Saris and Elephants

7.30am on a drizzly Sunday morning, Dad and I are up and ready for a relaxing day in the hills, the perfect cure to last night’s cocktail induced hangover. Even taking into account that we are working on IST (Indian Stretchable Time), our car arrives considerably late but by 9 am we are on our way out of the smoggy city, heading towards the peace, quiet and fresh air of the Western Ghat.

After a scenic drive up into the hills, we arrive in Lonavala, along with what appears to be most of Mumbai making their weekend getaway. We head to the popular Fariyas resort for breakfast and a cup of tea before venturing off to see the sights. We had planned to visit Tiger Point, from where you can see across the valley and enjoy the misty weather. However, our driver had other plans.

It soon transpired that our driver was not at all familiar with the local area, not only that, he also refused to either ask for or take directions. This soon meant we were very lost!

The ‘Tiger point’ that we were taken to later turned out to be the Bushy Dam car park, although in the thick fog it could have been the most scenic place in the world and we would have been none the wiser. After being directed to what appeared to be a public latrine to ‘enjoy the view’ while our driver finished his cigarette, we paid a visit to Bushy Dam. Here we made our way through the growing crowds of people, past the cows and squelched through the mud, to climb the steps overlooking the dam. Once the rains are in full force this view must be beautiful, today it is a small puddle in the bottom of a muddy bowl.

We decide that we have had enough sightseeing for one day and drive in the direction of Dukes Retreat, another well known resort in Khandala, the neighbouring town. Or so we thought. Once again our driver takes us on a mystery tour of Lonavala including the long traffic queue over the level crossing, several chikki shops and some deserted narrow lanes. Eventually, many phone calls and several stops for directions later, we arrive at Dukes, which turns out to be in a completely different direction to where we originally headed, but only about 10 minutes from where we started.

Finally we could sit back and have the relaxing day that we had planned, although by now we only had an hour left to enjoy the fresh monsoon air and beautiful view. A refreshing beer while watching the rains advance over the hills and before I knew it I was heading back into city life and the hills of Lonavala now seem a million miles away.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.