The first thing that I?d like to make clear is that this review is based on my experience and perception and although I would like to be fair and objective about the whole thing, my bias may still enter into it. Any other visitor to Matheran may have a totally different opinion.
Our party consisted of 4 adults and 2 kids ? I, my friend (female) from Poona, my friend Bhuwnesh (male) from Bombay, his wife and their 2 kids. I and my friend traveled to Bombay by bus and from there we set out in Bhuwnesh?s Santro.
We had not done too much research on the route but it was not very hard to find. The age-old Indian custom of asking strangers for directions rather than relying on maps served us well.
We reached Neral which is 6 kms. from Matheran. From there a legendary toy-train goes up to Matheran and we could see the train making its way on the narrow tracks against the mountains as we drove. This train makes only 4 trips in a day and takes 2 hours for one side of the journey. The view from the train, they say, is amazing. We found out later that the train is heavily booked and crowded. So you have to make a separate project of riding the train and plan for it. To make it more challenging for you, the train timings are not available anywhere on the net.
From Neral the mountain road starts, which can be a bit scary at first. I have traveled in the Himalayas during my trip to the highest motorable road in the world ? Khardung La, on my bike so this was much, much better than those roads but still for a first timer or plainsfolk it was a little scary at first. Bhuwnesh, though, a first-time driver in the hills, managed it quite capably. Apart from the car stalling in one patch of broken road we had no problems.
If you are too scared of driving in the hills, at Neral you can engage the services of one of those rural gentlemen who come calling at your car window ? ?driver? driver? driver??.
This winding, climbing road crosses the toy-train tracks in several places and there?s no protection apart from the graphical signs that say ?Thamba, Paha, Ja? in Marathi, meaning ?Stop, Look, Go?.
- All the information that I?d gotten from the net mentioned Matheran as a hill-station. It was only when we got there that we realized that it is called that because it is situated in the mountains otherwise the weather was hot, yes, hot, in mid-December. The sun was quite bright, as is generally the case in mountains, and you could feel the need for a cap and sunglasses.
The parking is very natural, very rural, right among the trees. You pay 10 Rs. for parking.
The entry fee is 25 Rs. per adult, 10 Rs for kids aged 3-12.
Right form the parking lot a few people took it upon themselves to keep us company lest we get bored. These were people who provide rickshaws, horses and hotels. Since the main market is a 4 kms. walk away from the parking place, we decided to hire a horse. They offer you packages like, ?We?ll show you this many sight-seeing points and bring you back here for this much money.? We only wanted a horse for the kids so we hired a horse for 3 points. The negotiations started from 360 Rs. There was a lot of haggling during which we also employed the Marathi-speaking skills of my girl friend; after much haggling the price was settled at 250 Rs.
Another boast of Matheran is to be the only pollution-free tourist place because motorized vehicles are banned inside the town. On close first-hand experience we saw that it?s a stupid law. There are no cars etc. inside the town but the horses and ponies are in large enough numbers to create just as much or even more noise and they kick up enough dust to falsify the no-pollution claim. The roads are too narrow and too crowded for motorized traffic anyway.
The road that leads up from parking place (Dasturi Naka) to the main Matheran market is not a road but a wide track. It climbs up slowly, is full of dust and not safe because of the reckless running of horses and rickshaws. On the way you can have the pleasure of smelling and walking on horse-dung that the place seems to be full of.
On the way to the market, our jockey or may be I should call him the leader of horse, stopped and told us to go and take a look at the Monkey Point. In Maharashtra, anywhere there?s a high point from where you can look down is considered a ?point?. It did not appeal to us so we just moved on.
The horse seemed like it was not well-trained or very experienced on that terrain and kids were kind of scared to ride it. So we paid the jockey a 100 and let them go after reaching the market.
There?s a shortage of toilets here so be careful. You?ll not find one even in restaurants. So, for the good of the general public, here is the location of the two toilets that we found. One near the toy-train station, the other farther ahead near the Madhavji Garden.
The garden is actually like a park and the only place in Matheran that we liked. We had our lunch in a small restaurant near the park. Service was good, the food was just ok.
We relaxed for a while in the park i.e. Madhav Ji Garden and took some photos. By this time we had all had enough of the dusty, smelly Matheran so instead of wandering out, we decided to spend some time playing Dumb Charades, before heading back. After the game we started the journey back though it was only about 4 PM but we wanted to drive down the hilly roads while it was still light.
In the market there are so many shops of ladies footwear. My friend?s wife went crazy for them. Apparently there are good ladies? shoes available here at very cheap prices. So, shopping being the only deterrent to our fast descent we made our way down the dusty, uneven road.
The parking is full of monkeys so be careful that you do not carry any eatables or any package that could potentially contain eatables or they are liable to attack you. One monkey made a move on the package in my hand which contained the purse that my girl friend had bought, because it was wrapped in newspaper. Instead of kicking/fighting the ape, I simply let him look at it and then picked it up again.
The drive down the winding hill road to Neral was not so scary this time, though traffic had definitely increased.
All in all, it was a day wasted, other than the company of my friends there was not a single thing that I enjoyed on this trip and unless someone has really pissed me off in the last few months, I will definitely not recommend them to go visit Matheran.