On the way from Pune to Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar, a casual traveller can easily ignore Wai as just another dot on the map. But, if the little effort of deviating around 3km from the main road is made, you are assured of getting enough natural beauty to your heart’s content.

Route to Wai from Pune (from magarpatta):

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Go to Solapur Road, Keep driving towards swargate. At the swargate signal, turn left towards Katraj. From here, it is a straight road to Katraj. Once you reach Katraj, you will pass the Rajiv Gandhi Zoological park (a.k.a. Pune Zoo or Katraj Zoo ) on your left. You should see a Ghat section in front of you. On crossing this road, NH4 will “arrive” from the right. Join it and enjoy the drive for around an hour. After around an hour, you will come across a mountain cutting across the highway leaving you wondering on how to cross it. This is the Khambatki Ghat. The best part about this Ghat section is that it is one-way leaving you freely to overtake slow vehicles even on a blind curve. The ascent on this ghat is wonderful and if you can, do stop for some beautiful photo opportunities. No, don’t plan for a photo session on the way back, as the way back doesn’t have a ghat section, but a long tunnel! Once you cross this Ghat, you will see signboards for Wai/Mahabaleshwar (go under the bridge to the right). This is a nice single lane road with lot of banyan trees for company.

After around 8-9 kilometres, you have to turn for Wai (Going straight will take you to Panchgani/Mahabaleshwar). After around 3 kms, you enter Wai village. Maybe Wai was a village long time back, but it is a bustling town now and you will surely ave a strange look on your face as to why so many sources on the internet called Wai a beautiful village (just as i did!). But, what you have reached is the town centre. The real beauty of Wai is beyond that.

The village centre too has interesting spots. There is the Maha Ganapti mandir (the first photo of this post) and some nice small temples/bridges to photograph! But, the real reason why many visit Wai is a further 3 kms away, in a place called Menavali Ghat (or Menavli). Btw, it is pronounced “May”navali and not “Mee”navali. I confused quite a few locals by asking for directions to “Mee”navali Ghat.You just have to keep going a further 3 kms on the same road you entered Wai. Do not take the left (near the Ganpati mandir) crossing the bridge. We shall go there later

Menavali Ghat, the place which contains – as people would like to say – the temple appearing in Shah Rukh Khan’s Swades. This was the place which the movie referred to as Charanpur. Of course, they must have spent a lot of time cleaning up the temple’s surroundings to make it look so good. Nevertheless, the place is calm and serenely beautiful. You don’t see people by the hundreds like in Lonavala, just the few who have taken the trouble to drive over to this remote area. We spent close to half an hour taking lot of photographs.

Akshara was quite interested in the buffaloes, as she was seeing such an animal for the first time After the Shaniwar Wada trip, Akshara has taken a liking to the umbrella and it is very difficult to pry it away from her once she takes it.

I also read somewhere that the big banyan near the banks was the one used in the movie Swadesh for the Panchayat scene. So, we took some photographs near it for posterity’s sake

Right neat to the place where you park for Menavali Ghat is the Nana Phadnis Wada. This is the place where Nana Phadnis, a minister in the Peshwa era built a wada (house) for himself on the banks of the Krishna river. We didn’t have time to go inside and explore the house, but the wada looked very photogenic in the light drizzle that was on.

Not many who visit Wai take the trouble to drive another 9 kms in the single lane road until Dhom dam. You have to come back to the village centre from menavali Ghat and then cross the bridge next to the Maha Ganapathy Mandir and take a right. This road will take you to Dhom dam. But, it seems, dhom dam is closed to public and there are also signs that photography is not allowed. But, we drove a little ahead and asked people to point us towards any place where we can get close to the water (backwaters of the dam). We were shown the way towards a boating place. It is a narrow lane which opens up once you come close to the water and the view was AMAZING!

The pictures definitely don’t do justice to the beauty of this place. Vidhya even started comparing it to the views near lake thun in Interlaken, Switzerland! There were just 2 other groups of people there and they were also about to leave. The view was such that you felt the need to immediately take a panorama.

There was this strange formation on top of the mountain nearby (Second photo below). We thought that it may be the remnants of a fort, but the locals said that there was no fort there and it was just some rock formations. They looked pretty impressive from far and i am surprised that i never saw any information/photo of this online. If you have any info on this formation, drop in a comment.

We spent close to 15 minutes at this place enjoying the solitude. We left as we wanted to be back in Pune before late night. Some more photos…

On the whole, it was an enjoyable 7 hour round trip –> 2 hours from Pune to Wai (1.5 hrs if you leave early in the day), 1.5 hrs back (time saved because of the tunnel through Khambatki ghat) and the rest spent in photography and a south indian snack at gandharv dhaba (just before the Wai exit on the road from NH4 to Panchgani).