No Cars, No Bikes, No Horns, No Signals - Matheran

The early morning SinhagadExpress took us to karjat from Pune and then a local train to Neral . The Mountain train to Matheran started from there . We were late enough not to get the 2nd class ticket so had to settle for the more expensive but congested first class compartment.

Our co-passengers were a group of 3 children (2 of them foreigners) and a man of around 40 years and a woman of just about the same age . The children were in a excited state when the train started its journey fighting and pushing each other to get the view of the mountains and the train itself whenever it took a curve. By the time train reached the first station they were tired and siting still. The mountains were dry and it did not look like a trip to a hill station at anypoint.

The train whistled past through the narrow track and acute curves and the "one kiss Tunnel" at a pace lesser than my running speed :).

Matheran was not only different in its looks when compared to other hill station. You have 3 choice to travel inside Matheran . 1) Horse ride 2) sit in a cart and be pulled by a human 3)walk. Vehicles are not allowed inside Matheran. Offcourse you can drive upto matheran park your vehicle outside and then choose one the 3 methods of transportation.

There are no roads in matheran all that it has is a muddy path filled up with horse shit. walk freely for there are no vehicles, no deafening air horns and the life around is so unhurried that you defenitely will get late if you have put timelines (not a place project managers will enjoy).

The first day we walked following the directions of the different view points . After about an hour, we just had the road ahead and hardly saw any other people. It was getting dark and the fear of getting lost in the middle of the forest started creeping up . All the mud in the path had turned my shoes to the same colour and so was my jeans half way below the knee. Finally at about 6 we reached the sunrise point (to watch the sunset hehe :) ) had a sprite with a dash of lemon and went back to our hotel room (it was just a 10 mins walk from sunrise point). The whole of matheran are circular paths . Its almost guaranteed that you will reach back at the same place you started.

Then we decided to have a walk to Charlotte lake which was a sort of a check dam and a little further from there we saw the sunset and played a game of throwing at glasses and managed to knock all of them down once in three attempts. It was getting darker and the path we followed led us to Bazar street which was the heart of Matheran. A couple of phone calls beers and dinner and we were back at our Hotel room by 10 and spent a little time chatting at the garden and slept off to wake up early morning next day to be at the sunrise point. Sunrise accompanied by a cup of tea and then we went to the bazar street for our breakfast and then a horse ride to some places we did not go on the previous day . My horse was a rather Naughty one and would run away if left alone by the guy who was holding it . My friends horse was rather co-operative and he even managed to ride it for a short distance . The guy taking care of the horses was rather talkative and we couldn't understand most of it as he was talking in Marathi mostly. After the horse ride we had Lunch and went back to our Hotel . Evening saw us make another visit to Charlotte lake and then for a peaceful nights sleep. By now we were almost running out of money. Funds were more than enough for us to get back to Pune as we had already booked the train ticket for our return journey from Matheran to Neral.

There was more excitement as we missed our train next day and had to take road to get to Neral. Breakfast at Neral and a short wait at the railway staion and we were on our train to pune. we were back to pune by noon. Had a conf call with Cherry and Als during the train journey. The views of the Mumbai -Pune express way that got on the way left me wanting for a trip through it and I was happy i would make it soon on my journey home