Khandala / Lonavala Photo Diary

The following is an actual account of a fun-packed weekend I had at the very very beautiful Khandala & Lonavala. There were many things to do & places to see & in just two days we managed to cover a lot of ground. All the pictures are thumbnails so click to enlarge the ones you’d like to see. Enjoy!!

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The beautiful, tres picturesque & sleepy towns of Khandala/Lonavala (4km from each other, might as well have been the same place) is just 1 1/2 hr from Mumbai City via the new Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Though we traveled by car, there are lots of buses (private & public) as well as trains one can take from either Mumbai or Pune.

We left early 6.30am & reached Khandala exactly at 8am! We were staying at a quaint little stone house with huge flowering gardens and little pools (one pic here & two more at end of page) . Having lived in the bustle of Mumbai all my life, I prefer the old world charm of houses versus staying in a hotel or the likes.

After chilling out a little bit (making tea turned out a great adventure, lol) we decided to take a walk down the hills a few yards from where we were staying. The view was absolutely breath-taking; greens of every hue & the waterfalls in the background.

After some time (& many laughs over the movies being produced by the boys for a game we were playing) we decided to drive to Karla Caves (about 14 kms away) to work up an appetite for lunch.

The walk upto Karla Caves is an adventure in itself. Earlier one had to walk up the entire hills (a long 1 hour walk, if memory serves). Now there’s a path to drive up also, almost all the way to the top. But naturally (!) took the latter option & consequently enjoyed walking up the last few sets of the staircases in the hills as opposed to being worn out (which we definetely would have been, had we walked from the base). We also walked by waterfalls on the way up - lovely!! The view from the top is kinda hard to put in words - mercifully you can check out the pictures to see the beauty for yourself.

The Caves are broadly divided into two main areas. The first is a huge (& I mean HUGE) Chaitya (Chapel) - see 1st pic with people in it to get an idea of it’s dimentions. It is also the largest in India. There are tons of carvings all over - keep in mind it’s all stone, carved out directly in & out of the mountains by the ancient Buddists dating back to 160 BC!!! (some modern Godesses were also spotted, see latter pics )

The second area is the Viharas (Dwelling Caves) of the Buddists. These are situated even higher than the Chaitya. The waterfalls provide fresh water. To go into the homes (which were well divided into different rooms etc, again all carved out of rock), we walked up staircases, many of them were tiny & very wet (the monsoon being at it’s peak). It is so amazing to see what all the ancients were able to do without all the modern technology that we are privy to these days.

After the caves, we headed to Lonavala. Having successfully avoided the Ganapati Immersions in Mumbai, we ran into them in Lonavala! No problem, they were a feast for the eye, color being thrown everywhere. Though traffic was completely stopped (we got out & walked), cops were all around regulating things & it was pretty orderly. We managed to reach “Lonavala Restaurant” (very innovative indeed) & had a lovely lunch. The boys insisted on eating only non-veg (so each time we had to pick out places with care - lots of restaurants proudly proclaim to be “Pure Veg”).

After Lunch & on the way back home to Khandala, we headed down to NAB (National Association for the Blind). The Khandala place is especially for the Aging Blind (as opposed to the one in Worli, Mumbai, which has young blind as well) and sells tons of stuff made by the residents. My sister was a big fan of the place - she loves candles & would never fail to make a trip to NAB when down at Kh. Besides the candles (in every size, shape & color), they also sell handkerchiefs with your name embroidered, sweaters, shalls & other stuff. The place is definetely worth the visit - lots of stuff to buy & the money is used for a really worthy cause.

Unfortunately that day we didn’t get to see much of stuff (they were almost closing, due to Ganapati) but I still managed to buy many candles (including a really nice Christmas Tree candle for mum). Had to cross a railway crossing (going & coming) & had plenty of excitement there - including being locked on the tracks once (say your prayers people) !!!

It was already evening by the time we got home & since we were pretty pooped from our day’s outing, we just hung around the house, playing cards. In the night we headed back to Lonavala for dinner - found “Rama Krishna”, an amazing non-veg place - the quality of the food was attested by the fact that the place was crowded like VT Station!! The breakfast menu was so good, we decided to do it again in the morning (it opens at 7am). We drove down to Rajmachi Point, but it was heavily fogged so we didn’t get out. Headed back home & played UNO (tons of fun!!) into the wee hours of the morning…

The next day we got up early in the morning to head back to Lonavala for Sunday Holy Mass (8.30am). As far as I know there’s only one church in Lonavala - St. Joseph’s. It’s Parish Priest (& also possibly the only priest) is Rev. Edwin who gave us a simple yet very powerful sermon. We also did all the readings.. I remember on another trip, our group sang too!

After Mass, we had breakfast & then did rounds of Chocolate & Chocolate Walnut Fudge Tastings. Fyi, Lonavala is famous for it’s Chikki & Fudge and every shop you go to will very happily let you sample some of it! Wasn’t planning on buying any fudge but after tasting it was too tempted not to (the apple at Eden?). Also bought some Candy Floss - for old times sake - it was the last day of the Bandra Fair & I hadn’t eaten any (who cares if it wasn’t Bandra?).

From there we proceeded to Bushy Dam. I was a little peeved - though the place is full of emptiness and there are a million (& one) places to park, nevertheless, you have to ‘Pay and Park’ everywhere you go. Not only that, every touristy place (like Karla etc), you have to pay additional entry fees. And if you’re a phirang (read non-Indian), then you have to pay 10 times the rate. AND to add to all this, NOTHING is maintained. There is filth everywhere, graffiti on the cave walls, rubbish galore at the dams all over the floor and in the water too. ABSOLUTELY maddening.

Would have gone back, in fact I did turn around to leave, but the other three pulled me back in. Had an ok-ish time… do not recommend the dam if you do not like filth & hoards of people who like to swim without proper swimwear. Yes, don’t ask.

Hungry for some decency, we left the dam, crossed ‘Walvan Dam’ off our list and drove straight to Fariyas Holiday Resort. I’d pretty much grown up there - have tons of childhood memories of being there, stealing sugar cubes from other guest’s trays etc!!

What’s really good about it now is that they have a ‘Water Park’ which costs INR 350/- a day and which permits you to use both the indoor pool & the many pools outside - with all the slides, shoots & other fun water thingies. Well worth it!!

We were all pretty tired after all the excitement & lunch & almost didn’t visit Rajmachi Point. But since we didn’t get it the previous night (fog) we decided to try once more. It was a good thing that we went just when we did - it was a “Now you see it, now you don’t” affair. When we arrived, we were greeted by the resident monkeys who are just EVERYwhere. They are absolutely not scared of the humans & in fact they scare off many people in search of food.

As we continued to take in the monkeys & other sights at Rajmachi Point (it’s the furtherest tip of Khandala), we literally saw the clouds decend upon us. Finally we were so far gone in the mist & fog that we had to retreat back to the car. Even driving back was almost impossible - we literally could only see white in front of us. To me (a total romantic!) the whole thing was brilliant & reminded me of “A Walk in the Clouds” (though I unfortunately had no Keanu of my own with me )

Back home finally we had enough time to ramble the gardens & take tons of more pics - between the 2 digi-cams we got over 500 pics in 2 days!! lol.

Our trip back was comfortable - except for the flat tire & for the fact that our great driver had forgotten the spanner (help!)… A really kind (God bless him) good samaritan did finally stop & help us & we got home all in one piece.

Praise God for blessing us all with such a good time all around!