Matheran

Staying in mumbai? Has life become a routine for you? Want to break free of this usual maddening routine to a quite, peaceful and beautiful surrounding? You don’t need a lot of planning, guys!! Just pack your bags.

Yes!! Matheran (jungle on the head) is just a cool place with pollution free fresh air, lots of greenery and spectacular views. Guaranteed peace of mind and enjoyment.

Reaching there is not a problem at all, you have several options, hire/drive a car directly Advice: ‘Be extra careful along the ghats which have sharp and steep turns’ Or from neral station (central line of mumbai) either take a Toy Train oops!! missed it (lazy bones couldn’t get up early morning? You missed the spectacular view too!!) No problems, take a cab, phew!! Don’t feel like spending money on cab, go trekking!! Well I have been there twice and was the privileged one to go by car both times :-)

Ok, So you finally reached, huh!! Once there you have got a wide range of hotel chains, so decide depending on what your pocket can afford, Advice: ‘Take a hotel near the market place’. which is also the center place for all the points to visit.

We stayed at MTDC hotel, which is just as you enter the gate, walking till main market on the toy train tracks was fun and we got the toy train on the way, all like kids climbed on the running train (which goes very slow) and took photos and did lot of masti, till the ticket collector actually shouted at us and made us get down ;-)

Once at the market place, you will see several shop owners giving pamphlets having information of their shop Advice: ‘Take one even if you don’t like’. behind which is the map of matheran. There are in all about 33 points of which 14 odd are must see.

You can either trek or hire a horse for visiting different points. We all had great fun trekking to different points surrounded by greenery, dense forest, quiteness, shaded and muddy path. I was quite jealous of people riding on horse that I actually hired one and believe me it was fun, the only hitch was others were left behind and I had to wait for them for half an hour at the market place :-(

Advice: ‘Do not carry anything in plastic bags.’ there are monkeys all around and they are very good at snatching plastic bags. I was carrying chocolates in plastic bag and a monkey actually came and sat on my shoulder, snatched the packet and ran away and I just stood there completely zapped.

My favorite points were:

Echo Point You really require to shout to hear your voice echo back. Tired of shouting and hearing our voice back one of us saw a tree there and just started climbing it, within 10 minutes we found almost all of us on some or the other branch of it. LoL!!

One Tree Hill wow! This point was fun to reach, only 4 of us were enthu enough to go to this place as this is slightly out of track and it was worth going, we reached there just to see one tree on a hilltop but one of us actually had guts to climb and reach there. Its tough!! Advice: ‘Try only if you are confident enough.’

Charlotte Lake this was just too beautiful a lake at such a height and it was so much peaceful there, we actually lost our way while coming back to the market as the lanes to this place being fully shaded by thick trees it becomes very dark in the evening.

Alexander Point we could see greenery all around and clouds floating from this point. There was a small lane leading to some village down and after just climbing down for 5 minutes we found a small waterfall and we enjoyed having fun there doing liril Ad and all. ;-)

Rambaug Point the view from here was magnificent and there’s a small garden in front where there is slide and swing for kids but we all enjoyed playing there like it was meant for adults :-)

The few other points we visited were the

Khandala Point, Lords Point and Landscape Point. Theres one monkey point we didn’t go to see that as we had already seen so many monkeys around and had great experience with them too LoL!!.

So, want to enjoy the beauty and have a peaceful weekend? Be There!! Be Happy