[heman_369]

Amazing Snaps SDP. This route never ceases to amaze me. The stretch just after Malkapur towards pune is almost divine. Glad that you enjoyed and liked the route.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by heman_369

Amazing Snaps SDP. This route never ceases to amaze me. The stretch just after Malkapur towards pune is almost divine. Glad that you enjoyed and liked the route.

Thank you so much for suggesting this route.
Untill you shared this route, I wasn't aware of it at all. I had drove to Ratangiri through Satara-Chiplun once and it took so long that I have never tried it again.

I liked this route. During non-monsoon season, the road conditions would be better on the State-highway section and average speed would also go up. Would try it again in winter/summer.

Thanks Again!

[engrohit]

SDP SDP SDP!! The Monsoons would never be the same without your travelogues.

I shared the link to this travelogue with some of my friends in Delhi / Punjab and told them that this is how mother nature treats us here. They all are already planning their trips to meet me soon!

Planning to do Jawhar this weekend, will give you a call tomorrow for expert advise.

Till then keep rocking!

[SDP]

Thanks Rohit!!

In fact, after a 4 day break, I am starting the next part today.

Dabhosa-Jawhar one day trip (21 July 2013)
The Ratnagiri trip was with my sister and my wife could not participate in the Freeway drive to NCPA on a Sunday morning either. So even after 6 to 7 weeks into the monsoon, a real 'family' monsoon outing had not happened.

Jawhar has been on the cards since last year's trip to Bhandardara, Igatpuri and Vihigaon waterfall. Have been hearing about Dabhosa waterfall also since last couple of years and more recently from Desmosedici during Powai mini-meets.

We were all set for a Dabhosa trip on 14th July, but some severe toothache complaints from my son and we had to drop the plan at the last moment. The next weekend (21st July) finally clicked.

The route that I decided was Mulund -> Thane (Ghodbunder Road) -> Right turn on NH8 -> Vasai -> Manor -> 30-35 kms after Manor, right turn towards Khanvel (SH31) -> Dabhosa -> Jawhar -> Vihigaon -> Igatpuri -> back to Mumbai via NH3.

The plan on a map:


Around 7 hours of drive. 365kms. No tension of staying in weird places overnight. Perfect!

[Desmosedici]

Originally Posted by engrohit

SDP SDP SDP!! The Monsoons would never be the same without your travelogues.

I shared the link to this travelogue with some of my friends in Delhi / Punjab and told them that this is how mother nature treats us here. They all are already planning their trips to meet me soon!

Planning to do Jawhar this weekend, will give you a call tomorrow for expert advise.

Till then keep rocking!

Take Mum Ahmedabad Highway. Cross Manor and take the right turn from Charoti / Kasa. Beautifull roads right uptil Jawhar and hardly any traffic. You will enjoy the drive with your duster.

If you plan to go to Dabhosa, please be ready to face bad roads and no roads after Jawhar. There are absolutely no signboards from Jawhar till Dabhosa. Every now and then you will find 'Nature Trails' signboard which is very small and stuck on trees and pillars. From Jawhar, ask for Silvas Road and keep asking at every smallest turn else you will end up going towards Nasik as i did. Your landmark is a Green coloured Round Minar middle of the road. Take left from there.

Hope that helps

[carzone]

Sirjee, you are making us wait too long for the next installment. Not fair. :(
I hope you have processed all of those awesome pics and we get the next quotas of the pics at a good frequency.

[SDP]

Dabhosa-Jawhar one day trip (21 July 2013)

Sunday 9:15am: Started from home. A new phenomenon in my family is that every time my 6 year old daughter gets into the XUV, she complains about headache. Five minutes from home, she started complaining of a headache. While we snaked through traffic on Ghodbunder road, she got increasingly more upset because of the headache. We never play loud music in the car. But even normal sound level was too much to bear for her and she asked us to turn off the music completely. With no music and the worry about our daughter on our mind, the mood became gloomy in no time. We had joined NH8. Should we just turn back and go home? Its a day-trip anyways in our own vehicle. So cutting the trip short at any point of time during the day was not a problem. We deicided to take a chance. If her headache doesn't reduce or if the crankiness increases, we would turn around and go home. My son was doing whatever he could to confort his sister in the back seat.

The NH8 was as usual. It had rained since morning and there was accumulated water on the road at many places. I avoided spalshing by keeping my distance from the divider. Saw a few fantastic spalshes from oncoming vehicles. I was driving. Wife was in no mood to take snaps. Somewhere along the way, she moved to the back-bench to comfort our daughter. I was weaving through moderate traffic. Once I was in the left lane and it happened - aquaplaning! I didn't spot the water accumulated on the road at all and realized it only after the vehicle moved sideway by 6-7 inches. We all felt it in the car. Drove more cautiously thereon.

Rain on the windshield.


10:45am: We left the NH8 and took a right towards Khanvel. There was a police barricade right at the entry of that state-highway - as if to stop all the city-madness right at the border. We crossed it slowly and stopped after another 100 meters or so.


The surrounding had changed dramatically by then. My daughter saw those black goat bachchas and got all excited. The greenary and the village-feel changed her mood in an instant.


Let the pictures talk from this point.


Pink colored window!








I drove slow to soak in that beautiful surrounding. After 20 odd minutes we reached a small bridge over a stream.




Although the road was narrow, the bridge was broad. So we decided to stop there and enjoy the scene on foot.




A interesting shelter.


Wife wanted to go to the stream and sit on a rock with feet in water. (where's that smiley for rolling eyes? ). We started exploring a approach route.


Rice paddy everywhere. No place to walk.


Some curious local kids wondering what the city-folks wanted.


Tried to use the divider between two fields to go to the stream or the shelter. But the soil was too soft and wasn't able to bear our weight.


I realized the futility of the attempt and turned back towards the car.


Road(?) conditions just before the bridge.


I took the opportunity to click some photos of Duma.

[SDP]

Started back towards the car.




Since there is a overdose of green on this thread, I decided to splash the thread with a little bit of red as well .










Finally ready to roll.


Bad roads, here we come!


In a urban setting, animals invading the road is a cause of irritation. But in those heavenly settings, with noone honking from behind, we just stopped, lowered the windows and admired the goats.

That reminds me I have to watch the movie "The men who stare at goats".

If you look closely at the map I posted 2-3 posts above, you will notice that although Dabhosa is part of Maharashtra, part of this approach road is actually in Dadara-Nagar-Haveli!

We spotted a resort.


Looked decent.


The river just next to the resort.


A watch-tower for guests, possibly part of another resort on the other side of the road.


Some institute. Might be worth a visit. Need to google.


Some amazing stretches with a canopy of green trees.


Paddy field just adjacent to the stream.


One thing that we noticed in this area was that all waterbodies had brown muddy water.




The level of the stream/rivers was not significantly lower than any bridges or roads.


No wonder this area is prone to flash floods.

[SDP]

It was almost 12noon and Dabhosa was still nowhere in sight. Truly rural area. Forget about a proper hotel, not even any dhaba in sight. Dabhosa being a touristy place, we thought, there would be a couple of decent food-places nearby - may be the resort desmosedici had mentioned. We pushed ahead.

More greenscapes.




Straight ahead.




Some directions.




Road conditions became "SUV-grade", slowing down the progress.


Near Dabhosa, the road was really narrow.




12:30PM: After a narrow steep slope, we abruptly found ourselves in a parking lot. No waterfall in sight.
It was raining.


The parking lot was full. We somehow managed to find just adequate amount of space for the XUV near a platform.


We saw a few people looking the other way from the platform.


Armed with raincoats and jackets, we got down from the XUV and walked a few steps towards the platform to get the first glimpse of the Dabhosa waterfall.


Its massive!


There was an uninteruptted view from where we were standing.


Did you understand the scale yet?
May be this should help! Spot the humans in the following image and then look at the previous 2 images again.


One for the family album.


There were some ropes all the way down on one of the sides and we initially thought that may be some braveheart trekkers would have managed to go down there. But looking at this closeup, where I can see a couple of guys under an umbrella, I have my doubts.


May be there is a way to reach down there. Would explore next time.

Pics don't do justice to the sheer raw thunderous power of this waterfall. So here's a small video that I shot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYDz3HF19ic

[getsurya]

Hi SDP,


Loved the crisp narration and nice pictures of this trip!

I must compliment you for your honest, simply put way of writing skills! Makes it a great pleasure to go through your threads.

[SDP]

If you would have noticed, my daughter was missing in the "One for the family album" pic. That's because she was sleeping peacefully in the back seat of the car. My wife checked with the Nature Trails resort for lunch arrangement. They said- We serve food only to the guests who are staying there. He did mention that there are couple of small dhaba type places in Dhabosa and the nearest decent place for lunch would be Jawhar.

While my wife was making enquiries with the resort, I woke up my daughter to show her the huge waterfall. After travelling for 3 hours, it was a sight not to be missed.

1:00pm -> We decided to push to Jawhar.

Muddy brown water everywhere.


We stopped after 15 odd minutes.










A building wearing a raincoat! (Sorry for the shaky picture)


1:50pm -> We reached Jawhar.


Saw a couple of places which were 'restaurant and bar'. Going to a place where liquor is served on a cool monsoon Sunday and that too at a tourist place, I don't think so. We asked a couple of locals and they recommended Shivneri dhaba on the bypass.

2:20pm -> After checking with multiple people, we finally located the Shivneri dhaba.

We were expecting something better, but it was getting late for lunch and we did not had too many options.

Opted to park in the parking lot on the opposite side of the road.


Two huge Mahindras gave comppany.


The board of the Dhaba also had a list of local attractions. How thoughtful!

For the Devnagari challenged, the board lists the following places: Jay Vilas Palace, Hanuman Point, Shirpamal, Vijay Stambha, Sunset Point, Kalmandavi Waterfall, Pandav caves - Vashala, Bhopatgad, Dabhosa Waterfall, Jay Sagar Dam and Khadkhad Dam.

Food tasted good, but was oily.


"No drinking allowed" . Also notice the tin roof of the dhaba.


While we were having a late lunch, the sky became really dark and then rain striked the place with a vengeance.


The rain pouring on the tin-roof made the whole place reverberate. Kids were awed by the fury of the rain-gods.


Duma enjoyed the heavy shower. I was a bit concerned about the parking lot becoming a mud pit.

[SDP]

3:00pm -> Besides one small umbrella we had not carried anything else to the dhaba. So as the rain's intensity reduced, I got the car and parked it near the dhaba so that everybody could get in without getting too wet.

Before that I asked the directions to Igatpuri to the dhaba-owner. I told him that I want to go to Mumbai through Igatpuri. He asked me to take the Jawhar-Vikramgad-Manor route instead. I did a mental calculation. Jawhar to Igatpuri was easily 1.5-2 hours given the road conditions and then on to Mumbai via NH3 would be another 2.5-3 hours, which would push our arrival-time in Mumbai towards 8pm. So I decided to take the advice and return via Vikramgad-Manor.

Thought of exploring Jawhar a bit before starting the return journey. Had heard about some palace in Jawhar and asked for directions. Got some confused directions from locals. While looking for the palace, I accidently found a point where some 2-3 tourist-type vehicles were parked.

As I approached the parking, we found the palace on the hill to our right!


We parked.


A few people were enjoying the view, the rain and the fresh air.


An observation deck. You can see the Jay Vilas palace in the background.


Views of the valley.






A orange/red ST bus looked fantastic against the green background.


The same ST bus navigating the numerous turns.


More fresh green vistas.




The kids had opted to stay put in the car as it was raining (and they were tired). Some 10 minutes later, we started back towards the car.


A statue in Jawhar. We had taken a turn at this statue to go to the above mentioned point. No idea about the name of the point.


It was time to head back to Mumbai.

[SDP]

The Jay Vilas Palace looked promising from distance and I wanted to check it out. But we couldn't find the road leading to it at all. It was raining, we avoided stopping multiple times for directions. So we decided to head to Mumbai through the Vikramgad-> Manor route.

There was no plan to stop anywhere in between, but the following sight stopped us in our tracks.


There were couple of sedans already there when we parked.

But a minute after we stopped, the families left in their sedans. Looks like people in SUVs are not perceived to be good decent folks by general public .

First sighting of clean white water since morning!

The waterwall was in multiple layers.

Kids were all excited to see the clean water (which wasn't looking yuck like all the muddy-brown water we have seen since morning).


A failed attempt to increase the exposure to smoothen the water.


Both kids in good mood.




A long shot.


Duma in the foreground. My son doing 'Gangnam style' in the background.


All smiles!






The cold clean water felt good on the legs and face. We spent some good 15-20 minutes at the waterfall.

The road was decent near Jawhar, but detoriated as we left the town behind. It was cloudy with regular showers. Clicked some shaky snaps, but not going to waste your time.

This whole area has so many streams and small rivers, its amazing. A downpour for 2-3 hours can create a flash flood which will easily engulf such stretches of road.


The progress was slow and painful till we reached Manor and joined back NH8.
Reached home just before 6pm.

Actual route taken:


With clean clear/white water in all streams/rivers, this area would look even better. May be a revisit towards Sep-end and we might get a chance to experience that as well.

Overall a good refreshing one day trip!

<End of Dabhosa-Jawhar trip-log>

[Dodge_Viper]

Dabhosa was always on my to-do list, but looking at these terrible roads I am scared to take my little baby out there.

SDP, I am sure local transport would be pathetic out there, right?

[SDP]

Originally Posted by engrohit

SDP SDP SDP!! The Monsoons would never be the same without your travelogues.

I shared the link to this travelogue with some of my friends in Delhi / Punjab and told them that this is how mother nature treats us here. They all are already planning their trips to meet me soon!

Planning to do Jawhar this weekend, will give you a call tomorrow for expert advise.

Till then keep rocking!

Thanks , Rohit! Hope your own Jawhar trip was fun. If not in a travelogue, would love to see the pics at least on your mobile.

Originally Posted by Desmosedici

Take Mum Ahmedabad Highway. Cross Manor and take the right turn from Charoti / Kasa. Beautifull roads right uptil Jawhar and hardly any traffic. You will enjoy the drive with your duster.
...Hope that helps

Desmosedici, thanks for another route to Jawhar. Looks like there are 2-3 different routes to Jawhar. Will explore next time.

Originally Posted by carzone

Sirjee, you are making us wait too long for the next installment. Not fair. :(
I hope you have processed all of those awesome pics and we get the next quotas of the pics at a good frequency.

Started on Friday night and wrapped up the trip-log on Sunday night!
Shilonda snaps coming up next week (after the long weekend ).

Originally Posted by getsurya

Hi SDP,
Loved the crisp narration and nice pictures of this trip!

I must compliment you for your honest, simply put way of writing skills! Makes it a great pleasure to go through your threads.

Thanks getsurya for the encouragement.

Originally Posted by Dodge_Viper

Dabhosa was always on my to-do list, but looking at these terrible roads I am scared to take my little baby out there.

SDP, I am sure local transport would be pathetic out there, right?

Sorry if I gave the impression that this is SUV territory. Its not!
In the Dabhosa parking lot picture, you would see 2 Mumbai registered swifts parked next to my car. More than half the parking lot was Mumbai vehicles, mostly hatches. There are potholes, but craters are rare. I would say, go ahead and take the i10 there. You just need to navigate the bad roads slowly, which is anyways the best strategy irrespective of the type of vehicle.

Public trasportation scene in this area is bad. Rick is an option, but if you ask me, a 3-wheeler is possibly the worst vehicle from stability perspective on pothole ridden roads. At Jawhar, there is a ST bus depot and we did see a couple of ST buses. Not sure if there is service and the freqency to places like Dabhosa.