I left Mumbai by ferry shortly before 11 on the morning of the 23rd. The wooden ferry boat, perhaps 50 or 60 feet long, departed from right in front of the Gateway of India and was full of passengers. It was the first day of the Maratha New Year and Mumbaikers were headed south for the Konkan Coast, the area between Mumbai and Goa. The ferry made its way through Mumbai Harbor, weaving past huge cargo ships, and reached the port of Mandva, to the south, after about an hour. At Mandva we boarded shuttle buses that took us about 40 minutes further south, to the city of Alibag, past coconut groves and lots of little hotels catering to tourists from Mumbai. In Alibag I caught a bus headed further south, to Murud. The thirty mile trip took about an hour and a half, at first on a slow narrow road through densely packed coconut trees, with more small hotels and other buildings among the palms, and eventually through much drier, browner countryside. I had glimpses of the Arabian Sea on the way and passed a long, wide, beach of gray sand. Just before Murud we passed the late 19th century Gothic palace of the Nawab of Murud.
Arriving in Murud about 3, I got a hotel and had a prawn lunch at a restaurant near the seafront. I walked around town a bit afterwards. Murud is just a small town, with a population of about 12000 and with very friendly people. It was relatively quiet and filled with coconut palms and other trees. I passed some old colonial era buildings and found a big tree with fruit bats roosting in the upper branches, the bats somewhat active towards the end of the afternoon. Tourists from Mumbai began arriving in fairly large numbers on that Friday afternoon.
About 5 I walked out on the wide, long (maybe a couple of miles long and perhaps 500 feet wide) beach. The sand is gray and densely packed and the slope of the beach is very gentle here, with long tides. The tide was out and the waves far off shore. More than a mile offshore are the remains of a fort built on a small island by Shivaji's son. The beach was crowded, and there were horses and horsecarts for the tourists from Mumbai. I walked up and down the beach, reaching the northern end just below the cliffs with the Nawab's palace, until after 7, when it became dark. Fruitbats circled a grove of trees along the beach where they had spent the day hanging from the branches. I kept waiting for them to fly off, but I left heading back to the town center before they left for their night's search for fruit. I ate dinner outside on a cool night. There was almost always a pleasant breeze from the sea.
About 9 the next morning I took an autorickshaw about three miles south to a little port, with great views on the way of the island fortress of Janjira, just offshore. This imposing fort, with something like twelve bastions and forty foot high walls rising right up from the sea, was built by the Siddis, apparently a dynasty of Abyssinian background, in the 16th century and was never conquered. You reach it by boats which leave whenever twenty passengers accumulate, and are poled through the shallow waters and then sailed through the deeper waters until reaching the one gate into the fort. The sea was a little rough and it was a bit of a challenge to get from the rocking boat to the stairs leading to the gate.
Waiting for the boat I had met an English guy, older than me (in his 60's, I guess; he had seen the Beatles perform in 1963, along with a band that later became the Who), who had bicycled from Chennai (formerly Madras) in the south over eight weeks and was headed to Mumbai. We explored the fort together during the 45 minutes we were given before our boat headed back. I would have preferred more time, but 45 minutes were adequate. The fort, including a five story palace, is in ruins. There are two greenish tanks, or ponds, of water. Janjira has a fresh water spring, which is one of the reasons it was such an ideal island fortress. We climbed to the highest point and along part of the walls, with a few old cannon still on them, before making our way onto the rocking boat and heading back to port. The fort was filling up with Indian tourists and there were perhaps six or seven boats hovering around the landing point at the gate. There was a little restaurant next to the port with a great view of Janjira, where Dave, the English guy, and I sat for an hour or so before he left for Murud on his bike. I decided to have lunch there and then took an autorickshaw back.
It was very hot in my room, on the top floor and with a metal roof, so I found a good place to sit near the beach, where the cool sea breeze was blowing. The beach was full of people, and two camels had been added to the horses and horsecarts. I watched a lithe and very strong, skinny guy climb several very tall and thin palm trees sloping over the beach. He had a rope tied in a circle with a diameter a little less than a foot. He put this around his feet to keep them from spreading out and with another piece of rope perhaps three feet long which he grasped at each end he climbed up the forty or fifty foot high trees amazingly quickly and agilely. He carried up a much longer rope which he would tie to a bunch of perhaps ten coconuts. His much bigger assistant below would hold onto the rope as the guy in the tree cut the stem of the bunch of coconuts, which dangled before being lowered by the guy on the ground.
I walked along the beach again in the late afternoon. The fruitbats were settled in the trees, with few flying around. Dave and I had dinner along the seafront. He is quite an interesting guy, having done a lot of cycling and having worked until just recently for an Icelandic bank.
I had originally thought I would take a bus to Pune via Alibag from Murud, as my guidebooks weren't encouraging about public transport and hotels further south along the Konkan Coast, but Dave and a couple at my hotel who had traveled along the coast by motorcycle convinced me to give it a try. So the next morning, after a long walk on the beach (the bats were back in their trees and there was a fog bank hovering over the river mouth just north of the beach that quickly dissipated), I took an autorickshaw about 10 back to Rajpuri, the little port opposite Janjira. The small, blue, wooden ferry was waiting there for the trip across the estuary to the south. I hopped on and we left fairly shortly with about 50 people and seven motorcycles on board.
The passage to the very small town of Dighi took only about fifteen minutes, with views of Janjira on the way. From Dighi I took a shared autorickshaw further south to the bigger town of Borlai through dry countryside. I had my backpack on my lap so it wasn't a comfortable trip. From Borlai I caught a larger and more comfortable autorickshaw, called a minidor, further south to Shrivardhan, with views of the sea and beaches along the way. The trip had been through dry countryside, but Shrivardhan was full of green trees. I found a hotel that had been recommended to me and checked in, the only customer. I had arrived about 1:30 and so could have continued further south, but this little town had been recommended to me.
I rested on the balcony of my room for an hour or so before walking to the beach, another long, wide, gray sand one, about ten minutes away. Unlike Murud, there was no development along the beach, backed by palms and casuarinas. I retreated to the balcony of my hotel until about 5, when I took a walk along the friendly streets nearby and eventually by another route to the beach, passing a huge banyan tree on the way. I walked along the beach until almost dark. There were quite a few people, some swimming and quite a few playing cricket (as in Murud). The tide was far out. Back at my hotel after dark I could see a slim setting moon. I ate at the hotel, a thali prepared by the friendly family that ran the place. I had mosquitoes at night, though.
The next morning I sat on my balcony and watched the activity on the quiet street in front of me. Uniformed school kids were heading to the school down the street. Sellers of vegetables in baskets on their heads came by, calling out their wares. Bicyclists and motorcyclists came by. I took a walk, passing the banyan tree and reaching the almost deserted beach. I walked along the beach and took one last look at it before heading back to my hotel for breakfast. I had decided not to go further south along the coast, but to head inland. I wouldn't see the sea again as I was heading across the subcontinent back to Calcutta.
During breakfast school got out and many kids stopped at the little store next to the hotel to buy snacks. I asked the hotel owner why they got out so early and he, who didn't speak great English, said something about exams. However, I shortly saw a bunch of school kids, the girls all in Muslim dress, entering the same school that the others had just left. I wonder what was going on. About 10:30 the owner of the hotel took me to the bus station on his motorbike and the 11 o'clock bus to Mahad to the east left about noon. We ascended and then descended an 800 foot high ridge, reaching a little town at the far inland edge of the estuary I had crossed by ferry the day before. The countryside had lots of trees and was very hilly. We ascended and descended another 800 foot high ridge and reached another small town, where we had a long and very hot wait of about half an hour, before continuing to Mahad, which we reached about three hours after leaving Shrivardhan.
I had come to Mahad, at only about 150 feet elevation, because I wanted to go to Shivaji's hilltop fortress of Raigad, north of Mahad. My guidebooks had been not at all helpful about getting there, but it proved quite easy. I left Mahad for Raigad on a bus half an hour after I got there, through flat, dry countryside at first and then up a steep, twisting mountain road. I couldn't see the fortress, but I saw what I thought was the hill and it look impossibly steep to ascend. After less than an hour we reached the end of the road, under a very steep cliff, where the ropeway up to the top is located. I had been told there was a hotel at the ropeway, but upon arrival was surprised to hear it was at the top end of the ropeway, in the fort. With my backpack and three Indians, I got into the small cage and began the trip up. The views were fantastic as we ascended in about five minutes from about 1300 feet elevation to about 2700. The cliff was almost vertical. Quite an exciting ride, and for only 170 rupees (about $3.40) round trip. At the top I trudged up stone stairs with my pack to the hotel. There was a dormitory for only 200 rupees, but I took a room for 900 (about $18) and it was pretty nice.
I didn't spend much time in the room, though, as I wanted to look around before nightfall. It was about 4:30 when I entered the nearby gate of the ruined palace. Apparently there had been a fort on this hilltop since the 12th century, but Shivaji enlarged it and eventually made it his capital. It is a fantastic site for a fort, with almost sheer cliffs on every side but the northern one, which is still very steep. The ropeway ascends the western side and the uneven plateau on top is something like a mile by a mile and a half in size, so it is quite big.
I looked through the ruins of the palace, with six large enclosures that they think might be the quarters for Shivaji's queens. Adjacent is a large court, where Shivaji was crowned Chhatrapati (something like "Lord of the Umbrella") in 1674. At the site is a small stone domed structure housing a statue of Shivaji. You are only allowed to approach it with your shoes off, so he is treated like a god. There were a few Indians around, but I was the only foreigner. I left the palace through a high gate and walked past former market stalls to the site quite a distance away where Shivaji was cremated after his death in 1680. This, too, is a sort of holy site, next to a temple to Shiva. Oddly, nearby is a statue depicting his dog, who is supposed to have loyally jumped into Shivaji's funeral pyre. I have read that an Indian scholar published a book questioning some of the stories about Shivaji. The book was banned by the state government and the institution that published it subjected to protests and some disruption.
I walked back towards the palace and noticed below, on the north face of the mountain, the main gate to the citadel. It turned out to be about 500 feet below the summit, but I scurried down the steps to check it ou before dark. There is only a relatively narrow crease in the northern face through which you can ascend. This crease is protected by a double wall, with a narrow gate between two massive bastions about 70 feet high. I looked around and then made my way back to the top along with some townspeople from below who apparently were coming up to a small shrine near the palace. At least they all gathered there as I continued just before dark to the hotel.
I was very hungry but had to wait almost two hours for them to prepare the thali dinner. There were about 25 Indian young people staying in the dorm, so I'm glad I chose a room. I had a hot bucket bath and slept well.
I was up and out before 7 the next morning to explore the fort further. The sun had just risen. There were already Indian tourists, or perhaps "plgrims" is a better term, wandering around and posing barefoot before Shivaji's statue at his coronation site and at another Shivaji statue just outside the palace. I walked through the ruins of the palace again and then through the marketplace ruins to the far northeast corner of the hilltop plateau, reached via a narrow ridge. The views approaching the ridge and point, and the views down a thousand feet and more, were fantastic. From that vantage point I could see the narrow path below the main gate that traverses just below a very steep cliff face.
Check out time at the hotel was 10, so about 9:30 I came back and had an unsatisfying breakfast of spicy rice at the restaurant before depositing my backpack behind the counter at the restaurant and beginning the hike down. I went through the palace one more time, walked by the tanks partially filled with water, and walked down the stairs again to the main gate 500 or so feet below the summit. I looked around that area again and then exited the main gate and walked down more steps, with great views up towards the massive 70 foot high bastions on either side of the gate. About 250 feet below the gate I reached the more or less level narrow path that runs just below a massive, almost vertical cliff. There were a few people coming up and down as I walked along. Eventually, I reached the edge of the face of the cliff and started down stairs that led through a forested area where a man in a tree was vigorously hacking off branches with a long axe, using just one arm at a time. He was remarkably efficient. I watched for a while and then continued down out of the forest and onto a dry, grassy ridge that took me down to the road. I had some great views back to the mountain I had just descended and could make out the narrow line of the walls I had passed through.
I had to walk about 20 minutes on the road along the steep western face of the mountain to the ropeway. I got there just as they began their half hour lunch break, so I had one of my own, and ate a good thali at the restaurant next to the ropeway. Soon after 1 I again took the ropeway up, retrieved my pack, and took the ropeway down. The views from that little cage as you go up and down the mountain are spectacular.
I soon caught the bus back to Mahad, arriving about 3. There was a bus to the hill station of Mahabaleshwar, my next destination, at 5, but one of my guidebooks erroneously stated that hotel owners would not rent rooms to single men, and that in fact to do so was illegal. Therefore, I decided to spend the night in Mahad and go to Mahabaleshwar in the morning, so that if I couldn't get a room I would still have plenty of daylight to move on. I found a nice little hotel in that ugly but very friendly town. The power was off so I sat in the lobby in the sweltering heat and read a newspaper and, once I had read that, a book. About 5 the power came on and a little later I took a short walk around town. I had a good tandoori chicken dinner there and for desert found a bakery with very good coconut chocolate balls. I washed my very dirty clothes and slept well under a fan despite my warm room. My thermometer registered 86 degrees before I went to bed.
Early the next morning I had breakfast, two omelets, bread (much like rolls and called pau, after the Portuguese word for bread) and tea, at a little cafe. The proprietor sat with me and told me he had spent 27 years working as a Toyota mechanic in Bahrain, visiting several Arabian countries along with Japan (the latter for training). He was quite interesting and wouldn't let me pay for breakfast.
I left at 9 on a bus for Mahabaleshwar, heading south at first through low ground and then turning east and heading up into the Western Ghats on a narrow, twisting road. The views as we ascended were great, though hazy. We climbed slowly up the steep road, passing the road to the hilltop fortress of Pratapgad, a thousand feet above us, when we reach about 2500 feet elevation. We entered more wooded terrain and I began to feel the noticeably cooler air. We had more great views as we slowly climbed and reached Mahabaleshwar, at about 4500 feet, soon after 11. When I got off the bus three guys accosted me, trying to get me to go to their hotel. I went with one and got a hotel on the main bazaar, a shop filled strip catering to the many tourists who come from Mumbai and Pune.
Mahabaleshwar was discovered by the British in 1824. They soon established a sanitorium there and it became a favorite place to escape the heat of Bombay. It apparently once was quite a pleasant town, but now is ugly sprawl of concrete development. It is supposed to be packed on weekends and was quite busy with Indian tourists (I saw no westerners) during the two midweek days I was there. I found a good little restaurant on the bazaar and had chicken kebabs, butter nan and a lassi for lunch. Mahabaleshwar is famous for its strawberries and they were on sale everywhere. Along the bazaar, men sat on the street next to little pyramids of strawberries for sale, along with blackberries and mulberries. The strawberries were delicious, and cheap, 60 rupees a kilo, so about $1.20 for 2.2 pounds. I tried the mulberries, which I don't think I had ever had before and they, too, were delicious.
After lunch I took a walk along a dirt path through lovely forest along a cliff edge to Bombay Point. At least I think it was Bombay Point, as the signs were all in Marathi. The view was pretty good, through facing west into the midafternoon glare. I sat for a while under the trees and then walked back, with a slight diversion. In the later afternoon I walked about 45 minutes on a paved road through more beautiful forest to Lodwick Point and Elephant Head Point. Quite a few cars whizzed by, and honked, as I walked. These two points are near the end of a long ridge, with steep cliffs down. You reach Lodwick Point first, named after General Lodwick, who "discovered" Mahabaleshwar in 1824. There is a memorial pillar to him there, erected in 1874, a year after his death at age 90, by his son, an official in the colonial government in Madras. A plaque says he joined the service of the "Hon'ble E. I. C." (East India Company) in 1799, when he would have been 16. He died in France. Another plaque honors his grandson, an army officer whose ship was torpedoed in the Mediterranean during World War I. Yet another plaque say the memorial was destroyed by lightning in 1974 and restored by the Mahabaleshwar Hotel Association.
Slightly further on is bulbous Elephant Head Point, as far as you can go along the narrowing ridge, unless you want to scramble down steeply. The views over the hazy distance all around were good. The sun was setting and looked like it would disappear into the haze well before sunset. Looking below, I could follow the progress of the road I had come up for quite a distance. I headed back about 6. There were perhaps a couple of hundred people at the points and along the trail by then, and about 50 cars in the parking lot. I managed to get back to town through the forest before almost all the cars began their journeys back. They must have stayed till sunset, just before 7.
It was wonderfully cool in Mahabaleshwar at night, and the bazaar was full of people. Besides the few, relatively cheap, hotels along the bazaar, there are many more all over the town and surrounding area. My thermometer registered 73 degrees in my room before I went to bed, quite a bit cooler than the night before in Mahad. I've read that Mahabaleshwar gets drenched in the monsoon, something like 240 to 280 inches of rain, and in only about 100 days from June to September. The monsoon hits the high Western Ghats and drops much of its moisture. Pune, just east of the Western Ghats and 2000 feet lower than Mahabaleshwar, gets less than 30 inches of rain a year.
I missed the 9:15 bus to the fortress of Pratapgad the next morning as I had been told the day before it left at 9:30. Instead, I took a bus that left for Mumbai at 10:15 and got off a half hour later at the turn-off for Pratapgad. On the way I could look up and see Lodwick Point and Elephant Head Point. I could see the memorial pillar at Lodwick Point and make out Elephant Head Point's vague resemblance to an elephant head.
I started the two and a half mile hike to the base of the fortress, a climb of about 800 feet, but very soon a taxi stopped and offered me a ride. I said I didn't want to pay for a taxi, but he said no charge. He talked all the way up along the curving road through beautiful forest about Shivaji and the fort. The fort is in ruins, but in a beautiful spot. There is no entrance fee and there are shops all along the 500 or so steps through the fort to the top, where some people live. The fort has one set of lower walls and another set of upper walls, rising to 3500 feet above sea level. To the east runs one narrow walled corridor to a bastion, but generally the fort runs north to south, with very steep drops to the south, west and north. It was hot, but with a cool breeze, and there were lots of tourists.
I made my way to the shady plaza garden at the top, where there is an equestrian statue of Shivaji. Pratapgad is famous for Shivaji's encounter with Afzal Khan, a general serving the Sultan of Bijapur, a Muslim kingdom to the south. Shivaji's attempts to establish a Hindu kingdom were opposed by the huge Moghul Empire to the north and the Sultan of Bijapur to the south. It seems Shivaji more or less waged a guerrilla campaign against both, retiring when necessary to fortresses in the Western Ghats. In 1659 he agreed to meet Afzal Khan at the base of Pratapgad Fort. The story is that they met alone, but for two bodyguards each. Afzal Khan is supposed to have tried to stab Shivaji as he hugged him upon greeting. (Afzal Khan is said to have been very big and tall. "Seven inches tall," the taxi driver told me.) Shivaji was wearing a wagnukh, similar to brass knuckles, but with claw shaped spikes on the palm side. With these he disemboweled Afzal Khan. According to the little booklet I bought at the fort, one of Afzal Khan's bodyguards then tried to kill Shivaji, but one of Shivaji's bodyguards killed him. Afzal Khan scooped up his intestines and tried to flee, but was decapitated by the other of Shivaji's bodyguards. Shivaji fled back to the fort and set off a cannon, which was the signal to his army hidden in the forest to attack the Bijapur army, which was defeated.
I walked along the walls of the upper fortress along its western and northern sides, with great views. I could see the twisting road leading down to the west. I exited through a gate at a tower on the northeast corner and walked along the lower walls on the east until I reached the gate to the upper fortress. By then it was about 1:30 and I went up to the shady plaza with the statue of Shivaji to rest. There were fewer tourists in the afternoon. I sat here and there for about two and a half hours in the afternoon heat, eating peanuts and potato chips and watching the monkeys in the trees. Both macaques and langurs were eating green and red fruit growing in big clumps in the trees. Chunks of the fruit, perhaps an inch to two inches in diameter, dropped quite frequently from the trees. They looked to me like a type of fig. I quite enjoyed watching them eating the fruit.
About 4 I again made the circuit of the upper walls on the west and north, with great views in the late afternoon sun. Two women were gathering firewood inside the walls. About 5 I started down and, upon reaching the parking area just below the base of the fort, was surprised to find that a bus heading for Mahbaleshwar was just getting ready to leave. Very lucky timing. (I was prepared to walk the two and a half miles downhill to the main road and then catch one of the buses coming up the mountain to Mahabaleshwar.) I got back to Mahabaleshwar soon after 6 and walked along the very crowded bazaar, with mounds of strawberries all along. I had another cool night, my last one for a while as it will be hot crossing the Deccan Plateau back to Calcutta. April and May are India's hottest months, before the monsoon arrives in June.
Arriving in Murud about 3, I got a hotel and had a prawn lunch at a restaurant near the seafront. I walked around town a bit afterwards. Murud is just a small town, with a population of about 12000 and with very friendly people. It was relatively quiet and filled with coconut palms and other trees. I passed some old colonial era buildings and found a big tree with fruit bats roosting in the upper branches, the bats somewhat active towards the end of the afternoon. Tourists from Mumbai began arriving in fairly large numbers on that Friday afternoon.
About 5 I walked out on the wide, long (maybe a couple of miles long and perhaps 500 feet wide) beach. The sand is gray and densely packed and the slope of the beach is very gentle here, with long tides. The tide was out and the waves far off shore. More than a mile offshore are the remains of a fort built on a small island by Shivaji's son. The beach was crowded, and there were horses and horsecarts for the tourists from Mumbai. I walked up and down the beach, reaching the northern end just below the cliffs with the Nawab's palace, until after 7, when it became dark. Fruitbats circled a grove of trees along the beach where they had spent the day hanging from the branches. I kept waiting for them to fly off, but I left heading back to the town center before they left for their night's search for fruit. I ate dinner outside on a cool night. There was almost always a pleasant breeze from the sea.
About 9 the next morning I took an autorickshaw about three miles south to a little port, with great views on the way of the island fortress of Janjira, just offshore. This imposing fort, with something like twelve bastions and forty foot high walls rising right up from the sea, was built by the Siddis, apparently a dynasty of Abyssinian background, in the 16th century and was never conquered. You reach it by boats which leave whenever twenty passengers accumulate, and are poled through the shallow waters and then sailed through the deeper waters until reaching the one gate into the fort. The sea was a little rough and it was a bit of a challenge to get from the rocking boat to the stairs leading to the gate.
Waiting for the boat I had met an English guy, older than me (in his 60's, I guess; he had seen the Beatles perform in 1963, along with a band that later became the Who), who had bicycled from Chennai (formerly Madras) in the south over eight weeks and was headed to Mumbai. We explored the fort together during the 45 minutes we were given before our boat headed back. I would have preferred more time, but 45 minutes were adequate. The fort, including a five story palace, is in ruins. There are two greenish tanks, or ponds, of water. Janjira has a fresh water spring, which is one of the reasons it was such an ideal island fortress. We climbed to the highest point and along part of the walls, with a few old cannon still on them, before making our way onto the rocking boat and heading back to port. The fort was filling up with Indian tourists and there were perhaps six or seven boats hovering around the landing point at the gate. There was a little restaurant next to the port with a great view of Janjira, where Dave, the English guy, and I sat for an hour or so before he left for Murud on his bike. I decided to have lunch there and then took an autorickshaw back.
It was very hot in my room, on the top floor and with a metal roof, so I found a good place to sit near the beach, where the cool sea breeze was blowing. The beach was full of people, and two camels had been added to the horses and horsecarts. I watched a lithe and very strong, skinny guy climb several very tall and thin palm trees sloping over the beach. He had a rope tied in a circle with a diameter a little less than a foot. He put this around his feet to keep them from spreading out and with another piece of rope perhaps three feet long which he grasped at each end he climbed up the forty or fifty foot high trees amazingly quickly and agilely. He carried up a much longer rope which he would tie to a bunch of perhaps ten coconuts. His much bigger assistant below would hold onto the rope as the guy in the tree cut the stem of the bunch of coconuts, which dangled before being lowered by the guy on the ground.
I walked along the beach again in the late afternoon. The fruitbats were settled in the trees, with few flying around. Dave and I had dinner along the seafront. He is quite an interesting guy, having done a lot of cycling and having worked until just recently for an Icelandic bank.
I had originally thought I would take a bus to Pune via Alibag from Murud, as my guidebooks weren't encouraging about public transport and hotels further south along the Konkan Coast, but Dave and a couple at my hotel who had traveled along the coast by motorcycle convinced me to give it a try. So the next morning, after a long walk on the beach (the bats were back in their trees and there was a fog bank hovering over the river mouth just north of the beach that quickly dissipated), I took an autorickshaw about 10 back to Rajpuri, the little port opposite Janjira. The small, blue, wooden ferry was waiting there for the trip across the estuary to the south. I hopped on and we left fairly shortly with about 50 people and seven motorcycles on board.
The passage to the very small town of Dighi took only about fifteen minutes, with views of Janjira on the way. From Dighi I took a shared autorickshaw further south to the bigger town of Borlai through dry countryside. I had my backpack on my lap so it wasn't a comfortable trip. From Borlai I caught a larger and more comfortable autorickshaw, called a minidor, further south to Shrivardhan, with views of the sea and beaches along the way. The trip had been through dry countryside, but Shrivardhan was full of green trees. I found a hotel that had been recommended to me and checked in, the only customer. I had arrived about 1:30 and so could have continued further south, but this little town had been recommended to me.
I rested on the balcony of my room for an hour or so before walking to the beach, another long, wide, gray sand one, about ten minutes away. Unlike Murud, there was no development along the beach, backed by palms and casuarinas. I retreated to the balcony of my hotel until about 5, when I took a walk along the friendly streets nearby and eventually by another route to the beach, passing a huge banyan tree on the way. I walked along the beach until almost dark. There were quite a few people, some swimming and quite a few playing cricket (as in Murud). The tide was far out. Back at my hotel after dark I could see a slim setting moon. I ate at the hotel, a thali prepared by the friendly family that ran the place. I had mosquitoes at night, though.
The next morning I sat on my balcony and watched the activity on the quiet street in front of me. Uniformed school kids were heading to the school down the street. Sellers of vegetables in baskets on their heads came by, calling out their wares. Bicyclists and motorcyclists came by. I took a walk, passing the banyan tree and reaching the almost deserted beach. I walked along the beach and took one last look at it before heading back to my hotel for breakfast. I had decided not to go further south along the coast, but to head inland. I wouldn't see the sea again as I was heading across the subcontinent back to Calcutta.
During breakfast school got out and many kids stopped at the little store next to the hotel to buy snacks. I asked the hotel owner why they got out so early and he, who didn't speak great English, said something about exams. However, I shortly saw a bunch of school kids, the girls all in Muslim dress, entering the same school that the others had just left. I wonder what was going on. About 10:30 the owner of the hotel took me to the bus station on his motorbike and the 11 o'clock bus to Mahad to the east left about noon. We ascended and then descended an 800 foot high ridge, reaching a little town at the far inland edge of the estuary I had crossed by ferry the day before. The countryside had lots of trees and was very hilly. We ascended and descended another 800 foot high ridge and reached another small town, where we had a long and very hot wait of about half an hour, before continuing to Mahad, which we reached about three hours after leaving Shrivardhan.
I had come to Mahad, at only about 150 feet elevation, because I wanted to go to Shivaji's hilltop fortress of Raigad, north of Mahad. My guidebooks had been not at all helpful about getting there, but it proved quite easy. I left Mahad for Raigad on a bus half an hour after I got there, through flat, dry countryside at first and then up a steep, twisting mountain road. I couldn't see the fortress, but I saw what I thought was the hill and it look impossibly steep to ascend. After less than an hour we reached the end of the road, under a very steep cliff, where the ropeway up to the top is located. I had been told there was a hotel at the ropeway, but upon arrival was surprised to hear it was at the top end of the ropeway, in the fort. With my backpack and three Indians, I got into the small cage and began the trip up. The views were fantastic as we ascended in about five minutes from about 1300 feet elevation to about 2700. The cliff was almost vertical. Quite an exciting ride, and for only 170 rupees (about $3.40) round trip. At the top I trudged up stone stairs with my pack to the hotel. There was a dormitory for only 200 rupees, but I took a room for 900 (about $18) and it was pretty nice.
I didn't spend much time in the room, though, as I wanted to look around before nightfall. It was about 4:30 when I entered the nearby gate of the ruined palace. Apparently there had been a fort on this hilltop since the 12th century, but Shivaji enlarged it and eventually made it his capital. It is a fantastic site for a fort, with almost sheer cliffs on every side but the northern one, which is still very steep. The ropeway ascends the western side and the uneven plateau on top is something like a mile by a mile and a half in size, so it is quite big.
I looked through the ruins of the palace, with six large enclosures that they think might be the quarters for Shivaji's queens. Adjacent is a large court, where Shivaji was crowned Chhatrapati (something like "Lord of the Umbrella") in 1674. At the site is a small stone domed structure housing a statue of Shivaji. You are only allowed to approach it with your shoes off, so he is treated like a god. There were a few Indians around, but I was the only foreigner. I left the palace through a high gate and walked past former market stalls to the site quite a distance away where Shivaji was cremated after his death in 1680. This, too, is a sort of holy site, next to a temple to Shiva. Oddly, nearby is a statue depicting his dog, who is supposed to have loyally jumped into Shivaji's funeral pyre. I have read that an Indian scholar published a book questioning some of the stories about Shivaji. The book was banned by the state government and the institution that published it subjected to protests and some disruption.
I walked back towards the palace and noticed below, on the north face of the mountain, the main gate to the citadel. It turned out to be about 500 feet below the summit, but I scurried down the steps to check it ou before dark. There is only a relatively narrow crease in the northern face through which you can ascend. This crease is protected by a double wall, with a narrow gate between two massive bastions about 70 feet high. I looked around and then made my way back to the top along with some townspeople from below who apparently were coming up to a small shrine near the palace. At least they all gathered there as I continued just before dark to the hotel.
I was very hungry but had to wait almost two hours for them to prepare the thali dinner. There were about 25 Indian young people staying in the dorm, so I'm glad I chose a room. I had a hot bucket bath and slept well.
I was up and out before 7 the next morning to explore the fort further. The sun had just risen. There were already Indian tourists, or perhaps "plgrims" is a better term, wandering around and posing barefoot before Shivaji's statue at his coronation site and at another Shivaji statue just outside the palace. I walked through the ruins of the palace again and then through the marketplace ruins to the far northeast corner of the hilltop plateau, reached via a narrow ridge. The views approaching the ridge and point, and the views down a thousand feet and more, were fantastic. From that vantage point I could see the narrow path below the main gate that traverses just below a very steep cliff face.
Check out time at the hotel was 10, so about 9:30 I came back and had an unsatisfying breakfast of spicy rice at the restaurant before depositing my backpack behind the counter at the restaurant and beginning the hike down. I went through the palace one more time, walked by the tanks partially filled with water, and walked down the stairs again to the main gate 500 or so feet below the summit. I looked around that area again and then exited the main gate and walked down more steps, with great views up towards the massive 70 foot high bastions on either side of the gate. About 250 feet below the gate I reached the more or less level narrow path that runs just below a massive, almost vertical cliff. There were a few people coming up and down as I walked along. Eventually, I reached the edge of the face of the cliff and started down stairs that led through a forested area where a man in a tree was vigorously hacking off branches with a long axe, using just one arm at a time. He was remarkably efficient. I watched for a while and then continued down out of the forest and onto a dry, grassy ridge that took me down to the road. I had some great views back to the mountain I had just descended and could make out the narrow line of the walls I had passed through.
I had to walk about 20 minutes on the road along the steep western face of the mountain to the ropeway. I got there just as they began their half hour lunch break, so I had one of my own, and ate a good thali at the restaurant next to the ropeway. Soon after 1 I again took the ropeway up, retrieved my pack, and took the ropeway down. The views from that little cage as you go up and down the mountain are spectacular.
I soon caught the bus back to Mahad, arriving about 3. There was a bus to the hill station of Mahabaleshwar, my next destination, at 5, but one of my guidebooks erroneously stated that hotel owners would not rent rooms to single men, and that in fact to do so was illegal. Therefore, I decided to spend the night in Mahad and go to Mahabaleshwar in the morning, so that if I couldn't get a room I would still have plenty of daylight to move on. I found a nice little hotel in that ugly but very friendly town. The power was off so I sat in the lobby in the sweltering heat and read a newspaper and, once I had read that, a book. About 5 the power came on and a little later I took a short walk around town. I had a good tandoori chicken dinner there and for desert found a bakery with very good coconut chocolate balls. I washed my very dirty clothes and slept well under a fan despite my warm room. My thermometer registered 86 degrees before I went to bed.
Early the next morning I had breakfast, two omelets, bread (much like rolls and called pau, after the Portuguese word for bread) and tea, at a little cafe. The proprietor sat with me and told me he had spent 27 years working as a Toyota mechanic in Bahrain, visiting several Arabian countries along with Japan (the latter for training). He was quite interesting and wouldn't let me pay for breakfast.
I left at 9 on a bus for Mahabaleshwar, heading south at first through low ground and then turning east and heading up into the Western Ghats on a narrow, twisting road. The views as we ascended were great, though hazy. We climbed slowly up the steep road, passing the road to the hilltop fortress of Pratapgad, a thousand feet above us, when we reach about 2500 feet elevation. We entered more wooded terrain and I began to feel the noticeably cooler air. We had more great views as we slowly climbed and reached Mahabaleshwar, at about 4500 feet, soon after 11. When I got off the bus three guys accosted me, trying to get me to go to their hotel. I went with one and got a hotel on the main bazaar, a shop filled strip catering to the many tourists who come from Mumbai and Pune.
Mahabaleshwar was discovered by the British in 1824. They soon established a sanitorium there and it became a favorite place to escape the heat of Bombay. It apparently once was quite a pleasant town, but now is ugly sprawl of concrete development. It is supposed to be packed on weekends and was quite busy with Indian tourists (I saw no westerners) during the two midweek days I was there. I found a good little restaurant on the bazaar and had chicken kebabs, butter nan and a lassi for lunch. Mahabaleshwar is famous for its strawberries and they were on sale everywhere. Along the bazaar, men sat on the street next to little pyramids of strawberries for sale, along with blackberries and mulberries. The strawberries were delicious, and cheap, 60 rupees a kilo, so about $1.20 for 2.2 pounds. I tried the mulberries, which I don't think I had ever had before and they, too, were delicious.
After lunch I took a walk along a dirt path through lovely forest along a cliff edge to Bombay Point. At least I think it was Bombay Point, as the signs were all in Marathi. The view was pretty good, through facing west into the midafternoon glare. I sat for a while under the trees and then walked back, with a slight diversion. In the later afternoon I walked about 45 minutes on a paved road through more beautiful forest to Lodwick Point and Elephant Head Point. Quite a few cars whizzed by, and honked, as I walked. These two points are near the end of a long ridge, with steep cliffs down. You reach Lodwick Point first, named after General Lodwick, who "discovered" Mahabaleshwar in 1824. There is a memorial pillar to him there, erected in 1874, a year after his death at age 90, by his son, an official in the colonial government in Madras. A plaque says he joined the service of the "Hon'ble E. I. C." (East India Company) in 1799, when he would have been 16. He died in France. Another plaque honors his grandson, an army officer whose ship was torpedoed in the Mediterranean during World War I. Yet another plaque say the memorial was destroyed by lightning in 1974 and restored by the Mahabaleshwar Hotel Association.
Slightly further on is bulbous Elephant Head Point, as far as you can go along the narrowing ridge, unless you want to scramble down steeply. The views over the hazy distance all around were good. The sun was setting and looked like it would disappear into the haze well before sunset. Looking below, I could follow the progress of the road I had come up for quite a distance. I headed back about 6. There were perhaps a couple of hundred people at the points and along the trail by then, and about 50 cars in the parking lot. I managed to get back to town through the forest before almost all the cars began their journeys back. They must have stayed till sunset, just before 7.
It was wonderfully cool in Mahabaleshwar at night, and the bazaar was full of people. Besides the few, relatively cheap, hotels along the bazaar, there are many more all over the town and surrounding area. My thermometer registered 73 degrees in my room before I went to bed, quite a bit cooler than the night before in Mahad. I've read that Mahabaleshwar gets drenched in the monsoon, something like 240 to 280 inches of rain, and in only about 100 days from June to September. The monsoon hits the high Western Ghats and drops much of its moisture. Pune, just east of the Western Ghats and 2000 feet lower than Mahabaleshwar, gets less than 30 inches of rain a year.
I missed the 9:15 bus to the fortress of Pratapgad the next morning as I had been told the day before it left at 9:30. Instead, I took a bus that left for Mumbai at 10:15 and got off a half hour later at the turn-off for Pratapgad. On the way I could look up and see Lodwick Point and Elephant Head Point. I could see the memorial pillar at Lodwick Point and make out Elephant Head Point's vague resemblance to an elephant head.
I started the two and a half mile hike to the base of the fortress, a climb of about 800 feet, but very soon a taxi stopped and offered me a ride. I said I didn't want to pay for a taxi, but he said no charge. He talked all the way up along the curving road through beautiful forest about Shivaji and the fort. The fort is in ruins, but in a beautiful spot. There is no entrance fee and there are shops all along the 500 or so steps through the fort to the top, where some people live. The fort has one set of lower walls and another set of upper walls, rising to 3500 feet above sea level. To the east runs one narrow walled corridor to a bastion, but generally the fort runs north to south, with very steep drops to the south, west and north. It was hot, but with a cool breeze, and there were lots of tourists.
I made my way to the shady plaza garden at the top, where there is an equestrian statue of Shivaji. Pratapgad is famous for Shivaji's encounter with Afzal Khan, a general serving the Sultan of Bijapur, a Muslim kingdom to the south. Shivaji's attempts to establish a Hindu kingdom were opposed by the huge Moghul Empire to the north and the Sultan of Bijapur to the south. It seems Shivaji more or less waged a guerrilla campaign against both, retiring when necessary to fortresses in the Western Ghats. In 1659 he agreed to meet Afzal Khan at the base of Pratapgad Fort. The story is that they met alone, but for two bodyguards each. Afzal Khan is supposed to have tried to stab Shivaji as he hugged him upon greeting. (Afzal Khan is said to have been very big and tall. "Seven inches tall," the taxi driver told me.) Shivaji was wearing a wagnukh, similar to brass knuckles, but with claw shaped spikes on the palm side. With these he disemboweled Afzal Khan. According to the little booklet I bought at the fort, one of Afzal Khan's bodyguards then tried to kill Shivaji, but one of Shivaji's bodyguards killed him. Afzal Khan scooped up his intestines and tried to flee, but was decapitated by the other of Shivaji's bodyguards. Shivaji fled back to the fort and set off a cannon, which was the signal to his army hidden in the forest to attack the Bijapur army, which was defeated.
I walked along the walls of the upper fortress along its western and northern sides, with great views. I could see the twisting road leading down to the west. I exited through a gate at a tower on the northeast corner and walked along the lower walls on the east until I reached the gate to the upper fortress. By then it was about 1:30 and I went up to the shady plaza with the statue of Shivaji to rest. There were fewer tourists in the afternoon. I sat here and there for about two and a half hours in the afternoon heat, eating peanuts and potato chips and watching the monkeys in the trees. Both macaques and langurs were eating green and red fruit growing in big clumps in the trees. Chunks of the fruit, perhaps an inch to two inches in diameter, dropped quite frequently from the trees. They looked to me like a type of fig. I quite enjoyed watching them eating the fruit.
About 4 I again made the circuit of the upper walls on the west and north, with great views in the late afternoon sun. Two women were gathering firewood inside the walls. About 5 I started down and, upon reaching the parking area just below the base of the fort, was surprised to find that a bus heading for Mahbaleshwar was just getting ready to leave. Very lucky timing. (I was prepared to walk the two and a half miles downhill to the main road and then catch one of the buses coming up the mountain to Mahabaleshwar.) I got back to Mahabaleshwar soon after 6 and walked along the very crowded bazaar, with mounds of strawberries all along. I had another cool night, my last one for a while as it will be hot crossing the Deccan Plateau back to Calcutta. April and May are India's hottest months, before the monsoon arrives in June.
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