It was time yet again for our project event of year 2008-09. We had been planning for this trip for quite some time. We considered a lot of options, Ganapatiphule, Alibaug, Goa, and even Lakshwadeep islands, before zeroing in on Matheran, thus making the trip short and simple. We had earlier planned on a lot of activities, and were all quite enthusiastic about the successful fulfillment of the trip. The total count was somewhere in the higher 30s, and we all looked forward to a glorious project event.
17th January, 2009!
Disappointment!!! Cancellations started pouring in! Finally, the magic numbers were reduced to 27(it stopped there thankfully!!!), and we set out on our journey at about 8:00 a.m..
The bus took us through the pimpri-chinchwad exit on to the extensive Mumbai-Pune expressway, and we started getting into the party mood. After a quick breakfast at a wayside foodstall, we continued.
Soon, we reached the Khopoli exit, and the bus started rocking its way ahead. No, I did not write we had a rocking journey, read again! I wrote, the bus rocked on the roads. We could not distinguish if there were potholes in the roads, or were there traces of roads in the potholes?? Anyways, we carried on and soon, reached Neral station after crossing about 20 kms from the Khopoli exit. Once, we were there at the station, the general party atmosphere seemed to get renewed, and we wonderstruck at the beautiful toy train that stood at the Neral station. It looked picturesque, at least. The train was quite light, and at first glance, looked flimsy enough to have an accident at any point of time, although my suppositions seemed quite false at the end!! The next 15-20 minutes was spent only for one purpose, taking photos along with the toy train in the background, making us seem like characters from a novel set in mid-eighteenth century. Below are few of the snaps:
The train started a bit late at about 12:30 and after stopping at some tiny stations like Jummapatti and Watergate, and one more which I cannot remember the name of, we reached Matheran. We liked it instantly would be quite an accurate thing to say, although I cannot speak out for the whole group. Well, professionalism started right at the entry point to Matheran, where we had to dish out 25 bucks per head as capitation fee(read, tourism tax). Well, after settling that, we had a 10 minutes walk to the Horseland Hotel that we had booked earlier. It was a 3-star hotel, and was ready for our arrival. We all had rooms assigned to us in no time, and after freshening up a little bit, we all headed for lunch. Lunch was cold as we were quite late. Yet, it was quite filling and we had a first hand experience at the monkeys being a menace in Matheran. We actually had a softdrink bottle being snatched out of the hands of a colleague, and the monkey actually managed to twist the cap open and drank most of it before discarding the projct and moving onto something else it found more worthwhile!!!
Anyways, the whole of the evening was spent lazily in the swimming pool or around the hotel playing all kinds of indoor games like TT, pool and carrom.
As night came in, dinner was served. We had almost given up the evening as just another boring one when the bar opened, and that provided some relief for us guys. We each had a drink and then the party started, so as to speak. Disco lights came on at one part of the hotel. A pathetic DJ came onto provide us with some music, and that was quite enough for us party-seekers to go mad. People started dancing with a lot of gusto, and we all took part in the fun. The evening ended with quite a few awesome performances from some of our colleagues.
I retired to my room at about 11:45p.m, but most of us was not ready to give up so easily. They gathered at a room, and started the worst time-killer of all, cards. The escapade went on till 5 in the morning next day!!! After that, the participants hardly got to sleep as we all started getting ready to go out and do some sight-seeing.
18th January, 2009:
The sight-seeing started with us arranging for horses for the whole team. In all, there were 26 participants in all, and it looked quite a party of musketeers/bandits going in a huge group on horseback. Anyways, we had a 5-point agenda for our trip. It started off with Cicily point.
Next to it was the Charlotte's Lake. It was quite crowded, and very beautiful.
Next we went off to the Lord's point, where from we could see 3 things, namely, a rappelling camp, a hanging ladder, and a fort through a telescope at the rate of 10 rs each. Here also, I saw a monkey taking off with a packet of munchies from a kid who was quite scared by the event!
Lastly, we went to echo point, and that was the end of our sightseeing. Very frankly speaking, sight seeing was not even on the agenda of the things that I had. So I really did not mind the lack of it.
Anyways, coming back to the hotel, we packed up our stuff, freshened up a bit, and started back on our journey back home. We had a walk back to Dasturi, the gate of Matheran, that is about 3 kms. From there, we hired a cab, which took us on a frightful, and quite dangerous journey back to Neral station. Of course, there is nothing to be afraid about, as the drivers are quite efficient, but that did not stop us from being intimidated by the lay of the land, and the slope that sould have taken us down had we not been driven down by an expert driver.
From Neral, the journey back to Pune was quite eventless, and we came in back to Pune by 8:30.
In all, it was a peaceful journey, with hardly any unforeseen surprises. It was actually dull, to tell you the truth, but once in a while even a dull outing renews a lot of energy that we lose over the normal office days.
Looking forward to the next one to come .....
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