Travel With a Couple

A rubber factory is an unlikely place to be written about in a travel blog. And certainly not a rubber factory in Harihareshwar, a quite village known for its temple and pristine beaches.

Harihareshwar for sure did not have a rubber factory. But we did find something closer to that. More like a factory’s waste yard. A little away from the beach, on the rocky coast, we saw loads of abandoned, worn-out, damaged pieces of footwear. Laced with a few plastic bottles as well. Plastic bottles are no surprise, since they already form part of our natural environment, nurtured carefully by all of us.

We did not understand how there is so much of these chappals, concentrated in one place. And could not ask anyone about this ‘unnatural’ wonder.

If you can’t travel or drive too much and all you need is a quite weekend getaway from Mumbai, then you can try option no #85, Bordi. That’s what precisely we did.  When a family friend wanted a weekend break to introduce their one-year old son to outdoors, we scoured our maps, books and internet to pick a place.

Bordi has a 17-km long beach. Chikoo and vegetable farms dot the quiet village. Hills towards the east and a small dam. More importantly, we haven’t been there. And, MTDC has a resort in Bordi. A perfect combination. At about 180 km from Mumbai, it is convenient for a drive or a train journey.

Bordi retains the charm of the small village that it is (though we did not go into the ‘town’ part of this village) with a broad road running parallel to the beach flanked by old Parsi bungalows, farms and some old buildings that have turned hotels and resorts. While most resorts are on the eastern side of the road, MTDC as ever occupies a prime property on the beach side. On its boundary, the beach starts.

MTDC resorts have never disappointed us. They are about utility value and value for money. No fancy stuff. Simple rooms and clean toilets. Restaurants are often contracted out and one has to expect some extended waiting, especially on weekends when a staff of 3 trying to serve 16 or 18 roomful of guests. Yet, no complaints.

All you can do at Bordi is to just relax. Take a stroll along the long beach. And when you get tired, lie on your back, gazing at the stars.

Place: Bordi in Maharashtra. Bordi is on the North Konkan coast, at about 180 kms from Mumbai towards Gujarat.

Every trip of ours in Maharashtra reinforces MTDC’s marketing byline ‘Maharashtra Unlimited’. Be it treks, road trips or backpack trips. Numerous options that emerge from the combination of the long coastline and the Sahyadris running parallel to it, in fact gives one an unparalleled experience. Not to mention about the options in Central Maharashtra, which we are yet to touch.

Last Christmas, we did a road trip that featured kissing the beaches, then climbing the hills, and hugging the clouds. A 4-day road trip with spur-of-the-moment detours, searches for a place to stay, warm hosts at homestays and much more…

It helps that many from Mumbai knows only beaches such as Kashid, Ganpatiphule, and of course, the ones in Goa. The lesser-known ones such as Guhagar, Harnai, Velneshwar, etc, are left for those who take the roads less travelled. Yes, Guhagar is turning touristy. And for the hill stations, Mahabaleshwar, Matheran, and Lonavala are good enough to vet the appetite of many. Koyna Nagar hardly appears in any one’s itinerary.

On the Mumbai-Goa highway, take a detour at Khed to Dapoli and get into the coastal road. Harnai is a few kilometers away from Dapoli. The Dapoli-Dhabol road breaks at a jetty and a boat will ferry your cars to the other bank, where the road continues to Guhagar. More pristine beaches and villages within 15-20 km of Guhagar and we are off to Chiplun. From Chiplun starts the climb to Koyna Nagar. A few hours of drive with breathtaking views on both sides, and our homestay in Koyna Nagar waits for us at the top of a hill.

Click here for the photo story of the journey.

We reached Malvan on the third day of a Konkan trip. Being a popular tourist destination, we didn’t bother to book accommodation. Armed with a list of ‘home-stays’ and their telephone numbers, given to us by our home-stay owner at Kunkeshwar, we started calling up these places soon after we reached Malvan at noon. We were all damn hungry, but decided that it would be safer to find a place to stay before anything else. This later proved right.

AD, the only person conversant in Marathi in our team, called up the first number. The person attended the call asked us to call up later as the manager was not there. So AD tried the second one on the list. Alas! The same person who attended the first call picked up this one also. We still wonder if they listed the same place under two names. The third one, Dattkrupa, sounded promising with cottages by the seaside. And excitement unbound. We imagined how we would spend the rest of the evening. Step out of the cottage and play at the beach. Or just outside your room, lie down on the white sands listening to the waves and counting stars. So we took to the by-lanes of Malvan to find Dattkrupa. We turned left and right through the narrow lanes, reading the boards announcing directions to home-stays and hotels, Dattakrupa being one of them. The arrows finally took us to this promising place dotted with a few dilapidated wooden huts in a deserted place. Not a single soul. A local boy opened some of the rooms and showed us. It was an exact replica of makeshift rooms made of tin metal and wood in large construction sites. Except that there are cots and damp beds. Seaside cottages indeed they were. Beach was only a few metres away. We certainly were not confident in staying there overnight.

Hungry and tired, we set out searching for a better place and found a home-stay with basic facilities. No beach nearby, but it was tucked away in a quiet village neighbourhood. After checking in, we sped away to dig into sumptuous malwan delicacies and make up for the compromise we had to make about that night’s stay. We came back only late in the night to hit the sack.

Ps: The photo is from Internet sources and not from our personal album