Bye bye Pune !!

Today is my last day in Pune. Last two have been really hectic. I wanted to meet a lot of people once before leaving (there are still some left).

After the Kivas surprise, I hosted a dinner for the same set of friends in Thousand Oaks. Birju was very keen on an outing the next day. I was interested because that would be my last outing from Pune. In the middle of the dinner we opened 3 full size maps (yes I carry them in my car, and has also given one to Birju) and were looking for a bird sanctuary by the name of Karnala.

Apparently noone could find Karnala on the map and I assumed we had dropped the idea and we would be going to either Mulshi or Lonavala. When I reached Birju's place on Sunday, Karnala was still on. I called a couple of friends who trek frequently and didn't get any info. I called my friend The cultivator and he didn't take the call. Finally I called Steamy Tull and she gave me the directions.

From Pune take expressway till Panvel, join NH 17 to Goa from Panvel. Its around 12 kms on Nh17. Around 125 kms from Pune.

Sometime later The cultivator called back and gave the same directions. We were rolling !!

Karnala looked like a really good place but we didn't want to trek in mud and hence we were limited to seeing birds in cages. Maneka aunty had recently go almost all birds removed from the cages and only a handful were left.

A spark of intelligence from Birju and Kkiju, we decided to go to Bhagat Tara Chand (BTC) in Vashi. We had a heavey lunch and headed back to Pune. We tried to go to Lonavala but traffic was really prohibitive. We reached Pune around 7:30 in evening.

Two of my friends Jaggu and Shutterbug were driving from Bombay, I waited for them, went to Mocha and met some friends. Some of Jaggu's friends joined me in Mocha and we went to SOHO's for dinner.

All in all, I am having a lot of good bye dinners and there is a lunch scheduled today. I had a wonderful time in Pune and I hope I won't be cribbing about Delhi weather a lot. :-)