| This beautiful small hill station lies between pune and mumbai. This place
not only offer beautiful landscapes but also breathtaking waterfalls,
typical of a hill station. I was in the third year when I made the visit.
The season there is at best during mansoon and so we choose that season.
We took mumbai-pune train at kalyan and got there in approx 2.5 hrs. The
train journey was not so pleasent bcs of the rush but weather outside was
very delightful. Another better option via road, as the ST buses plies
regulalry with fare around 50 Rs slightly more than train but there
is more chance to have a seat so that you can enjoy the beautiful views
along the way. But the very best option is to take lift in truck. Don`t worry
about safety and other cribbs you might be thinking of, there are fixed spots
like bus stops where trucks stops to fetch passengers at a very cheap rates.
You can get lift at Kurla, Vashi or Panvel. We reached lonavala by 11 a.m. type. As Khandala lies just 5 km from Lonavala, the best way to visit the max points is to first visit khandala, as there are only 2-3 important points and then to visit points in lonavala. The most beautiful point at lonavala is bhushi dam. But don`t visit this point first as this is the place which is meant to take a thorough bath in the dam water. So you obviously don`t want to get wet at the very start. First visit other places like "airforce point" etc. and then make ur final visit to the dam.Wihtout bhushi dam ur lonavala visit is nearly void. As we reached lonavala we went staright to bhishu dam, that day it was raining like cats and dogs. But this has made the place more romantic and exotic. There we stayed till 4 p.m type. As the palce has got bery crowded we decieded to leave and go to other points, but to our dismay we found that the other points are quite far apart to visit at this time. So we have decieded to make a night stay and cover other points next day. There are other palces also which are quite worthy os visit provided you have enough bugdet for another day. There are two ancient caves called "Karla and Bhaji caves" both lies on the opposite side of the railway track and the roadway. So you have to make choice. We choose bhaji caves bcs on the same way lies two famous forts called "Loahagad and Visapur". We got early in the morning and took a bus ride at around 9 a.m to airforce point. We returned and catch local train to malavali which is 15 mins away from lonavala. We then visit bhaji caves. The caves were very beautiful and well preserved. By the time we started for lohagad it was already evening and people has advised us not to visit lohagad as it would get dark soon. So heavy heartedly we decieded to wrap up the things and returned wiht a pledge that we`ll return soon. Both forts lies wihtin the distance of 1 km to each other and looks very well preserved. But we had to leave. We returned to lonavala abd caught a ST bus straight to dadar. |