Matheran ... lots of trekking and horse riding. Review on Matheran

Date:18th and 19thApril 2009 Participants: 1.Raghu 2.Thripthy 3.Hima 4.Sterin 5.Deethu

Startup

15thApril: Matheran? Name of the place that I have never heard before! I was surprised to see this name in a mail from Thripthy in which she mentioned that she is going for a trekking to Matheran with her friends for 4 days from 18thto 21st April. They will be starting from Bangalore on 17thApil, Friday(18thApril) to reach Pune at 11 am. I will be there in Pune during those days with Deethu for an official visit. Trekking has been always an enthusiasm for me. So I immediately expressed my interest to join them.

Neral - Matheran

3pm: Neral station welcomed us and toy train to Matheran will go only at 5 pm. Now we have enough time for lunch. Neral is a small junction with some shops near the railway station. Search for an AC restaurant took us to AC available – but not working hotel. We took a deep dive into butter chicken but couldn't find a chicken piece. Also the lassi had an umbrella to keep the sight away while having it.

5pm: This was the last trip of this toy train train to Matheran. Ticket cost was35/- per person(depends on the class; we opted for second class and it was more than enough). As the train started its journey, we could see the dry plains first and then dry valleys. Our expectations were high about the scenery at Matheran but the sight of dry valleys made me to reset the expectations to nil.

7pm: As we reached the destination, trees became dense and there was a considerable drop in the temperature too. Vehicles were not allowed inside Matheran(non polluted and preserved hill station) and we sawa lot of horses near the last point were vehicles were stopped andparked. After getting down at Matheran station, it was time to search for a good accommodation.

Accommodation

8pm: Search was too long because we were getting into each and every hotel rooms and resorts around the market to compare the facilities and cost. Bargaining went on in parallel till we settled into one(Don't remember the name now, seems to be a symptom of short term memory loss:)).

10pm: Poor jokes and leg pulling were working fine for us during the entire trip. My theory is that if we are silent during any of our trip then either we are tired or not interested or boredom. All of us were too talkative and even a 10 seconds silence was not entertained.While having dinner we made up our mind and decided to go to see sunrise next day. It took a while for me to convince all. Plan was to get up at 4 am then get ready by 5 am to go to see the sunrise. I was the person who suggested the idea and now I need to get up and call everybody at 4 am.

Sunrise at Monkey/Heart Point

4am: Motorola alarm rang like hell. I had no choice but to get up and call others; so got fresh immediately and called Raghu. When I noticed that even with all lights in the room nobody is waking up, I switched on the TV and kept MTV at high volume. Now I could see others getting angry at me but for me at least they are waking up.One hour time was enough for us to get ready with torches loaded.

5am: Many people were riding on horses towards sunrise point. We preferred to walk. But in between due to the lack of name boards, we were misguided to Heart point instead of Panoramic point. There was confusion at every junction but at last we could see the breathtaking view of Heart point(Monkey point)

6am: At last we saw a slow sunrise from Heart Point after patiently waiting for a considerable amount of time. I see it very rarely because usually I wake up at 9 am:)

7am: All of us were very excited with what we saw. A little exploring of alternate paths(instead of taking the way back in which we came), shown us the way towards Panoramic(Sunrise) Point. We were too lazy to have tea, getting fresh, checking in and shifting to hopehall resort. It was 10 am when we left hopehall after completing all the above activities.

Alexander and Rambag Points

10am: Walking has become a normal transportation method for us now. We were planning to have horse riding in the afternoon session. On the way to Alexander Point we had breakfast(Poha and Masala tea) from a small tea shop. Alexander Point saw us posing for snap, playing games like hitting glasses with tennis ball, shooting the lemon etc.Thripthy won the glass hitting game and got a Parle-G bicket packet as the prize. Unfortunately on our way to Rambag, monkeys grabbed this Parle G packet. Actually Thripthy got frightened by monkey's attack and thrown the biscuit packet to them. Good reflex to not loose the camera or getting hurt.

12pm: We reached Rambag and there we found a sugar cane juice shop.Again a good view; and there was a trail down for trekkers or localities till the very end(or it seemed so). All had two glasses of sugar cane juice; got some energy/glucose to walk further. Girls decided to help the owner of the shop to extract juice from sugarcane; and they succeeded to get even the last drop of juice! Goodwork:)

OneTree Point

1pm: We walked and walked for another half an hour to reach that place; Damn! By that time Thripthy almost fall down. After 5 mins rest we looked at the view of that place. It was really worthy to walk that much distance with a hell of tiredness.

2:30pm: Then we headed towards Charlot lake . found no water in the Lake:(. View of the lake at that time was pathetic. I started coughing like anything because of dust and tiredness. It took a longtime for me to recover from coughing. Some way we reached back to Matheran market to have our lunch(at 3:30 pm). Pav Bhaaji helped us to recharge ourselves. Next it was the most awaited part of the trip.

HorseRiding

4pm: We went to a shop there to buy hats for horse riding; wanted to look like cowboys(or cowgirls:)). Search for the horses didn't last long; bargaining power is required everywhere(that is what I lack some times). Hima was performing very well in that and got the rates down till 150/- per person for One and a half hours' ride.

5:30pm: After riding all the way, we reached back in the market to relax with Pakoda and tea, settled our bills. Also discussed our future tour plans. I had to travel with same clothes till Pune. Jeans was very dusty and the color of our shoes were changed altogether. Now our clothes is also satisfied along with us:)

Winding Up

6:00pm: Now Deethu and me will go back to Pune. Others will stay back till Tuesday morning and will learn some horse riding. Deethu and me will be riding back towards the taxi stand; that too on the same horses. Royal ending to our Matheran Trip, Wow! It was the time to say bye; packed the things from Hopehall resort. No sentiments or nothing like Bollywood or Malayalam films:). We were too happy at the end of the day