I spent the weekend in Lonavala and Khandala with Ninja and Machine. We started on saturday early evening. The original plan was to start in afternoon or morning (not early morning though) but I managed to put that off by cribbing about rain. After initial hiccups in finding Pune-Mumbai Highway we finally got there (on the highway that is). Only to regret coming out of our sweet home first. It was raining heavily and the roads were muddy. My last statement was false, we would later find out that the rains were not at all heavy, heavier rains were waiting for us in Lonavala, and when I say roads were muddy, I am not putting the picture clearly, there was mud all over, we just believed that there was any road there.

We reached lonavala and Machine wanted to get refueled, he is almost always running low on fuel, so we bought a couple of big packets of chips Update: a couple of big packets of chips and a small one; as ninja pointed out they were finished in fifty femtoseconds. As suggested by ninja again I need to take care when I write about the consultant's consistent contribution to chip companies! End Update. We thought that there were so many resorts and lodges it would very easy to locate on for overnight stay so we decided to explore. In the meanwhile we also bought some chikki and fudge. Lonavala is famous for chikki and one brand that is really famous is maganlal chikki, now there is a catch there. Nobody knows (atleast not the tourists) which one is the original, old & best maganlal chikki shop, because more than 50% chikki shops are maganlal chikki shops and all of them claim to be original and first branch. The ones who decided not to name there shops after this famous brand are also selling maganlal brand chikki so it hardly makes any difference.

I need not say Lonavala is a beautiful place. That has been said too many times by whoever has been there. It really has some breathtakingly beautiful scenery. Clouds resting on mountains is a very common sight in monsoon season. Uncountable number of waterfalls scattered all over the place make it all the more better to loaf around.

After a nearly two hour resort/lodge hopping spree we managed to see all sorts of accomodation from 500Rs. a night to 5000Rs. a night. The later one had complimentry discotheque and swimming pool. We finally took a 800Rs. A/C Deluxe Room.

Sunset point at Khandala was the first destination point in morning. Amazing place. The passing train gels beautifully with scenery at that point. We moved to Monkey Point and did some photography of fast moving clouds and stunning waterfalls. Bhushee (what's the correct spelling / pronunciation) Dam was our next destination. I have been to the Dam a couple of times earlier, I had a hard time going up because my knee was hurting and after reaching the top I gave up and didn't got further towards waterfalls. A soft roasted bhutta and lot of photographs concluded the visit :-)

Waiting to repeat this trip.