[sajo]

Nothing new or surprisingin this , but posting this experience I came across on FB just in case visitors from out of town might be planning to check our beautiful surroundings out.

[Ironhood]

That is just sad. If I had to go visit such places, that would be on a weekday and never on a weekend or a public holiday. Keep away from these places on the Independence day weekend when you have your women and daughters with you. Dry days do not matter.

[rakesh_r]

Originally Posted by sajo

Nothing new or surprisingin this , but posting this experience I came across on FB just in case visitors from out of town might be planning to check our beautiful surroundings out.

Been there done that. I have stopped going to such places on weekends. I'd prefer to sacrifice two days of my leaves and have a a peaceful outing rather than watching pot bellied,bald drunkards (apologies for being specific) dancing away in glory with no sense and respect. And what makes irritating is no one even attempts to help ones in distress. Recently a couple of drunkards were misbehaving with a family. Tried reasoning with them but had to use the pepper spray as the last resort .

[Ajitsingh208]

Well I was in Tamhini too yesterday and it was a mess. We did not stop at any of the waterfalls as they were just too over crowded and very unsafe.
The Police there is present just to manage traffic, There were large groups of people driving dangerously, people dancing on the road blocking almost whole of it. All in All not a very safe place to be.
Everyone was trying to overtake and they ended up blocking both lanes.
It took me 4 hours to get back from there.
I would strongly suggest to do it on a weekday or else leave early and be back by afternoon.

[centaur]

Originally Posted by sajo

Nothing new or surprisingin this , but posting this experience I came across on FB just in case visitors from out of town might be planning to check our beautiful surroundings out.

Attachment 1533358 Attachment 1533359

Applicable for Lonavala as well. I have been a localite in Lonavala and the crowd during rainy season is just horrible to say the least. Drunk guys that too half naked or in their underpants, absolute disrespect for woman and other people around, (sorry to use the next sentence but it is true) peeing in the waterfall at the highest possible position to reach without realizing there are people downstream taking a bath in it etc. have made me think otherwise of visiting these places.

Adding to all this hooliganism is the horrible traffic which kind of ensures that you never get to the spot you plan to reach. you cant even think of visiting these places with family.

[ajay_satpute]

I have stopped going to all such places with family long long ago. Any place where there is a waterfall, people go berserk and for most of them, drinking till they fall or vomit, is the only way to enjoy. All these morons have zero respect for anyone, leave aside girls or women.

Forget the waterfalls, I have even read news about people getting robbed in the Tamhini ghat post sunset. Overall, Tamhini ghat is not a safe place at all, until police do something about it.

I have experienced one such scene when I was returning from Tamhini. There was a group of foreigners who we had met at the restaurant. They got split and one group went ahead leaving only 2 guys behind. When we started from the restaurant, we saw few local people harassing the foreigners for money. I wanted to stop but, honestly, I had no courage that time, since I had 5 females in my car, 2 kids and 3 senior citizens. I drove away from the scene and saw the remaining foreigners a little ahead. I stopped and told them that their friends are in trouble and they should go back and help them. I don't what happened after that.

God save Pune!

[sukhoi30]

Originally Posted by ajay_satpute

I have stopped going to all such places with family long long ago. Any place where there is a waterfall, people go berserk and for most of them, drinking till they fall or vomit, is the only way to enjoy. All these morons have zero respect for anyone, leave aside girls or women.

+1 to that. My family pester me to go to Lonavala every year during the monsoons. But I decline just because of these issues. Forget designated waterfalls, I have seen people stopping their vehicles on the expressway beside those small waterfalls and "enjoying". Many put their vehicle loudspeakers on high volume and dance on the expressway totally oblivious to the speeding traffic.

Although drinking in public places is banned, many of these people can be seen merrily drinking / smoking and causing a ruckus on the roads.

Every year Lonavala and Khandala becomes a mess because of such revelers. Though our Govt. talks about swacch bharat, these people happily liter the area with chip packets, cigarette butts, chikki packets, beer bottles and what not. People don't know that monkeys and other animals carry these litter deep into the forest areas causing irreparable damage to the environment.

God only knows how to drill sense into such people.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by ajay_satpute

I have stopped going to all such places with family long long ago. Any place where there is a waterfall, people go berserk and for most of them, drinking till they fall or vomit, is the only way to enjoy. All these morons have zero respect for anyone, leave aside girls or women.

I too avoid visiting places like Lonavla (and even Khadakvasla, Sinhagad), especially on the holidays. I prefer to go there on busy week days. Kids bunking a day of school or I skipping a business day is better than getting stuck up in traffic or getting harassed by the hooligans.

Also when you go to such places on holidays, you end up with long waiting periods, parking hassles and poor quality services / food at restaurants.

[vivek95]

Pathetic ! Because of such douchebags , people can't have a peaceful and safe outing with family. And the car regn. described in the fb incident above is so typical. By putting up a number plate in local script, they try to '' show off '' the so called patriotism towards a particular state, its rich culture, heritage and language but display an exactly opposite disgusting behaviour in reality.

Last year when I was on a solo ride to Malshej from Bombay, I stopped at a small hotel atop the ghat around 5pm to enjoy Vada pavs and a cup of tea. I was the only customer in that hotel and the owner aged around 50 was with his family members – women, daughters - altogether 4 ladies. After about few minutes, there came 2 cars packed with 10-12 guys. When they got off the car, all of them were only in their underpants and drunk. Despite seeing the ladies, they just started walking towards the hotel talking and shouting loudly using cuss words. Absolutely shameless !! The owner was totally pissed off at that sight and the women got highly uncomfortable and put their heads down. He straightway got up and stopped the guys before they entered the hotel. He told them bluntly that there is nothing available to eat and the hotel is about to get shut. The guys replied they would have some tea but the owner flatly refused saying tea was also not available. All this while, I was taking full pride in gobbling vadapavs and sipping tea. One of the guys asked the owner regarding this and he curtly replied that I was the last customer and it was their closing time. The guys mumbled something and left the spot. It was good to see atleast some good manners left in them that they left the place without much arguement. The owner came to me and grumbled as to how shameless those guys were with absolutely no sense of decency and respect to women. I told him that I really appreciated his way of not letting in such people. Ofcourse by no means it was the hotel’s closing time and many items were still available to eat. I spent half an hour extra there till the incessant rains came down.

[radek]

Thanks for these posts, just in right time. Coming weekend, my daughter has to visit a school near Manas lake for some competition. It is likely to take 4 hours. So we (me, my wife and other daughter) were planning to have a short tour of Tamhini ghat in that duration. Looking at above posts, we better off spending time in nearby hotel.

On another note, thanks to transport strike in Karnataka, traffic on NH4 bypass was considerably low on Monday evening.

[ani_meher]

I crossed Tamhini ghat on Monday morning on 18th July. As expected, the littering at the waterfalls was telling the story of the previous day. But luckily, the crowd was very less. There were people at each waterfall and view point drinking away to glory. But they were keeping to themselves. I even halted and got into a waterfall where families were enjoying (for reference, it was the last waterfall on the way down to Vile Bhagad MIDC), and really enjoyed the waterfall and scenery.

I agree with above posters, if you value hygiene, safety and dignity, sacrifice a working day and go on a working day, else more often than not your day will be wasted in frustration and anger due to hooliganism and traffic.

[braindead]

The traffic police in Pune have stopped being police. All they do these days is traffic control.

One sees police doing things like telling people to jump the red light to expedite traffic. That may work in the short term, but it is a disastrous idea that corrodes the mindset of the motorists. The only time we see traffic offenders caught is when there is a 'drive' of sorts where you can find groups of 5 to 10 policemen catching people round the bend from a signal. I doubt the effectiveness of that scheme.

Why do we have the police managing traffic when we have traffic wardens? Why can't the wardens do traffic control, and let the Police police?

[ajay_satpute]

Originally Posted by braindead

T
Why do we have the police managing traffic when we have traffic wardens? Why can't the wardens do traffic control, and let the Police police?

I agree. For the last 1-2 weeks, I have seen police managing signals and traffic. I have not seen traffic police (White&Khaki dress) at important signals on my daily route to office.

Have the traffic police put papers or what?

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by braindead

One sees police doing things like telling people to jump the red light to expedite traffic. That may work in the short term, but it is a disastrous idea that corrodes the mindset of the motorists.

You are absolutely correct. At almost all signals manned by Police, they urge you to either keep moving once the light turns amber or give signal to the other side traffic to start moving before their light turns green. This has lead to a situation that if you stop on a signal (not manned by traffic police) when the light has turned amber, you are greeted to incessant honkings and stares from others as if you have done something grossly wrong. Same if you refuse to move before your light turns green.

People do not realise this is wrong. The police acting the way it has been, have themself given a sort of taccit acceptance to this being fine by the rules!!

[varunswnt]

Originally Posted by braindead

The traffic police in Pune have stopped being police. All they do these days is traffic control.

One sees police doing things like telling people to jump the red light to expedite traffic. That may work in the short term, but it is a disastrous idea that corrodes the mindset of the motorists.

...

Traffic police encouraging people to break laws just to expedite traffic jams is wrong precedence set by them. In Hinjewadi at all major chowks, they allow you to join lanes without halting the traffic in that lane adding to chaos and unnecessary traffic build up, there is no traffic sense whatsoever in these traffic police and traffic warden personnel. They don't penalize who cut lanes, nor do they bother of people driving in wrong lane, nor do they instruct people to not cross wait line at signal or penalize who cross it.

Couple of days back on my way to home, I joined the main road from Geometric road towards Mezzanine. The service road is for people going towards Marunji without blocking traffic to Shivaji Chowk. Now how is one supposed to take that service road if traffic police does not halt the traffic and allow people from Geometric road to merge on main road? They just hold Phase 3 going traffic and ask you to merge you with traffic towards Wakad and you are also supposed to move to service road in this mess. When I failed to manoeuvre to service lane despite giving indicators and some honking, I stayed in left most lane and too a left from Mezzanine where traffic police stopped me for lane cutting and lectured me. Even after trying to convince him about the actual reason and why people fail to take service lane coming from Geometric, he was adamant on my lane cutting. How is that a lane cutting when you merge to left going road from leftmost lane at signal? When everyone goes to left and even I was going to left from chowk, I was branded as lane cutter.

This just shows the pathetic state of traffic manners in these people as well. There is a saying in west, in India there is a method among chaos, they are surprised to understand about our progress even after so much chaotic(this is pun intended for almost every lawlessness) surroundings.

Just my 2 cents.