People - Places

One Night in Guhagar – Tasting Local Hospitality

Guhagar, being 320 odd km away from Mumbai means fewer crowds. Or so we thought. We forgot that Pune was probably only 200 km away. We reached Guhagar a little late in the evening, around 7.30. We were a bit overconfident that in these little not so known places, hotels, lodges or home stays would be easily available. But as always Murphy has the last laugh. All (two or three) known hotels were full. People indeed are traveling. We drove a few times up and down through the main street knocking the doors of a few hotels and a few houses where they have put up a couple of extra rooms for guests. No luck. Most people could talk only Marathi. Our friend who could speak Marathi reasonably well was getting highly irritated since the responsibility of talking and finding a place fell on him. His concern was that his Marathi was not so good that he had to think, pause for the right word every time, and talk. But it was better than we staring at people without any words. Finally, an elderly lady checked at the local temple hall, which again to our bad luck was full. She then made a couple of calls to some families and at the end found a place for us.

dsc_0482.JPG

We spend the night with this traditional marathi family, who gave us some space and mattresses in their living room. They could not make food; so they called up a nearby restaurant and ensured that our dinner was taken care of. The family runs a small shop and a distribution setup for some soft drink brands.

dsc_0483.JPG

And they are setting up two rooms for guests. Next time, we are sure to stay there.

 

2 Comments on “One Night in Guhagar – Tasting Local Hospitality

  1. Hi,

    News for Unny!!! I had recently been to see Sardar Sarovar which has a dam across Narmada River (of the Medha Patkar protest fame)
    You are allowed to go close and take pics!!! Construction work still going on on the main dam. It is a huge facility with many smaller dams that you can cross.
    Am uploading pics.. will post the link soon 🙂

Comments are closed.