19th August 2023, 22:55
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| BHPian Join Date: Oct 2020 Location: Poone, Mumbay
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| A Day in Pali with Vader On a recent weekend, a spur of the moment decision was made to return to Mumbai from Pune via a slightly more scenic route. To this end, a room was booked in a farm stay in Pali, and your truly set out on Sunday late morning, fortified by a breakfast of ghee idlis, watermelon juice and a post meal straang cappuccino with a buddy. The Pune-Mumbai Expressway (PME) lived up to its name, and traffic was smooth and sparse, allowing me to soak in the vistas, which have been given a nice pressure wash recently. The rain gods chose to show a sample of their prowess as the ghat section began, with absolutely blinding rain for a 10 minute spell.   Wide open spaces Absolutely blinding rain on the PME ghat Took the Imagica exit from the expressway and then got on to the Khopoli-Pali road, which was a lovely winding drive on tarmac (barring a few easily seen and thus avoided potholes), and a massive relief after the horrible concrete of the PME. After 22 kilometers, trusty Google directed me down a narrow lane in the village of Pedali, over an extremely rickety looking bridge, and then the village road drive began. It was the slowest and yet the most fun part of the drive. Going through small villages, backing up for oncoming traffic, crawling behind a tractor, missing the turnoff and finally retracing his steps, the author finally arrived at his destination, viz. Thakur Farm in the village of Nadsur. The last 500m consists of completely broken road and muddy patches, so can expect the occasional bottoming out of low riding sedans and hatches. Another point to be noted, milords and miladies, is that there is no mobile network for the last stretch and at the farmstay, so please download an offline map before heading out. The resort has decent WiFi connectivity if needed.  Map of the last stretch on Khopoli-Pali road and the turnoff to the village of Nadsur On Khopoli-Pali road after exiting the freeway The rickety bridge - potholes Mumbai style (Video was taken on return drive) The village road heading towards Nadsur  Can you please move faster, Deere John?  Fields of green  The Village water tank  Final approach to property Dirt path to farmstay The Thakur farm is a nicely laid out resort, with clean and tastefully done up rooms. There is a separate eating area where all three meals are served, although I only tried their dinner. The place is managed by a local family, who are friendly and helpful folk. The paddy fields in the property are brilliant green this time of year, as the mango and chikoo trees. Waterfalls can be seen on the distant hillsides. There’s a small hill with a 3 minute walk to the top that has nice views of the property. A large and extremely noisy group of homo sapiens was also around but they thankfully checked out within 2 hours of my arrival, their simian yells and mating calls fading as their bus left, leaving me as the only guest on the property. Overview of the farm from ground level  Rooms with swings outside  Interior, with all untidiness and mess the fault of the author  The most important section: the eating area   Flooded paddy fields on the property  Chikoo trees with fruit  Man goes towards the Mangoes  Top of the hill  View from the top The hills are alive with the sound of rowdies I took the liberty of walking around the farms (on the bunds in between the paddy fields) and on a couple of walking paths outside the property, and was rewarded with fresh air, quiet and sightings of tiny (crabs) and not so tiny (cranes) fellow inhabitants of our planet. The cranes in particular were a sight to see, gracefully swooping around the fields, and the phone camera doesn’t come close to capturing their beauty. The place can get quite muddy in patches and has occasional undergrowth around the trees, so proper shoes are highly recommended for walking around.  Why so crabby? Freshwater Crabs scuttling around in the water Beautiful sight of cranes swooping around, with waterfalls on the hillside some distance away  Time to reflect Very few sounds soothe like that of running water in nature There were a few indie dogs hanging around, and as the day drew to a close, many more made an appearance, and their barks and howls pierced the silence multiple times through the evening and the night. After all that walking and sweating, it was cleanup and chow time. The staff was kind enough to accommodate my request for an early dinner, which consisted of a tasty albeit spicy chicken curry, rice bhakris and rice. Having forgotten my age and resulting (lack of) eating capacity, I somehow staggered back to my room, read 20 pages of a book (another first after a looong time) and called it an early night. Kishore Kumar these fellows are not, but not for lack of trying  In the farmstay, the lovely farmstay, the ScorpioN sleeps tonight Monday morning was up bright and early, and headed out before breakfast. Because I was heading back to work, the motivation to get there quickly was understandably a little less than on the journey to the farm, hence most of the pics and videos of the drive were taken on this drive. Same hilltop, but with birdsong  Time to head out, with the canine guards watchfully seeing me off Bird on a wire Heading out on mud path  One last pic of running water en route Speeding up just a bit Biofuel power. Take that, mHawk Vader was rock solid for the entire drive, and is proving to be a great travel companion. His entertainment system not so much, as the phone continues to overheat and hang when connected to the vehicle, resulting in the music/podcasts freezing and (more importantly) the maps hanging at critical parts of the journey. Mahindra will need to address this on an urgent basis. Hopefully Anand ji visits this site once in a while in between tweets. In the office by 9am, coffee in hand, and back to the grind. It was a short and nice getaway, and will definitely visit again with the family. Big shout out to fellow BHPians whose longer and beautifully described journeys inspire these small write ups. Keep driving and sharing experiences. Last edited by Aditya : 23rd August 2023 at 06:14. Reason: Spacing |
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22nd August 2023, 17:30
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