Matheran - Our First Pune Trip After Moving Back to Hyderbad

 

✍️ 27th April 2020

After we moved to Hyderabad, we went to Pune to meet our friends and have a small trip as we were missing Pune badly. As only three of us moved to Hyderabad and rest all were in Pune, we planned a reunion but missed one of our friend. Sadly we missed one or other friend in all our reunions till now. I hope and wish we will plan a perfect reunion in near future.

We booked air tickets with Jet Airways. This is my first ever travel by airways and to be frank I was pretty excited 😛. Matheran is our plan and we knew it is a hill station and we do trek and some hiking. Guess what I bought a new bag. Packed with few dresses, 2 pairs of shoe and few essentials like power-bank, phone chargers, ID cards, etc.

 

Finally the day has come 13th July 2018 (Friday). It was a morning flight and we reached Hyderabad airport by cab (Surcharge price 😏). Everything went well, we boarded the flight (1st time 😃) and fortunately we got a window seat. In Hyderabad it was around 6 in the morning and sky is clear. We got served with a yummy chicken kathi roll and chocolate brownie. When we are about to reach Pune, it welcomed us with the most awaited climate. Yes, It started raining while we were still in flight. In no time we reached Pune and as it was raining we had issues with landing and were a bit panic-striken until we landed safely.

Observe the climate change in second row pictures

 

We booked a zoom car to pick up at airport. We got the car at airport and started off to Hinjawadi (A village in Pune which is one of the epicenter of  IT industry). Right from airport I was hit by nostalgic memories 😇 (covering Viman Nagar, Yerwada, Khadki, Aundh, Vishal Nagar on the way to Hinjawadi). We reached our friends place. We got fresh up, had yummy dosas with tomato chutney as breakfast prepared by one of best cooks in our gang and started to office. Yes, you read it right. We went to the place we worked. (It was special as it was the first company we worked for).

We had one of our friends in Magarpatta who came to meet us. We had food in the favorite Food zone in the Embassy Tech zone ('FLO') and started to Lavasa at around 2:00 PM. (Impromptu plan with only 3 available friends). Though it is not our first visit to Lavasa, it is by far the best one. The beauty of Pune amplifies in monsoon. After traveling for some time, we were covered by a thick blanket of fog. It was very difficult to drive as we could not see anything in front. Finally we reached the city and were awestruck by the picturesque view. The city gives the feeling of a foreign country with the Italian architecture. Let's cover Lavasa in another blog. 😊

Lavasa City

 

The plan for next day is a well planned Matheran trip. Though we had a zoom car, we booked a 7 seater so that we all can travel in a single vehicle. We started early and started having fun with all our friends after so long. We started singing songs, cracking jokes and catching up on all office stories 😛. We then reached the ghat road and by far this is one of difficult  the ghat roads we have been to. After some point the private vehicles were not allowed. Luckily ours was allowed and we reached the entry of Matheran.

We got down from the vehicle and saw that the place is very crowded. Some of our friends then went to collect tickets, while we saw raincoats (transparent cover cut in a way to fit our hands and head) and hats being sold like hot cakes as it was raining continuously. We then bought, wore those and took many pictures. Though we looked weird with the hat and rain coat, they helped us a lot on a never ending rainy day. 🌧️

Matheran Entrance

 

After the photo-shoot 😁, we went towards entry gate. It was more like a forest with greenery around and amazing weather. We were very much excited and took so many pictures. Though the place was normal, the amazing climate made it special. In between there are stalls with food. There were lot of monkeys around trying to take food from people. We took many pictures and went to many view points. Later we were exhausted and saw a toy train station. We heard a lot about the toy train in Matheran so we took tickets and sat in the train waiting for view points. We reached the next station to know it was last station ☹️. Due to heavy rainfall and bad weather conditions, the toy train is limited between 2 stations. Neither the tickets issuer nor the ticket collector told about this to us which is something not expected. But we are lucky at-least we get into train though it was for short period. Many of my other friends told that the toy train was not operational when they visited.

Matheran Toy Train

 

We got down in the next station. There was a sudden climate change. It was no longer raining but was covered with fog. We were astonished to witness this sudden change and enjoyed the view for some time. Later we reached a view point with a beautiful view. There are around 24 view points in Matheran across 10-12 kms and you need to be really fit to cover all of them. As a proxy we can take horse ride but mind you they are very costly. We were asked 650 rupees per person to cover 8 main view points after some negotiation. Then we dropped the idea of taking horse ride and continued walking.

Few Matheran View Points

 

Took lots and pictures and started back to entry gate. As we had to walk, our energy levels started dropping slowly. That is when we tried to cheer up each other, cracked jokes and bring some energy which made the return walk to entry gate another memorable moment of the trip. Once we reached the entry gate and got into the vehicle, everyone of us were tired and the return journey was very peaceful with some sleeping while others gazing out of the window while the lush green trees were moving as their thoughts.

 

Next day we woke up late. We cooked for ourselves, baked a cake and celebrated the reunion. This trip has definitely made us miss Pune more and more. This is our last visit to Pune after moving to Hyderabad. We planned for Pune multiple times in 2019 but it never happened due some or the other reasons. Now we are hit by this COVID19 pandemic and Maharashtra is one of the worst hit state with it. I hope and wish this pandemic ends soon. 🤞

Behind the Blog

Hi, I am AA. An IT employee whose happy place in the world is her own home, a Cancerian (which tells many things), emotional, foodie and Harry Potter fan. Overthinking is both my friend and enemy.
Let's Get Connected:- Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Instagram

Hi, My name is Ravi Teja. I am a Salesforce technical consultant. Besides coding, I love hi-tech gadgets, playing video games, weekend trips, watching handpicked movies and experimenting with food.
Let's Get Connected:- Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Instagram