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It all started with my cousin announcing that 30th July 2011 would be a holiday for him. Usually he has alternate saturdays off and he was just lucky that 30th July (5th saturday of the month) was declared off by his company. So we decided to celebrate his luck by hitting the road for a day trip outside Bombay. Several options were discussed including the usual suspects- lonavala, alibaug, kashid etc. but we settled on either malshej or murud janjira. after some research we figured that Murud Janjira might get a little too hectic for a day trip. So Malshej it was. The weather was good and with accurate directions (picked up from an earlier post on Team Bhp by Mr. hvkumar http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ej-ghat-2.html
) we were confident of making it easily. While the directions were accurate (we didnt have to ask anyone on the way), little did we know about the roads (or the lack of it) in Kalyan. In fact at one place I got so frustrated that I had an arguement with the toll plaza guys that I dont see a reason to pay toll for the kind of service level that they have. In fact, they should be paying me for the wear and tear the road caused to my new car.

Nevertheless, the journey was a breeze once we were past Kalyan and with the wonderful scenery ahead of us, we soon forgot the trouble that we had been through. It had been raining intermittently for the past several days so the waterfalls were all in full flow. We stopped at several waterfalls and frankly speaking the scenery was breathtaking and exhillarating. We went till the MTDC resort and had our lunch there. The place isnt something to be boasted about but after our four hour drive, it did well to satiate our hunger and thirst. We stayed at the place for 3 hours to roam around and take some photographs and started on our journey back after that as it was getting too foggy and visibility was dropping dangerously.

We left Bombay at 10.30 in the morning and reached Malshej by 2-2.30pm. Shouldn't have taken so long but the Bombay border and the Kalyan stretch took more than and hour and a half to clear. We started on our journey back around 5.30 and reached Bombay around 10 in the night (stuck in traffic at Bombay border and driving again on the Kalyan stretch under no street lights). The place is definitely worth it but would have to think a lot if I have to go through the Kalyan roads again.


Pictures

Pic 1: My cousin (left) and I (right)
Pic 2: My Machine
Pic 3: Some of the better Kalyan roads where we could take a pic without shaking the camera much
Pic 4: Roads got better after we left Klayan
Pic 5: Even the scenery got more inviting
Pic 6: Ominous looking clouds
Pic 10: Reached the place
Pic 11: The well known MTDC resort
Pic 12: Reduced visibility on our way back