At Kashid beach....barely a few hours drive from Bombay lies a wonderful place called Kashid..
we discovered it one windy day when we decided to take a short break from you know what..the plan was to land up there and search for a hotel that will match our budget, as we were going on a weekday...but if anyone is making plans to go there in the weekend, please do your hotel bookings before going there..as they are few in number..
but there I have jumped the gun...first the road trip..just when we thought that we would be going on forever along the Pune highway, we got a right turn that took us towards Alibag..the road was ok...in fact with the occassional spells of rain, the greenery around us left us spellbound..just as we entered Alibag, we encountered a brake shoe problem...thankfully we got a garage that took care of it..
its been some time since we made this trip...so pardon me if I can’t remember the names of the places properly..we entered a narrow stretch after Alibag that meandered through a small locality...must be Revdanda if I am not mistaken..and what we got to see after crossing that part was truly mindblowing...we zipped along a road that hugged the sea all along till we reached Kashid..the images of the wild waves lashing against the windswept coast is something to be treasured..
once we reached Kashid, we did some hotel hopping and finally landed at a place called Nisarg...decent acco plus decent food...thats all we needed..and we were not disappointed...
there are a few other options like Surve’s cottage...some top level ones like Kashid Beach Resort and Prakruti are costly but the amenities, I am told, are worth it..neways, our idea was to spend as much time on the beach and hence weren’t particularly interested in what the hotel had to offer..
and boy, the beach was amazing..a loooooong and empty stretch of sand and sea beckoned us.....i couldn’t believe that we had the entire beach to ourselves...well almost, but for the cute dog from the hotel, Rani, who gave us company..and who valiantly went on hunting for baby crabs all along..this beach has a steeper slope..so the breakers, when they come, are a visual treat..but that also means that wannabe swimmers should take it easy..
if u r an early riser and the skies r clear, then u get to see the glorious sight of the rising rays of the sun getting reflected off the waves..
unlike most beach side places, Kashid has all its hotels on the mountainside skirted by the road with the beach beyond it...so if you want to go to a beach side resort then tough luck...one more thing that you need to take care of is that power cuts are quite frequent..so it may be advisable to carry mosquito coils just in case...Nisarg anyway had a generator backup...as do most of the big hotels..so we didn’t face this problem..
we were there for two days...now that I think of it, thats about as much time that you can spend over there..or very soon u will become restless as there is precious little that u can do over there apart from wandering in the beach..
btw, don’t forget to carry ur own booze...