Sometimes it is the place, but most of the time it is the people making a journey beautiful and memorable. And here I am going to write about that such beautiful trip. Beautiful not only because of the place, but also because of the people I travelled with.
Hello readers, welcome to my new travel blog. This time I travel to a hill station in Maharashtra, Panchgani. I have been to Panchgani before, but this time it was special because I was with my favorite persons, my cousins. It was a girls trip, Me and my two cousin sisters. It was a two days trip, first day we spent in Panchgani and second day in Mahabaleshwar.
Panchgani is a hill station in Satara district, Maharashtra, India, around 108km from Pune. Panchgani was developed by British, as a retirement place because of its pleasant weather throughout the year. Panchgani is around the five villages: Dandeghar, Godavali, Ambral, Khingar and Taighat, and that’s why is named as Panchgani, land between five villages. The area below the bazaar, called as Gaothan is full of plants species from the western world, including Silver Oak and Poinsettia.
There are number of boarding schools, affiliated to Cambridge University. The board exams are held in December and the question papers are being sent to England by sea.
This place has a connect to Indian Mythology also. Pandavas stayed in Panchgani for sometime during their 14 years of Vanvaas and there are few points that where they stayed and left their marks.
Panchgani is all about scenic beauty and during the monsoon, The town became full of greenery. Best time to visit Panchgani is post monsoon, when the weather is clear and city is full of green and flowers.
Top attractions in Panchgani are Table Land, Sydney point, Kate’s point, Dhom Dam, Parsi point, Kamalgadd fort, Rajpuri caves, Devil’s kitchen.
We started early morning, around 7 from Pune. We had booked a private cab from Pune only. It was the first weekend of July, Mosoon was on it’s peak. As we moving towards the Panchgani, Rain started became heavy and As we entered in Panchgani, It was full of rain and fog. This rain made the route from Pune to Panchgani more beautiful. Wet raods, surrounded with green hills covered in clouds, completely able to make you lost in its beauty. Here is short video:
We headed towards Table land. Table land is the second highest mountain plateau in Asia, at the height of approx 4000ft. It was raised by pressure between the earth plates. As we reached there, It was a heavy rain and it was difficult to visit complete land by our own. So we decided to hire horses along with the guide. We hired three horses, as we were three. It was a big land and it was fun with the horses. It is said that, during the Agyat vaas, Pandavas stayed here. Guide showed us the foot prints also. But honestly, I am not able to believe this footprint thing. It was like some random mark on a rock. This land was completely covered in fog, and hardly anything was visible but it was beautiful, an open land with full of fog. I was enjoying a lot. As we move ahead, There was a Jamun(black berry) tree. It was an only tree on the land. Guide told us this tree is 70 year old. He also told that after monsoon, This complete land gets covered in 5 types of flowers.
This land is a popular spot for Bollywood movies. Many movies, my favorites also, like Raja Hindustani, Mela, Taare Zammen par are shot here. Guide told us that more than 300 Bollywood movies were shot here.
Then we reached to Harrison folly point. Harrison was a British guy. Guide told us that Harrison was the first one to do paragliding from this point and that’s why this point is named as Harrison folly. But I read different story on Google that He reached the top of land on his horse, where his horse got uncontrolled and he fall down in the valley. That’s this point is named as Harrison point.
It was full fog, still we clicked many pictures. There is big lake at the top of table land, approx 10-12 ft deep. It is the only lake in that area. During Ganesh Chaturthi (An Indian festival, mostly celebrated in Maharashtra state), locals perform Ganpati immersion in this lake, that’s why called as Ganesh Visarjan lake.
Started from right side, platue is surrounded by city, in the middle is forest and left side is the river. Half of the forest is full of black berry (Zamun) trees and other half is full of silver oak trees. Leaves of silver oak trees shines as silver in sunshine.
After Harrison point, as we moved towards left side of the land, the fog started became more dense. At the left end of the land, there are the tiger caves. Steep down ladders that go to the small cave area. There is small food stall and sitting area in the cave. Entry fee is 10/- per person. I will not recommend visiting if having a short time. It is said that Pandavas had built this cave and stayed there for some time.
Honestly I enjoyed a lot. It was continuously raining; land was completely covered in fog and surrounded with nature: a great combination to enjoy. We didn’t click much pictures because we were lost in the surrounding. Still we managed to get few, check out below:
It took us more than 3 hours to complete the trip to table land. We returned to parking where our cab was parked. By this time we all were tired and cold. So we decided to go to our hotel, instead of visiting other places. We reached hotel around 2pm. It was a very good hotel, rooms were clean, spacious with a good view. After dumping our luggage in room, my cousins decided to enjoy in swimming pool. It was raining heavily, but still they wanted to go in pool. So we went outside. Of course there was no one in pool area. We spent approx 1 hour in pool, clicked so many pictures. After that we had lunch; food was good. Then we all slept like hell. We woke up in evening, roam around, clicked pictures, and had dinner.
That was the end of our day 1 in Panchgani. I had a great day, had a lot of fun in rain.
If you are planning to visit Panchgani and love the rain, visit in July. I loved it and will definitely not miss any chance to visit again, specially in rain.
Stay tune for next blog, Mahabaleshwar, more excited than Panchgani.
Comments