After
a harrowing stressful weekend & financial year end, it was the
perfect reason to take a break.
With Kunal’s novice driving skills, the distance and Czar’s comfort, we decided on the Konkan Coast. I must admit I felt almost like man convincing a woman to marry him when I‘d to convince Kunal for Konkan and not Goa (most people who know Kunal will agree with me). Friday, we started our research on the beaches and the staying availability. Mygetaway.com came in as the rescuer as we finally booked the place to stay, this being a long weekend all the other places were packed. So Bingo ‘Murud Janjira’ it was.
After a late night on Friday with friends coming over to our place (a normal trend every weekend), strangely it wasn’t difficult to wake up in the morning for the travel. Though Kunal did snooze the alarm twice still we were just one hour late than the scheduled time. 8:00am we left our home with Kunal, the driver, me as the Navigator and Czar in the back seat like the most excited traveller.
We drove past Pune in the morning and touched the highway in 20 mins. Kunal was a little nervous as he was driving on the Expressway for the first time. We took the Khopoli diversion from the expressway and headed towards Pen and from there to Mahad. From Mahad, we moved towards Alibaug with a little ghat area in between. The route from Alibaug to Murud via Kashid is picturesque with the coastline on one side and the Shayadri ghat on the other. We hit Murud exactly at 1:00pm.
We started hunting for ‘Priyasiddhi Cottages’ where we had our booking. PriyaSiddhi is a kilometre away from the beach with amiable caretakers. We dumped our luggage and headed straight towards lunch as we were extremely hungry. Most people suggested ‘Patil Khanawala’, which was exactly opposite to our idea of a beachside lunch. No beer, No beach and to our surprise it was crowded with people. We started looking for a place where they could serve us beer and to our surprise, there were none. Kunal and I were about to cry when someone told us that we could buy beer from the beer shop and carry it with us to the eating joint. We finally settled down for lunch and realized that everyone around was doing the same. Unbelievably it was a much-done thing. We also become a partner to this crime and didn’t care much as long as we could quench our thirst with the chilled beer. It took the waiter an hour to take the order and another hour to serve but we had the beer and the sea to keep us going but yes extremely poor service in 9 out of 10 joints in Murud. After the meal, we went back for a short nap as we wanted to see the sunset and Kunal wanted his ‘Sunset Swim’. (My swimmer husband)
The room was cosy with an extended balcony overlooking the garden. It was neat and clean and to me, that mattered the most. This was perfect for Czar, we just let him loose and he was running around without the leash. There was a basin which was awkwardly placed in the corner of the room and I kept wondering why.
6:00pm we went to the beach and had a lovely view at the setting sun and we were about to start the swim when something struck me and I checked the moolah with us and realized that we were running shot of 500 bugs. Immediately Kunal and I started inquiring about an ATM and to our surprise that there were NO ATMs in Murud and Kashid and we had to drive 34kms for one. I always thought isolation from technology and modernization kept the purity of a place but I was so wrong. Now an ATM wasn’t a luxury but a necessity. We set out immediately as we’d enough moolah for dinner and breakfast but then we’d to sacrifice our booze which was a BIG NO especially when we were on a holiday. We drove to Revdanda and enjoyed every minute of the sunset from the car and of course we’d to forgo Kunal’s ‘sunset swim’. When we reached the ATM it felt like winning an Oscar and I proudly came out after withdrawing moolah. We felt elated. Drive back was short and sweet and we reached the beach.
The beaches in Konkan are no doubt very pretty with whitish sand and the sea is away from the beach. Not in all the beaches, one could swim, like at Murud, you couldn’t but at Kashid you could. Also, in the night the water moves further away from the beach and you could walk all the way. I strongly believe people make the place but the crowd at these places was not exactly ‘our kind’. The beauty seems untouched and unexplored. But Kunal and I would still prefer a Cosmo Goa to a Traditional Murud.
Czar was getting very impatient as he had been restricted to the back seat for more than 7 hrs now including the ATM Hunt Drive, Kunal dropped us at the beach and went up to the Bazaar to pick up whisky. I must admit the locals in this area ain’t that friendly, they don’t respond to you in any other language but Marathi and have that look in their face ‘we don’t want outsiders’ the common feeling that most Maharashtrians have or are taught to have nowadays, thanks to Shiv Sena. It is strange that even in India, we have so much of discrimination just amongst states.
We went back to the guest house and the happiest of all was Czar. Amongst the hustle-bustle of everyday mundane life, this evening was definitely needed for Kunal and me to just unwind and feel the love all over again. The cherry on the cake was the food, home cooked Konkan seafood was just ORGASMIC and we enjoyed every morsel of it.
9:15 am next morning after breakfast we started our journey back home. From Murad to Kashid to Alibaug and the Revdanda port to Pen. Kunal enjoyed speeding on the expressway and touched 110kms/hr and was very happy. We hit Pune by 1:30pm and were home by 2:00pm with 3 bottles of beer to wash off the tiredness.
Statistics:
Distance: 190 Kms
Time: 5hrs
Petrol: 1500
Stay: 700
Food & Other : 1200
Alcohol and Fags: Like in Pune.
Our Rating:
Mampoo
Kunal
7
Scenic Beauty 5
9
Food
8
4
Crowd
4
6
Stay
7
6
Overall Rating 6
6 Worth
the Moolah 6
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