Sep 14, 2009 01:45 PM
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This is my first review, although I refer mouthshut most of the time, hope my review would end up being a useful one for all.
This review is on our journey to Kashid-Murud-Janjira Fort. This trip was not planned in advance but we ended up going there as one of our family commitments got cancelled at the last moment, but wife had already taken leave for sat and she was having sat-sun as off. So I and my friend’s family (pawan) decided to go to Kashi-Murud-Janjira fort.
Through most of the blogs and reviews, I came to know that kashid is approx 170km and from there 20km is Janjira fort keeping this in back of our mind we started our journey at 7am from Pune. We took the Kholopli-Pen-Alibaug-Kashid route the road at Tamini ghat is not good.
Both of us were traveling through our newly bought used Zen. I don’t know about his meter reading but I noted mine, we started at 66897 reading from my house (Nagar Road) and we reached Janjira Fort parking at 67091 reading. Weather was amazing and we enjoyed our drive till Pen, post which weather became humid and we decided not to stop in between and keep going till Kashid atleast. We opted to travel via Old highway, and took left from Khopoli exit to reach Pen. There after the roads are pretty straight no major turns.
When we reached Kashid beach it was amazing clean and not crowded. The drive along the sea side was awesome, simply amazing I would say. We stopped at one junction on Kashid and decided to stay earlier we planned to one day trip but the beach and beauty around forced us to spend a night out there.
Luckily we had all stuff required to go ahead with a night stay. Me and my friend left to hunt for a resort/guest house leaving our family on beach. People out there are very honest and humble towards the customer.
I visited this place almost 5 years ago with my colleagues the facilities have drastically changed since then; I remember there was no mobile connectivity or very few resorts when I visited this place earlier. But now everything is available out here from Mobile connectivity to changing room on beach, but this has not affected the beauty of the place. It still remains the same beautiful and sacred beach as it was 5 years ago.
So we started our hunt, since we reached sat by 12pm most of the guest house/resorts were booked, I still had the layout of guest house that we stayed 5 years ago although I forgot the name of that place but light memories were there. We checked few resorts/guest house all were full, we wanted an accommodation for 7 of us. While on our way towards murud after the Kashid beach we found the guest house where I stayed in my earlier trip. In last 5 years this place was completely changed, it used to be a 2 room guest house which has now become 8 rooms well decorated guest house. It’s called Maatoshree Guest Houseit is owned by Virendra Belose. I don’t remember him or any of the other members but I still have fresh memories of my earlier trip. He still charges less than other and gives decent facilities like, well maintained room, toilets, beds, food. Virendra (alias Veeru) is a decent boy and his family takes care of guest will full sincerity. I will give contact number for Veeru at the end of the review.
Once our guest house was finalized we headed towards beach and we spent the entire evening on the beach. We had loads of snacks, coconut water, Tea, onion pakoda etc. We used to play for an hour come out have something and back to the water. We repeated this till 6pm. My son Pratham (he is almost 2years now) and my friend’s son (Tanish who is 2.5years now) enjoyed the sea to the core. This is the first time they have experienced sea. We visited couple of water park and river sides but exposure to what sea is was first of its kind for them. Both of them were not ready to come out in the evening.
Clear water and safe beach is would be conclusion for Kashid. Although sea is salty but the taste of fun was too sweat for us to cherish for years to come. I have seen beaches at Goa, Hari-hareshwar, Shrivardhan, Divyagar, but this was different from all others.
Next morning we headed towards Murud-Janjira, we left guesthouse around 7am, we reached 7.30am at the ticket counter for the boat, but as per concerned authorities boats will start only at 8am. We boarded the second boat and headed towards Janjira Fort, the boat journey was too good as expect me no one has ever traveled via boat on sea, I had gone to Elephanta caves near Mumbai.
It took us 15mins to reach the fort, the architect of the fort is superb and technical used at that time was beyond what is shown in Discovery/Nat Geo. We hired a guide who helped us understand the integrities of the fort from Sheesh mahal to weapons stock, secret door etc. We don’t know how much truth was there in this conversation but he ended up being an entertaining chap. We returned the shore by 10.30am. We decided to go to Birla temple which comes on the way to Alibaug.
The Birla temple also is huge and amazing, it a ganpati mandir and is well maintained like any other Birla temple. We took Darshan and headed towards Pune, we decided we will only stop on Old Highway till that time we will drive, and the weather was very humid till we reached Khopoli.
On our way back we had lunch at a restaurant in Lonavala and reached home by 5.30pm.
In all it was an unforgettable trip.
Details where we stayed
Maatoshree Guest House
Mob: 09221080478, Landline: 02144-278623
Kashid, Murud
