Diveagar -
This small coastal village is not what it used to be. Tourism has made it pretty commercialized and it has lost the charm it had. It had just a few home-stays and simple home cooked sea food! Few lights and barely ever had electricity. Sleeping in khaats in the courtyard of the home stay or on an old wooden zopala/zhula (big swing) and having a bath at the well! These are the memories that flash in front of my eyes as I drive through the new hotel buildings and new bungalows taking place of the small simple houses with huge gardens full of coconut and beetle nut trees.
We had a mind blowing lunch of the local king fish fry, curry, chapatti and rice along with the lip-smacking ‘solkadhi!’ We check into our hotel and had a small nap. At about 5 pm drove to the beach. And we are greeted first by the sound of the big angry waves crashing into to beautiful sand stretching for miles beyond the coconut and suru trees (dunno its name in English). The sun was still hours from setting and a few people were on the beach. There was the typical paragliding and some other tourists were playing beach cricket and volleyball. We moved away from the crowds, had a nice dip in the sea and then sat on the beach for the sun set. And guess what we were greeted with...
The thing that greeted us -
What happens when u drive a car onto a beach and park it a few meters from the water and slowly high tide starts?? Most of us know the answer but these Mumbaikars with a Vento and an Etios were clueless. They were sitting in and around the cars for 3 hours and never even thought that they should move the cars even when the water had moved well beyond the length of the cars. I was told they were requested by the locals 3 times to move the cars but they turned a deaf ear. Finally I went and asked them if they needed help. Their reply was "ya sure the door is not getting locked properly"!!
I told them they will lose their cars if they didn't move it immediately, so reluctantly the Etios managed to move off as it was facing away from the water, but the Vento with its front wheels stuck in pretty deep wouldn't budge. I told them that they should put stones or piece of wood on both sides of the front wheels and try to reverse. Guess what! They sat in the car enjoying the wheel spin, the car digging in further!! After much convincing they agreed to try. We got stones and pieces of wood. We dug around furiously put the stones and wood under the wheels. The owner told me to drive and I tried to reverse with minimum throttle inputs but I just felt the wheels digging in deeper. We adjusted the stones etc again and I tried to shuffle the car front and back, but nothing happened. Then we got a few locals to try and lift the front and push it back without effect.
I told the Etios guy to go and get the Jeep that was doing the paragliding runs. He returned uninterested saying they didn't have a rope. Half of the family wasn't even interested and the other half were simply standing idly. I know I’m being too dramatic about the whole thing, but I was just hurt looking at the attitude these people had towards their car. They didn't even care. The sand had given way under the front wheels, so the wheels actually were just floating in water and the front bumper had dug up and stuck in the sand. The underbody was holding the car. The brakes, drive shaft and the lower part of the engine were completely under water. Salt water that is!! Anyway, the locals got a tractor, a rope and took the car out in 2 minutes. And the owner had a nice laugh about what an adventure it had been as he paid them 2000 bucks.
This is how deep the car had went.
Rope being attached
I was shocked, but my wife just dragged me out of the confusion and said, "They have more money than brains or passion for cars. Don't spoil your mood for somebody else. Just look at that sun. Have u seen anything as brilliant as that". She was right, the sun looked beautiful. I just stood mesmerized, clicked a few pics and we walked the length of the beach looking at the spectacle of nature my heart at utmost peace. As the sun set, we drove back to the hotel using a different route which ran alongside the beach and the river with Suru trees on both sides! The day had just been more than we asked for!
But our luck was about to change. After a bath we were shocked to know that if we didn’t book dinner by 6 pm we would not get food anywhere! It was 8 pm!! We got the same answer at every eatery we asked! I hurriedly called up our hotel who luckily agreed to cook for us but said it be another 2 hours! I was hungry; I hadn’t had tea ever since we reached Diveagar. The funny thing is Diveagar doesn’t have a single tea Tapri, none of the eateries serve tea and even our hotel simple refused to serve any! I am a tea/coffee addict and this was my idea of hell! So we had some of those sugary Mango drinks to prevent our hypoglycemia and irritation. Finally we ate our dinner at 10 pm. Hogged on the prawns, pomfret and rice; chilled on hammocks at the hotel and then retired as happy as ever!!
The Morning –
Our hotel still refused to serve tea in the early morning, so with me still craving for the magic elixir of gods, went for our final dip in the water. And guess what greeted us this time!! I’m sure you guessed it! The light rain in the morning had made the beach sand quite sticky and an Indica didn’t even make to the beach. Got stuck right at the edge. My wife just gave me “the look” and I obediently walked away!
A refreshing dip among the white salty waves and the morning sunlight had completely recharged our batteries, our hearts as happy as a little child. We drove back making a pit stop at a very beautiful Shiv Mandir. Finally had tea at our hotel! Had breakfast and prepared for the drive back! It had become extremely hot and uncomfortable so we cancelled our plan to visit Dighi or Shrivardhan and decided to directly head home.
This is how ferocious the waves were.
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We took the simpler and obvious route through Mandgaon on the return journey which is a much better and scenic road than Goregaon. Ate lunch at Kamat’s on NH17 and drove through the beautiful Varandha ghat towards Pune. I’ll always cherish our first trip, even though we had a little inconvenience and things but gave us the exact peace and happiness we wanted. The perfect escapade!..
Thank you for reading. I hope it wasn’t too long for everybody’s patience! Cheers.
Some more pics of Varandha ghat on the return journey.