Bday-cum-vacation

First blog post in true sense and what better matter than my recent bday-cum-vacation-cum-rejuvenating experience :)

For last couple of years I have been crazily stuck up with office chores ceasing all the zing to celebrate weekends. I remember when I was just out of college, a weekend off used to sound like a luxury. No work, no studies, no assignments….!! My planning used to start mid week on the sketch for weekend activities. Gone are those days but now I promised myself to stop playing a bum and get back to self!!!… so action plan was a week vacation for Bday celebration!!

Snow and Water are two things I just can’t get enough of! So planned a trip to Dapoli, with the serene sea shore it hosts there couldn’t have been a better place to start my new birth year :)

Plan was to leave by Friday evening (19th June) , reach there by night and spend a couple of days there. But with the thought of going to the shore I already packed my work by 12:30pm :D

I am sure if anyone sent me an email at 1pm they would have received an Out of office reply too :D

We started from Pune at around 4pm, route was

Via Tamhini Ghat (200 km)

• Pune --- Paud – Pirangut Road --- Tamhini Ghat --- Turn left at Vile

• Vile --- Nijampur --- Mangaon .You will reach NH – 17.

• NH – 17 --- Turn right at Lonere Phata --- Goregaon --- Turn left towards Purar / Nandavi.

• Purar --- Ambet --- Dapoli (After Ambet, follow sign boards till Dapoli).

• After Ambet follow sign boards to reach Dapoli.

(Road map: Pune - Chandani Chauk - Paud - Mulshi - Dongarwadi - Tamhini Ghat - Vile - Nijampur - Mangaon - Lonere Phata - Goregaon - Ambet - Mhapral - Shenale - Mandangad - Dapoli)

Just before departing we witnessed the first few drops of this monsoon (Personally to me it was some indicator to display how much Pune would miss me for a week: D).

The road is pretty picturesque with green plantation all through. But hell! After 7pm the entire space was pitch dark… esp the patch from Ambet-Dapoli… I mean no vehicles on the road… no lights… no creature nothing!!! All we could lay eyes on was our car beam through the blackout. Man it was damn damn spooky. Once a thought ran into my mind what if my car gets a flat tyre here !!! Believe it or not tab se leke till the while we reached Dapoli I was constantly chanting naukar mantra (secretly) ;-). I badly needed a pit stop for some natural emergency but all I noted was “Sadak pe masti, jaan nahi sasti”

We reached Dapoli at around 9pm. We had already booked our stay at Aryawarta, true paradise. The place was such a bliss after that meteoric journey! This place owns appealingbunglows (ours below) on hilltop amidst nature. We had a family celebration at midnight followed by scores of phone calls for bday wishes… how old am I now?.... o Age is a number and mine is unlisted ;-)….

Morning began with cock-a-doodle-doo… my bro kept boasting he could hear some peacocks too and we almost missed a chance to track them as we spotted one and ran after to stumble upon a chicken… heck !! These tiny ones I tell you… why don’t they grasp from the elders and in case of Sagar he has ME even then… pretty disappointing!! We went for a nice walk in the morning on the beach... then some site seeing to Anjarle - Harnai and kelshi.These places are famous for blue water and sand dunes.

Evening was followed by touch of adventure with Beach parasailing on Murud beach. Perfect way of closing my D-Day :-)

Next morning we hook the boat to get a glimpse of dolphins which are seen in large on murud beach early hours, later followed our journey to diveagar, another sea shore area. We had to take a trip from Dapoli towards BanKot, guided by a ferryboat to cross the river. 5kms from this place takes you to Harihareshwar. There is a nice temple located on the beach. From here close by is Shrivardhan not much to see here.

Diveagar is approx 20kms from Harihareshwar. The beach here is also calm, clean and serene. Best part in diveagar were‘ukdiche modak’ and solkadi . One can never go here and miss them. You cannot eat more than two modaks at a time… they are so deliciously huge and filling !! After a days stay started our excursion back home… So dense was I with the very thought… dad had to promise me roof on the beach to decamp!

I have had a holiday, and now on I'd like to take it up professionally. Back after a stupendous time but bronzed by atleast 5 tones :-( And thanks to some meano’s who even put a step further by calling me a camouflage – disappear when slight dark and visible in more light…. So what if I don’t (temporarily) have the color to stop their black eye but I have a new Ipod Touch 2G which sure gives them a green-eye ;-)