[abhi_tjet]

The Background:

It was quite a while - more than a year I suppose, since we (my best-half & me) embarked on a vacation or a leisure trip. My wife is more of a mountain person than a beach person (if that’s even a thing, I equally love both). We were scouting for places nearby since we weren’t planning for a long vacation.

The planning:
Ganpatipule is a destination which I always wanted to visit but somehow never planned till now. Even this time, a lot of cajoling was needed to consider the Konkan coast for this short trip (remember, wifey isn’t a beach person). After looking into various places and stay options and rejecting most of them (mostly due to tariffs which were way higher than they should be as per the reviews or photos available online), we finally zeroed on Ganpatipule as the destination.

Now for a place to stay, Westbay and The Fern looked good, but they were very costly. Westbay, further, didn’t have direct beach access. It is situated on a hilltop across the road in a secluded place outside Ganpatipule village. I generally consider state tourism properties depending on the reviews and availability. MTDC Ganpatipule looked good with usual cons of slow service and place not maintained properly kind of reviews. We weren't bothered with these and all the rest was quite good. Accordingly, we made the bookings for 2 nights and waited for D-day.

The Execution:
Unlike what we generally do, we got up a bit late, did some household chores and were only ready to leave by around 8:45 AM. We resorted to the fact that we have lost our ‘pro’ status in early morning start. Even my weekend bike rides are delayed quite a lot nowadays and I am only able to start around 7 AM. ok, let me focus back to travelogue without digressing more.

The drive - its been a while since Linea was on highway.


Starting odo shot


Onward Route:
Home - Tamhini – Mangaon (merge with NH66)– Chiplun (leave NH66) – Shrungartali – Abloli road – Bhatgaon bridge – Jakadevi – Ganpatipule.
No major bad section and we reached in around 7 hours at a leisurely pace. Traffic further reduced once we left NH66 and it was almost nil from Abloli road onwards.
Distance - 317 kms

The property
Our first impression was quite good. The property is huge and with no ends (almost). Its surrounded by beach and water from 3 sides. Our room was good with no odor, neat and clean. We were quite fresh and immediately started exploring the property.

The map. I am not sure if I have seen bigger property than this.


Our cottage. It was non sea view facing since the sea facing ones were all booked. However, the big window in the room gave beautiful sea view. To be honest, we were in room only for sleeping, we roamed around otherwise entire time.


The beautiful views from property. We just loved the place despite its shortcomings.


Sunset views, you bet!






The landscape of property. There are unwanted vegetation at quite a few places, but nothing to bother enough


The main entrance which leads to the temple


The main reason why we took the trip. MTDC Ganpatipule property is located adjacent to the temple which helped us in visiting temple quite a lot of times during our stay. We attended the evening Aarti on both days.


We started from home with some home made sandwiches and didnt stopped anywhere for lunch enroute. The famous vegetarian place in Ganpatipule which goes by name Bhau Joshi Bhojnalay only opens after 7 pm and we waited for the same. Most of the restaurants anyways close their kitchen between 3-7 pm. We didnt had any snacks at MTDC since their kitchen is common for veg/non-veg food. Accordingly, bought some fruits, visited temple and had lunch cum dinner directly at around 8 PM. The restaurant actually lived up to its name and we had one of the tastiest food there. The place was clean and food tasted like it was home made which we anyways prefer. We had dinner at the same place, the next night as well. I need to mention that I had the best 'Ukadiche Modak'(a Maharashtrian sweet delicacy) here.

The cosy bamboo cottages




All the exploration was done on foot and car wasn't used much. After all this, we slept like a log.

Guess who was at our door step the next two mornings

[abhi_tjet]

Dogs! There were lot many of them at the property. We just loved spending time with them.


For day 2, we had planned for many things initially, but we chose to not go anywhere and rather relax at property and explore nearby place.

The beautiful layout of Bamboo houses


Pathway to Tawish restaurant. Nice place to just chill and observe sea even if you arent eating in restaurant. We enjoyed tea from this place


The experience of having morning tea overlooking sea at a beach front hotel is priceless and underrated at same time. After soaking all the calm vibes which we can, got ready and started for temple. Had a breakfast at nearby place since Bhau Joshi Bhojnalay only opens at around 11:30 AM for breakfast cum lunch.

Linea at general reception parking. They have separate reception and parking for Bamboo house cottages. The distance between 2 section of property is around 500 mts and there are two ways to cover it. One is direct from the beach. We walked a couple of times from property to temple via beach. Other route is the normal one which is explained later below.


Sea view from temple premise


Visited Prachin Konkan museum nearby on foot. The place is nice where a guide explains you about how the konkani people lives in early days. They have used a part of forest and placed their props to make it more real. This place will be tricky in monsoon. They had an entry fees along with separate ticket for using camera(phone/digicam).

Museum Entrance


Ticket counter


Wait area where they allot a guide. One can't go without guide


Few pics from the Pracheen Konkan Museum - Bhagwan Parshuram, its said that Konkan belongs to him.


Gramdevta


home of a farmer


Grocery man


kitchen


tools man who prepare weapons and equipment


Border God


Sun was making its presence felt once we started back for room. Once we reached room, rested for a while and again went outside in property to sit at some new place under shade and observe sea and cool breeze despite the sun.

These doggos were with us entire time when we were on beach. The male tried a lot to catch some birds who were close to ground for catching some small insects washed from waves but was not successful and had to do with Marie biscuits which was with us.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=M575_Ctq...Ki-56W_ZlrtCCp

After a relaxed walk at the beach, It was close to 7 and we visited temple again for Aarti and then dinner. Just the way we did it a day before. After returning, sat again to observe the noise made by sea when water comes along the beach and retracts, only to start again. The peace which it gives, I suppose, just never gets old and is surreal.

Temple during evening time.


Colors of Ganpatipule


The other path to reach from resort's main area to Bamboo house section. We used car few times only to cover this distance since it becomes eerily silent during night. Its safe though, since its inside the premises.


Bamboo chair - Played ludo here after coming back from dinner and called it a day.


It was retracting time for us on Day 3.
Checkout time of property is 9 am and Check in 10:30 AM. Quite weird, I must say. We again had few cups of tea observing sea from the beach facing open top Tavish restaurant of MTDC and started for Aarey Ware beach road at 9 AM.

You can never have enough of sea views


Just neglect or harsh weather?


Winter was there!


Sunrise from other side of property.


Odo shot before starting return journey


I drove on Aarey-ware road and came back after refueling and taking cash after paying to the attendant online. The Bank of Maharashtra ATM didnt had the money during my entire stay.

Return route –
Ganpatipule – Jaigad-Tavsal ferry – Velneshwar Temple – Kirtanwadi tarf guhagar – Shrungartali – Chiplun – Mangaon – Tamhini – Home.
We took the 12PM ferry, made a small stop at Velneshwar temple and then stopped only at Orchard cafe for a plain bread butter since they were about to close at around 6:30 PM. This happened since we missed he only pure veg restaurant which is at Chiplun somehow. There are no good restaurant between Chiplun and Mangaon otherwise for Pure Veg people.
We reached home around 8:30 PM. This was my maiden drive in Tamhini during night. Traffic was moderate once came closer to Mangaon and it lasted till home.

Made a quick halt to visit Velneshwar temple


I have Jimny's photo at same place albeit the direction is reversed.


Explored the jetty option during return



Our vacation was made possible by MTDC - Thanks to them for this property


At the end, we loved the trip and this place has became my wife’s favorite now.

Some miscellaneous points and experience:

• Carry some cash, the Airtel network is patchy here.
• Bank of Maharashtra ATM was dry during our entire stay.
• Ganpatipule is surprisingly free from foul odor due to sea or some stagnated water or due to garbage.
• Regarding route options, I will prefer the onward route as compared to return.
• Linea performed splendidly for the most part. During return, 50-60 odd kms from home, a turbo hose came loose, which made Linea slightly sluggish and behave like a NA engine. I knew it was some clip which got loose or some boost leakage from somewhere. Still, there was no error on dashboard and it was performing nice till 2K rpm, so just pushed on till home. Got the hose tightened from Anil a few days later and its back to normal.
• Govt is trying hard to control plastic litter but we Indians(most of us at least) consider ourselves an entitled bunch and just love to litter. There were big grilled iron box kept at many places to throw the plastic bottles and other plastic stuff into it so the waste is contained. But, the box was empty and place was littered with waste of water bottles, cold drinks, shakes everywhere.

Thanks for reading guys!

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[AKSO]

Wel done. I miss that part of the coast and it has been a while since I have travelled to Ganpatipule, Harihareshwar, Dapoli etc. MTDC has the best hotel locations along the coast but in true government apathy style have neglected doing up these hotels to develop and promote tourism especially once the NH66 road work is complete.