Mahabaleshwar

Can you get too much of a good thing? well, i guess you can, in varying degrees, that was the inspiration behind this trip we went off on. For a change,we decided to hit places outside of our beautiful Goa. It was a trip long delayed, for I was waiting to the monsoons to begin, As i firmly believe its the best time to see interior Maharastra. So off we went to Shirdi, Pune and Mahabaleshwar. And what a blast we had.
Left Goa, early on the 30th to reach Shirdi (Sai baba Mandir)late at night. ( around 11:30) thanks to, a horrible recomendation for the Pune-Nagar-Shirdi road, by a rice merchant from Pune (never believe one, not even while buying rice) and having gotten terribly lost on the way out of Pune. (Man did the traffic suck). Any way, once there and comfortably settled into a hotel, the debate that came into the picture was " to attend, or not to attend - the morning Aarthi, the problem was that you have to be in the mandir hall by 4:30am to be able to attend it. Not some thing that comes too easy to any of us. But the debate was settled and the alarm set to 3:30am. We actually hit the temple only at 6:30am, but it was well worth the long journey, a definate-"must goto" at least once, if you have not been there yet, the place has an amazing record to convert non-believers.
The next day, it was back to Pune and its horrible trafic, but this time we took the Pune-Nasik road, and it was well worth it, it was terribly senic. After spending some time in Pune shopping, we left for Mahabaleshwar, to check out the place before returning to Goa.
Mahabaleshwar, in one word was - Foggy, and in three words, Wet and Foggy, It rained literally non stop, was terribly foggy, and the market was terribly conjested with cars, but that apart, the place was terribly beautiful, one recomendation however is to preferably check out the hotel rooms before taking one, this time of the year they are all leaking terribly.
Next day we checked out
1. Mahabali temple - believed to be over 4000 years old
2. Kates Point -4231m - spectacular view of the whai, plains below, and of a Dam
3. Archie's Straberry farm - Great Straberry milk shakes, and straberries with cream.
This is a place you have to see at least twice, once in the peak season, for its great weather, lovely views, and delicious straberries, and next in the monsoons, for its "wet-foggy-cold-romantic mood" kind of weather.