Tourist Attractions and Places near Pune and Mumbai

While 2010 new year weekend had a disastrous start with a miscalculated and unsuccessful trip to Raigad fort and the Pune zoo the following day, 2011 new year weekend was exactly the opposite. We went to Daman and Silvassa for a 3-day weekend and it was a great mix of lot of stuff – beaches, forts, water sports and even a lion safari!

Then, we went to Pataleshwar Cave Temple and Ayappan hill temple near Dehu Road. These two were on the radar for quite some time as we had passed these two temples en-route to many other places.

The first big trip of 2011 was a weekend trip to Murud. This set a nice precedent for 2 more trips to the Konkan region over the year. The murud trip had many beach visits including Murud beach, Kashid beach, Aakshi beach and the imposing Janjira sea fort (post pending!).

The next Konkan trip happened soon after, with a 3 day trip to Diveagar and Harihareshwar. The Diveagar beach is one of the best on the coast (among the one closer to Mumbai/Pune) and the coastal drive from Diveagar to Shrivardhan is too beautiful to be described!

In March, i went on a trek to Tikona fort along with colleagues. We started pretty early in the morning and it was a good decision as it got very hot by around 10. The trek to tikona fort is moderate, but offers wonderful views of the surrounding areas including Lohagad fort and Pavana Dam. Also, the final ascent on the stairs is wonderful.

Then, we had a get-together of friends at Splendour Country club. This was my second visit to the place (post pending!) and it is quite a mixed bag. The condition/cleanliness of the infinity pool depends on your luck, but the location is awesome.

There was a weekend when Vidhya and Akshara were out of town. So, i went on a local sightseeing trip to places which Vidhya might not come along. I went to Shinde Chhatri – architecturally good , bur was undergoing renovation, a butterfly park about which the lesser said the better and then to Chaturshringi Hill Temple, a gem of a place within the crowd of the city(posts due!).

Saturday was gone and i went for something more adventurous on the Sunday – a trek to Kalavantin Durg (post due!). This turned out to be most exhausting day of my life. But, not because of the nature of the trek. It is an awesome trek and the final climb on the rock-cut steps (some more than a metre high) is mind-blowing, particularly for the slightly-acrophobic ones like me!

The monsoon had arrived and it was time to go-green! Our first monsoon trip was to the ever-enchanting Neelkanteshwar temple. If you have never been there, make sure you do (not in the summer though). A place straight out of Amar Chitra Katha, you can not only admire the natural beauty of its location, but also learn a lot about indian mythology.

Though very scenic, i try to avoid lonavala and its surroundings during the monsoon as it gets very crowded and insane. A trip to Korigad fort where i had pass through Lonavala reaffirmed my faith in avoiding the place. Korigad fort though was a revelation. Relatively easy to climb and in midst of nature, it was a wonderful trip with friends.

No monsoon is complete without a visit to Tamhini Ghat and thoseghar waterfalls. I have been so many times to these places and yet, i am not tired of them. The visit to tamhini was, as always, combined with a visit to the broken roads of Chalkewadi windmill farms.

Then came a visit a beautiful temple in a beautiful place – hadshi temple. One photo of this temple on some forum convinced me to pay a visit and i wasn’t disappointed and neither have been all the people to whom i have recommended this temple. I have been there twice, once during the monsoon and another time just after – on a clear and sunny day.

We tried yet again on 15th August to go to Raigad fort, but our calculations proved wrong once again with a 3.5 hr wait for the cable car. So, we had to return (for the second time) with just a view of the cable car and the mighty fort beyond the horizon.

But, all was not bad with the trip. We came back through Varandha ghat and we got to see the best of what Varanda is famous for. Outstanding greenery as far as the eye can see and more waterfalls than we could keep count of!

Then finally, in October with some meticulous planning, we were able to see the king of all forts, Raigad fort (post due!). It was worth the wait, as this fort is an exemplary example of the might of the Marathas. The amount of history within the walls of his fort is amazing. We had combined a trip to Raigad with another new destination on the konkan, Karde beach.

End of 2011, beginning of 2012, lots to look forward too. Starting with a trip to Rajasthan, courtesy my company. So, what’s in plan – Malshej Ghat, Bhadandardara, Ganapatipule or Goa, some lesser known temples around Pune, Shivneri fort and more…

written by Rajaram S

Are you going to the Bryan Adams Concert? I had been to one of his shows in Cyprus few years back and it was amazing. If you still haven’t got your tickets, here are the details.

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.

written by Rajaram S

A short drive (30 kms) away from the city brings you to a temple on top of a small hillock. A short drive, a good ghat section and something unique in this temple make this a very good option for 2-3 hr break from the city.

Shri Kanifnath Maharaj was one of nine teachers in the Navnath Sampradaya, a Hindu Parampara who believe that Rishi Dattatreya, an incarnation of the Holy trinity Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva to be its first teacher (Source: Bhatakanti). This temple is dedicated to him.

How to go to Kanifnath Temple from Pune (magarpatta city): There are two ways to go from Magarpatta. Either go to Saswad and then to Kanifnath (slightly longer) or go through Kondhwa Road (beautiful ghat section in the middle). The map shows the second option which i think is the easier and the more scenic option. Go towards Big Bazaar. Take the left after the one next to Big Bazaar. This is the Prince of Wales Drive. In the next major junction, turn left to go on Kondhwa road. After this keep going straight for few kms. You would come to a junction where the left goes towards Saswad, the right goes to the highway and the straight goes into the hills. Keep going straight. If you are unsure, ask for Bopdev ghat, dont ask for Saswad. People will direct you to the Saswad road if you ask for Saswad though the Bopdev ghat road also goes to Saswad. After the ghat, you will see a big board for Kanifnath on the left and then it is a straight road to the top of the hill. One of the landmarks could be the plane-shaped water tank we saw on the way!

View Larger Map

Once on the top, you get a beautiful view of Pune city. You have to climb around 20-30 steps to reach the temple from the parking or take your vehicle on the road (bad road) to the right of the parking to reach the back of the temple.

The unique thing about this temple is that the main shrine is in a closed room and only men are allowed to enter it. It is not just walking through a door! There is a small opening, probably a little more than a foot in either direction through which you (only men and topless too!)have to crawl into and also come back the same way as you are not supposed to point your foot towards the shrine. No photos were allowed so i dont have any, but it was interesting watching people of all sizes and shapes get into the shrine. Plan your trip such that you reach the temple around sunset as the evening light is just great on the temple as there are no other hills around. We did the usual stuff, lot of photographs , chai-bhel at the shops outside and we were back to Pune within a few hours. Hari and Akshara also had a separate photograph session on their own. Check out those photos here.

written by Rajaram S