I write this review with a lot of pain in my heart thinking about the way our government or muncipalities neglect the places which has to be on priority list for development as it can bring good revenue for the state via tourism. Recently I has visited Lonavala and Khandala for 2 days with family we had gone there for forgetting the fast pace life of mumbai.
Day 1
We got down at lonavala station and had to hire a rickshaw to reach the place where we were staying normally the fare for the distance which we covered should ideally be 9-10 Rs in mumbai but there we were charged 50/- flat as we were 4 people we had to catch 2 rickshaws a loss of almost 80 rs. Why cant the government make some rules so that they charge a minimum fare we know that they make a living from visitors coming for picnics but they should not loot the public.
Evening we made a plan to visit some place and chose reywood park which was near caught a rickshaw and went there paid 50Rs to rickshaw . We thought that as the name was unique the park would also be something special but to our dismay the park was just a place with lot of trees and nothing special in it there was no maintenence of the park. The municipality should have taken care of the park or if they dont have the money for it they can hand over the maintenence to any private party which will be ready for the maintenence. You have to visit and see the state of that park with nothing to boast about no proper place to sit or items for children to play.
Day 2
The 2nd day I hired a taxi for sight seeing in which he covered 4 points which were reywood park, lions point, bushi dam, lake, and khandala rajmachi garden, temple and sunset point .
All the places lacked any value for money nothing special was there to visit that places. Rajmachi garden is the only place which is maintained but not up to the mark as they charge 5 rs per person. The childrens play area had 2 swings but 1 was broken and out of 3 slides 1 was twisted and some child could have hurt slipping from there. You cannot sit on the grass and have any food as this place is the den of monkeys the moment you take out something to eat the monkeys surround you and you are forced to flee the place.
I love to visit Khandala and Lonavala hope the authorities take some effort and make the place much better so that more and more people will visit it not only during the monsoons but throughout the year.