For those not interested in a long review, here is a shorter version of it. You get your money’s worth of activities at this place. I have not seen many places with such a wide range of activities at this nominal price. Compared to the other adventure resorts like the ones in Lonavala, the price adventure plus charges is peanuts. Imagine being able to do wall climbing, rappelling, Burma Bridge, Obstacle race, Rifle Shooting, Archery, Kayaking (Many charge a lot of money for just kayaking) and more PLUS lunch for around 700-800 rupees. This is as best a deal as you can get.

Now, the detailed review.

The place: Adventure Plus is located around 55 kms from Pune (Magarpatta City) near Bhor (on the road which goes through Bhor and Varandha Ghat). It would take around 1-1.5 hrs to reach the place if you avoid Pune city traffic. On the NH4 towards bangalore, you would see a left turn for Narayanpur Balaji Temple. Around a 100 ms beyond that, a small road goes to the right. This is the one which takes you to Bhor and Varandha Ghat. Adventure plus is located around 12 kms down this road. Watch out for this view on the left as you drive down this road. It is great during the monsoons.

The various Activities along with my rating. Please bear in mind that this rating is purely my individual opinion. What i rate as 1/5 may be the most thrilling thing for you and what i rate as 5/5 may be as boring as watching Shah Rukh on Zor Ka Jatkha!

Archery (4/5). It was easy and fun. The equipment was in good condition and each of us had 5 shots at the target. Rifle Shooting (3/5). The gun used was much better than the ones you see in the amusement fairs. The bullets were small ball bearings, so you really cant make out where they hit on the target, just that they hit the target based on the sound you hear.

Burma Bridge (Adventure plus called this Rope Bridge) (4/5). This is great fun if you are doing it for the first time. If you are scared of heights, it adds to the fun. You have to cross a section tied together by ropes. You are safe as you are held on by a safety rope, but it is fun to walk on a swaying bridge of rope. One guy started swaying so much that the bridge overturned. Of course, nothing happened to him. He was just hanging upside down from the bridge!

Army Obstacle Course (5/5). The obstacle race is actually a series of activities to be done one after the other. The spider net (the first photo above) was the most fun and technically the most scary as the top of the net is quite high and the fear of falling through the net is always at the back of your mind. Unless you are anorexic or intent on committing suicide, it is almost impossible to fall through. After this you have the other regular stuff like the tyre climb, balance walk and the tarzan rope. The last one is the commando net (the last photo with the guys posing for a photo) is also fun to attempt.

Wall/Rock Climbing (5/5). A very tall wall (50 ft) with an amazing view from the top i.e. if you do manage to climb it. It was a bit difficult wall to climb compared to the other ones i have attempted elsewhere, but where’s the fun without a challenge! Rappelling (5/5). I didn’t attempt this, but i heard that it was very thrilling to rappel down the side of the same wall from 50 ft up. They also have water rappelling where you have water falling down on you as you rappel down, but it was not functioning when we were there.

ATV Ride (3/5). The machines were in good condition. The only problem was that we were asked to drive around on a flat area (2 rounds). This was boring. There was a good track on the periphery of this ground with lots of ups and downs, but it seems that many people got injured trying to pull off stunts in their first ever ride! So, they had discontinued this track. As per the latest info i have, they take people on guided trips to the nearby hills on rough tracks. This should be interesting and would be definitely worth a try. UPDATE(November 2011): I went for the second time with a different team. There was only one ATV because the others were also under repair. Even this one wasn’t in a very good condition that you would want to try it out. Also, you have to drive around the main ground 2 times for the 250 INR you pay. This is boring and also very dangerous. Few of the guys couldn’t control the ATV and ran over the sidewalk/plants. If they had hit someone, it could have been pretty serious.

Cycling/Skates/Pogo (4/5). I am sure that you must be wondering what can be interesting when cycling is offered as part of the package. But it was, as you get to try so many different kinds of strange looking cycles. The skates were a bit tough to use. The pogo stick was fun. We did a small race around a big track letting people chose their own kind of cycle.

Water Based Activities (4/5). This was fun because of the variety offered. There were so many different types of vehicles to be tried like the Paddle Caddie, Hydro Bike, Floating Suit(for those who dont know to swim and experience the thrill of floating) and Water Roller (just for fun!).

Rope Bridge a.k.a suspension bridge (4/5). A great place for photos. This was the bridge across one of the two water bodies (the other one is the one with the water sports).

Kayaking (5/5). Was great fun. I had done kayaking few times before and still enjoyed it. Most of the guys were new to kayaking and had fun trying to understand the nuances of steering a kayak. The water body is a good 50 ms wide and at least 300 m long, so we arranged 2-3 races (on both the single and the double kayaks). To have kayaking included in the regular day package is amazing as this alone would cost you at least 200-300 bucks elsewhere.

Rain Dance (5/5). I didn’t go inside as Akshara was feeling sleepy and it was getting cold. The guys enjoyed it a lot. It is an open pool with lot of inflatables in different shapes. There were also water guns and water showers all over the pool. Add to it some loud music and it was like a water discotheque!

Ziplining (4/5). For those who were doing ziplining for the first time, it would have scored 10/5! Supposedly the longest zipline in India, this is a thrilling experience. The climb to the top of the zipline is itself thrilling as it is at a considerable height. I am rating this as 4, as the previous zipline that i did had a much steeper descent and it was into the water! A must try if you have done it before.

Paintball. We didnt try this, as many were not interested. The paintball field looks ok, but not great. It would be better if it is played in more natural surroundings.

Sumo Wrestling (5/5 for the audience). Was lot of fun. Guys get into some ugly looking costumes to try to push each other to the ground.

Wall Rappelling (5/5). Very thrilling, particularly if you are scared of heights. You rappel down the same wall which has the wall climbing on the other sides. Climbing the old staircase inside is itself scary. Once you are on the top, the height really gets to you. But, when you rappel, you are looking up and not towards the ground. So, you are not scared even a bit, at least until you decide to see what’s going on below you!

Accommodation/Food (4/5). There are 2 kinds of acco available. The smaller swiss tents at 500 p.p with shared bathroom or the larger alpine tents at 1000 p.p with individual bathrooms and coolers.We took the alpine tents. They were pretty clean. The swiss tents would have been more fun, but it was monsoon time and it got very windy/cold during the nights. The food was good, no issues.

Summary

An excellent place to go in the monsoons or after, but not so sure during the summer, as all the activity is out in the open. Amazing value for money given the variety of activities. Very family friendly (We saw many over-sized Punjabi Aunties on a ladies day out, attempting the Burma bridge and they seemed to enjoy it). There are infact many more activities that i have not written about like Zorbing (Seems to be hot nowadays, but i fail to understand why you have to pay money to get dizzy ), gyroscope and more.

The basic package for most activities (doesnt include Zipline and ATV) is around 800 p.p including lunch. If you have a big group, you can bargain a lot and choose activities that you want to do. Mail to info@adventureplus.in or adventurepluspune@gmail.com for bookings/enquiry. Also say that the place was recommended by “Rajaram from Amdocs” . No, i don’t get a commission, but just some goodwill.

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Tickets can be obtained at all State bank of India branches in Pune or directly at the Amanora office in Amanora town. The show is on 11th Feb starting around 6pm at the Amanora Entertainment Arena. The tickets are priced at Rs 2000,Rs 3500, Rs 6000 and Rs 10000.

If you are going to the concert, i am sure that you would want to come back with great photographs. I am not too sure that cameras would be allowed into the arena, but the crowd and probably some sweet talk should enable you take in the camera. If you do manage to take in your camera, follow the simple tips listed below to get the best out of the opportunity.

• Avoid using Compact Cameras, the point and shoot type. They are slow to start up, slow between photographs and have a shutter-lag. Even the latest point and shoot cameras suffer from these drawbacks. If you want good photographs, go the SLR way. Better still, go for a digital SLR so that you can immediately check whether the photo you captured is good enough for your liking.
• Use High ISO. Most of the concerts would have sections of the stage well-lit, but the rest of the area would be dark. There will always be some kind of a spotlight on the artistes on stage. But this light is not enough to get a good exposure. So, use a higher ISO to get a good picture in spite of the little light. Avoid ISO 1600 as it can get too grainy. But, take many practice shots to get the exposure you like. A high ISO would help you get photographs like the one below where you can see the lights from the all the mobile phone cameras in use.

  

• Use Shutter Priority Mode. I have had good success with Shutter Priority mode on many low-lit situations. You can customise the shutter speed based on your capability to hold the camera still. Using the program mode will make the camera try to get the best possible picture and in most cases (for concerts), the shutter will be opens for many seconds! Override this and use shutter priority. The Big Ben photo below was shot from a running open-top bus. I used a shutter speed of around 1/20s (don’t remember exactly) and ISO 1200.

  

• Use a Zoom Lens, unless you are a good friend of the rockstar and manage to get a seat on the stage. Of course, not having a zoom lens would give a different perspective of the concert like the first photo below. I carried both the 18-70 and the 70-300 lenses with me and i switched them from time to time to take different views. From the first photo, you can kind-of guess where i was seated – far away from the stages and yet, with the zoom lens (and some cropping), I managed to get some decent close-ups of Bryan Adams.

  

• Don’t use Matrix Metering. If you don’t understand what I am saying, then it is time you take out your manual and look up on this. Matrix metering will work for many landscape shots but will mostly fail in concert shots where a small section is brightly lit and the rest are almost pitch-dark. Switch to Spot Metering and meter for the person whom you want to take (if you want to get the rockstar in focus).

  

• Obviously, Flash is useless. Ok, in some situations I am wrong. When you want to take a photo of yourself standing in front of the dimly-lit stage, you need to switch to the night-portrait mode or if you don’t have one, manually enable the flash so that you are also well-lit. But, in other situations when you want to take the photo of a far-away rockstar on a stage, a flash is useless as it can light up, probably a few feet away from you. Worse still, if you have any object close to you, it will show up in your photograph in deathly-white. When i was in egypt, i had been to the sound-and-light show at the pyramids (first photo below). At that time, i had the “relatively ordinary” Nikon Coolpix 2500. I put in on a tripod, disabled the flash and let the camera decide its own exposure and I got pretty decent pictures. There were people around me pointing their cameras at the pyramids and shooting in auto mode with the flash. All they would have got is the chair in front of them with a white colouring!

  

Even if you follow these tips, you might not get it right the first time. So, practice a lot (another reason to move to Digital-SLR cameras) when the local artist comes on stage before the main act. Find the correct exposure (shutter speed/ISO) needed to get a decent image of the rockstar.

Hope you find these tips useful. Feel free to add more in the comments. Would also love to hear about your shooting experiences in music concerts.

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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.

Similar Places Around Pune:

1. The year 2011, in travel

Once upon a time, there existed the Katraj Snake Park. Then, slowly the park expanded it horizons by bringing in other animals and expanded into the Rajiv gandhi zoologicl park also known colloquially as the Katraj Zoo. The zoo also has a lake within it premises.

Route to go to the Pune Zoo (From Magarpatta): Go to the Solpur road, keep going towards Swargate, at the swargate signal, turn left towards Katraj. Keep going straight. After a while (a long while), you should see the zoo on your left.

View Larger Map

Go to the Pune Zoo only under the following conditions:

• If you have never been to any half-decent zoo before. One can literally count the number of animals in the zoo.
• If you want to have your morning walk/jog in the presence of few dozen deers. With an entrance fee of 5 rupees, it is the best bet for a good run amongst a bit of greenery. Of course, avoid anytime after the mornings, as the place gets thronged with whoever has 5 rupees change in the pocket.
• If you love to see deers and more deers. The ratio of deers to other animals is around 92.5 to 1. Maybe, other animals were obtained under special packages such as buy a tiger, get 20 deers free.
• If you want to test the limit of your big zoom lens or to test your ophthalmologist’s claim that you can identify objects at farway distances after your recent eye operation. I have a 200 mm lens and it proved to be extremely difficult to get decent shots of the animals. It is easy to recognise animals if they move around. Imagine a bear lying still around a 100 m away..Half the crowd was playing a trasure hunt trying to spot the location of the bear in the compound. This is the first zoo i have seen where the elephant is kept around half a km away from the viewing area. We could get to see the trunk and tail of the elephant (at least that is what we thought those were!)
• if you are studying any course in design and want to get examples of how not to design things. The design of the pune zoo is a marvel in itself. When you enter the zoo, you can either turn right or left. On the left, you will find monkeys, snakes and other smaller creatures. The board towards the right says “Elephant” prominently. Akshara is very fond of elephants and hence we turned right. Bad decision!  We walked on for almost 200 metres and were yet to come across the first animal/cage! The road on the right goes past lot of enclosures for almost 1.5 kms. Each enclosure is at least a 100 m apart and every second enclosure has deers. Unfortunately, the elephant was the last. But, we were ok. Akshara didnt seem to mind seeing a deer every second second! Then came the bad news! The only way to get back to the start/gate of the zoo was to walk back the entire 1.5 kms as the road finished at the lake and it looked like swimming across the lake was not an option. Maybe, the zoo authorities wanted to ensure that you didnt miss any deer. This proved to spoil the day as my parents. already tired from the long walk had to now walk back. There was mini-tram service and that looked to provide an easy way. But, this was not a hop-on-hop-off service. It took a group of people around the zoo and then took them back. With just a few trams and few hundred people, the waiting time at the start is something not worht mentioning.

Some photographs from our trip.

Akshara didn’t seem to mind, as there was always some animal to watch and she was being carried or driven around in a pram.

But, even in such a zoo, i found few takeaways. There were boards kept near many enclosures which explained the roots of the names of animals and also the differences between antelopes/deers and turtles/tortoises. The difference between turtles and tortoises was a cool thing to know.

There is also the boating facility on the katraj lake. Surprisingly, there were no life jackets or life guards around.

The highlight of the zoo was this enclosure which had graves for the dodo and the Indian Cheetah and a proposed one for the Tiger. The message was strong and direct. I stayed next to this place for a fewminutes and it was funny listening to the comments of people ranging from “Oh, this must be the place where they bury dead animals” to “Oh, a tiger died recently?”.

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In spite of this mini golf place being open for more than a year, not many knew about it, at least amongst my colleagues and friends. No, the low awareness doesn’t mean that this place is of low quality. The place gets a definite a+ as far as entertainment at a reasonable cost is concerned.

I have been a fan of mini golf right after the first time i tried it. I have been to all the courses in Cyprus and even a few in USA (San Jose was excellent). The ones in Cyprus pale in comparison to Golfway. The course is called “Glow in the Dark” course and has been beautifully designed such that everything glows (Neon light kinds) when the lights are switched off (or is it on ).

Considering the ‘exotic’ness of games such as mini golf and go-karting, the price is extremely reasonable.  For rupees 150, you get to play 18 holes of mini-golf and you also get a sandwich and a fruit drink (which is homemade TANG, much better compared to any of the bottled drinks!). On top of this, you also get a game coin which can be used to play any of the numerous arcade games. A game of air hockey costs just 1 game coin. So, if two of you go, you can get a good game of golf + food + a neat 2 games of air hockey!

If you have already had your lunch/dinner and are in mood for these ‘free’ foodstuff, a 18 hole game without all these perks costs just 100 bucks. And this is for 1-1.5 hours of good fun. On top of this, you would spend some time appreciating the neat idea of “Glow in the dark” and maybe like Vidhya, think about adapting some of these concepts for your home! UPDATE: It seems that the price now( As on June 2010) is 190 rupees for just the game (on a weekend). The weekday rate, i guess, should be a little lesser.

There are lot of hidden bonuses too. The score card which you get to score your game has a “Buy 1 game, get 1 game free” coupon at the back. So, don’t throw it away. You could get a game free when you visit the next time. The 18th hole would look like an anticlimax to the other 17 holes. It is just a straight-forward shot into three possible pits numbered 1,2 and 3. But, what they don’t tell you is that if you hit into Pit no. 1 which requires you to get a straight shot, you get a free game coupon. Its a pity that we didn’t know about this, only Vidhya and Anu (2 from the 4 of us) managed this. Then, a guy slowly walks in and gives them free game coupons! That’s a freebie of 200 bucks! Now that you know this, there is no excuse for you to miss the number 1 pit!

The hole number 12 is a masterpiece. No, not in terms of the difficulty to hit the ball, but in terms of the design of the hole. Even if you have a bit of scientific inclination, i assure you that you will spend some time admiring the way the ball travels to the hole and try out all the combinations on this hole. I don’t want to give away the design of this hole. Go and admire it yourself!

On the whole, a very good place to spend  couple of hours on a weekend or a weekday rather than wile away the time watching India TV (Ok, a game of mini-golf cannot give you as much entertainment as an hour of India TV!).

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