This morning we set out for Mahabaleshwar, a hill station up in the Western Ghats. Mahabaleshwar itself is a small town of 13,000 but the area offers stunning views of the surrounding valleys. While it attracts hordes of visitors during the holidays (summer school holidays, Christmas and Diwali), it apparently shuts down during the monsoon season when an average 6 meters of rain falls on the region. We weren’t sure what to expect since on the one hand, we are still in monsoon season, while on the other everyone’s told us this has been uncharacteristically dry season. Either way, we knew the views were still there waiting for us!
To get to our destination, we first took a rickshaw to Swargate bus stand. The driver naturally asked a little extra from us since we were travelling and he figured us as easy prey… he figured wrong. Swargate is on a bustling road with a bus stop for city buses in the middle of it and dozens of rickshaws lining both sides of the road waiting for passenger arriving from all over. Add to that the typical heavy Pune traffic of any main road and you can consider crossing this street intact as an accomplishment for the day.
The bus station itself is an open roofed area with seats in the middle and little shops to each side. The signage was strictly in Marathi and we had to ask around to know from which gate our bus would depart. One of the employees pointed us to the right gate and told us the next bus was at 10:40am and tickets were Rs 105 each. Since a private bus would have cost us 3 to 4 times that amount, we were quite happy with our decision to stick with government buses. We sat down, read to wait patiently, but soon realized this would prove a little trickier than first thought. Buses were coming and going from our gate every few minutes. As soon as a bus stopped, it was swamped with passengers, filled, and off on its way. Each bus had a sign in Marathi only and so I would quickly get up at every new arrival to confirm whether this was our bus. Thankfully at one point another guy told us he was also taking that bus and could let us know when it arrived. Thanking him, I then watched as he rose every time a bus arrived to check with the driver whether it was the right bus! Apparently the number of buses and confusing signage isn’t much less confusing to the local.
On a little “ahhhh India” side note: On our way back from Mahabaleshwar, about 20 minutes into the trip came across an oncoming bus. Both buses stopped as they passed each other and the drivers took down the signs they had on their windshields and exchanged them through their windows. Maybe it’s a good thing we can’t read Marathi!
When our bus arrived, we hopped on and took a seat at the back. We were of course the only non-Indian travelers onboard. Just as on our trip back from Aurangabad, men with trays of food/water/newspapers walked along the side of the bus selling their goods. Some would even enter the bus and walk up and down the aisle. An added twist here however, was the entertaining infomercial some salesmen provided. One in particular, selling a juicer, stood at the front of the bus and for about 5 minutes, spoke about his product and demonstrated its use. I literally felt like changing the channel! As we finally took off, we noticed one downside to the government buses: some, like this one, could be a little stinky. Emilie was lucky enough to have the window seat and meanwhile put my mask against swine flu to good use, warding away N1H1 and the smell all at once!
FYI, I NEVER have the window seat!!!
The trip itself was pretty uneventful and Em slept some of the way while I read from beginning to end a book called Sold by Patricia McCormick. It’s a very poignant account of a 13 year old Nepalese girl, who is sold by her stepfather and taken to a brothel in India (Heartrending enough, the book was made all the more real to me days later when we stumbled upon a street in downtown Pune. There we saw several women, but also dozens of young girls, standing at doorways and waiting for clients…).
The journey to Mahabaleshwar offered some stunning views of the landscape as we made our way up into mountains. Almost 4 hours later, we arrived at the bus terminal in Mahabaleshwar and after escaping all the taxi drivers offering to take us on tours or to bring us to a hotel or restaurant, we figured out where we were on the map and headed over to the Hotel Blue Star, advertised by our Lonely Planet Guide as offering the cheapest beds in town, “but you certainly know it!” Boy can we ever confirm that out! As we looked at one of the rooms, the clerk quoted us a price of Rs 500 per night. When we showed him the price indicated in our guide, he immediately lowered the price to Rs 300 per night and we agreed.
After setting up our stuff, we set out to explore the main street, which we quickly dubbed Little Indian Las Vegas. Old slot machines and arcade games filled many shops, with restaurants, souvenirs shops, shoe/sandal stores, and stores selling jams and fudge (known in the region) making up the rest. We stopped at one shop to buy fudge and as we sampled some (they had a large selection of strawberry, chocolate, and nutty kinds), I saw a blur run across the aisle. I looked at Emilie and she informed me it was either a mouse or a rat (ahhh India!). Fudge in hand, we made our way to Bombay Point, which our Lonely Planet told us offered some stunning views of the sunset. Unfortunately, all it offered us on this day was a stunning view of a wall of clouds and mist. We next headed to the Tiger Trail, which cut a path through a forest and offered a few viewing points of Chinaman’s Falls. All in all it was a nice hour and a half long stroll through the forest and despite comically faded and crumbling signage that was impossible to read, we managed to make our way out and back into town before complete darkness hit. After a final stop at a restaurant for supper, we were ready for a good night’s sleep. And that’s where the real fun began…
As we opened the door to our room, we spotted a cockroach at the foot of the bed. A pretty big cockroach I thought at the time (oh how innocent I was back then!). I was designated cockroach killer (later renamed “the cockroach ninja”), slipped my shoes onto my hands (I was wearing sandals at the time) and while Emilie snapped photos, I smooshed my first cockroach! So that wasn’t so bad, one little cockroach is nothing to worry about right? Indeed, one cockroach is nothing to worry about. But then when we moved the blanket covering the bed, and we saw a second cockroach fall off and scurry under the bed, well that is a little bad (since when do cockroaches climb unto a bed anyway?!? That is off limits!!!). Well this bastard cockroach climbed up into the inside of the frame of the bed and no kicking would get it to budge so we grudgingly gave up, declared a truce, and instead started building a fort on our bed for the night (after going through all our stuff to make sure it was cockroach free!).
Ps: I was taking pictures because Yan asked me too. I guess he needed proof that all this was not just a nightmare but was actually happening! (Actually I wanted proof of my extreme braveness and manliness).
Thankfully we had packed our mosquito net and these liners in which to sleep. As we were ready to enter our makeshift cocoons, I spotted another cockroach… This would turn out to be the most horrifying cockroach of all… From a crack between the corner cabinet and the wall, one to two inch long cockroach antlers (or ears or whatever you call them! I do believe they’re called antennas…) were sticking out and wiggling around… You couldn’t see the actual cockroach but only imagine in horror just how large it had to be given the size of those things. With nothing to do but hit the cabinet and make that thing scurry further down into its crack, let’s just say we slept with one eye open most of that night…
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