Travelogues

Last weekend I could get away from Mumbai for a much needed breather. A friend and I decided to go up to Pune to meet up with a couple of friends. So decided to take a drive. The Mumbai Pune expressway has made things easier. If anyone's planning to make a trip to Pune stay away from the Rabale road. It's filled with craters which would make the moon seem like a cakewalk. It's absolutely terrible and the seat belt actually helps you from falling off your seats. Once we hit the expressway things went pretty smoothly. We stopped at Khopoli food court for a pit stop. Had the staple diet of most Mumbaikars ie. the vada pav and steaming Tea. The food court was very busy catering to college students who were going on picnics. Back on the way to Pune... our first destination was Sinhgad road to pick up a friend. Once we picked her up we left for Narayangaon which is on the Pune Satara highway about 35km from pune.

There is a new Tirupati Balaji temple near Narayangaon which is a replica of the Tirupati in South. On the Satara highway at Kapurhol make a left turn and you can see the gopuram. As usual no photography allowed at the temple. Sad because the Gopuram is lovely and so are the surroundings. The temple is extremely clean. The parking is a bit away. One needs to remove footwear and then go to the temple. We had reached there at about 1330hrs and you can imagine how hot the road was. We paid our respects. It's a beautiful idol. There are also temples of Goddess Padmavati, Lord Krishna, Hanuman, Kuber etc. They were adorned with the most amazing jewels. After paying respects we were given the coupon for the Mahaprasad. The timings for which are 1100-1500. It was served in a mess which was clean. The food was hot rice, sambar, chutney and sheera. After the prasad we left and since we were close to the Ekmukhi Dutta in Narayangaon decided to visit that temple as well.

After leaving the Balaji temple, take a right and go up the hills towards Narayangaon. The road is scenic and there were lovely flowers in bloom all the way to Narayangaon. There is a marble temple of Ekmukhi Dutta. The idol looks more like Vishnu. It's a lovely idol. We had a peaceful darshan as there was no rush at all. After this we visited an extremely old Shiva temple right next to the Dutta temple.

Then we got on the road back to Pune. We had decided to visit the Shaniwar wada. The seat of the Peshwas. I was looking forward to that. I started remembering all the stories I had read and what I had studied in History. I was so disappointed. The lovely huge entrance with it's door of spikes led into a fort which hasn't been maintained properly. Theres an entrance ticket which is Rs5. There were seats there but couldn't get any information if they had any son et lumiere programmes there. The Maharashtra Tourism board should really look into the maintainance. There are lovely paved terraces. the fountains are unfortunately in disrepair. Even then there is a sense of wonderful history about this place. The stairs going up to the ramparts are huge. The people of that period must have been really fit going up and down those steps :) The wada closes by 1830hrs. The good part of this visit is that you can park outside the wada. There is a pay and park available.

We left our car at the wada and walked down to the Lal Mahal museum. It's a small museum which displays the ammunition of times of Shivaji and tells the history of the Lal Mahal. The entrance is Rs.2. The tour takes all of 30mins. After which we decided to see the Dagdu shet halwai Ganpati. The temple is right in the middle of a busy road. As it was just after the Ganpati festival we got to see the idol adorned in all it's finery seated on a Rs 61lac gold seat. The idol is beautiful.

Making our way back to the car we realised that we were famished and had the Pune version of the Bhel puri which is called the Bhanang or Pune bhel. It has a totally different flavour and it awakens your taste buds with it's hot tangy flavour. A must have.

The next day went in visiting friends and all too soon it was time to get back to Mumbai and back to the grind.