Ganpatipule, Day 3 and the END

In continuation to Day 2...

I remember being inebriated with the Ganpatipule memories on our way back and good that I could pen the first two days the immediate next day when the hangover was still on and so was the sun tan...Like radioactivity, memories are also said to have half lives, I have heard of 8 hours..and I can already feel them discrete and broken. Trying my best to put down both activities and the thoughts on the third day..

To avoid the heavy rush post morning, we decided we would rush to the beach as early as possible. I think we were on the beach by 8 am and we were greeted by atleast a hundred more similar thinkers there. So our early wasn’t so early after all. While I was so ready to plunge into the water, mom and dad were more worried about a safe place for the footwear. Finally finding one, we embraced the water and were lost in it for the next 3 hours or so. At his age, it was a treat to see dad excited about each coming wave (and mind you..there were many mighty ones...). So I had a good companion who could share the excitement. Mom retired to the shallow waters in no time. Talking about the waves, there was a great variety- from the soft ones that just pop you half a metre up and down to the strong ones that hit on your back to the mighty ones that engulf you and throw you nearer to the sands. Those mighty ones, they surely “swept me off my feet” literally... :)  :)  ...When you try to get back on your feet in the shallow waters with a disoriented view, the sand bruises your knees badly and the more time you spend in it, the more the caustic effect of the salt water. As time passed we could sense the increased force of the water pulling us back in as also the water advancing more and more on the beach. In some time, there was a police team on the beach asking everyone to get back out of the water saying “samudra khawalla aahe ( the sea is getting rough)” We were almost done and left without regret. I could see few picking up fights with the police (some ppl just can’t wait to start a fight)...on a trivial issue.. i am sure. With water still blocking my ears and my head feeling like a water balloon, we had breakfast at the “Annapoorna hotel”. Apparently, Annapoorna has a good breakfast service with quick vada, dosa, pohe etc. Being in Konkan and not trying sea food would have angered the sea food gods (whoever they are)....so we tried sea food at Hotel Samir, which is right opposite to our first lodge Morya. 

Then we were off to more spots, first being Kavi Keshavsut memorial. This is a place dedicated to the memory of eminent Marathi poet Krishnaji Keshav Damle popularly known as Kavi Keshavsut. The place is actually the birthplace of Keshavsut so one gets to see his ancestral home filled with antique utensils, tools and instruments. In the vicinity of the house are a lot of plaques that have his poetry printed on them. Mom and dad, having read his compositions in their school time textbooks could connect with the place easily. I could understand only one or two compositions fully, thanks to the uncolloquial language, the elevated thinking of the poet and the figures of speech for poetic effect. There is another room where compositions of all great poets of the era have been put. Luckily, I could identify some of them and finally felt a little bit at home- Kusumagraj, Ga di Madgulkar, Swatantryaveer Savarkar, Shantabai Shelke to name a few. The place is indeed a treat for poetry loving folks. Next, we headed to an aquarium, which though I had no hopes from, was pushed for by mom and dad. A small hall, it did have some common and few exotic fish variety but nothing much impressive, and not worth visiting (so no pics), especially since it did not focus on the regional fish population. And above all, pathetic English translation for describing each variety. So please skip it, unless you have some troublesome kid who gets entertained and calmed down by seeing fish move in a small tank... :| ..

The next and the main attraction for the day was the Jaygad Killa (Jaygad fort), close to 40 km from Ganpatipule. Built during Shivaji’s reign, it is a fort built by the sea. I could gather only some logical importance from the fort, understanding its structure, but nothing of the history of the place, thanks to absence of guides and no history spewing posters. But we were there for quite some time, enjoying the scenery of the place. In the images alongside, you can see the moat around the fort, the observation posts and the windows for positioning canyons.

Next stop was the Jaygad Bandar (Jaygad port). There was a ferry service available that takes you from Jaygad to a place called Tavsaal. While it ferries vehicles too, we planned otherwise since the queue for vehicles was huge so is the extra effort it takes to get a vehicle on and off the ferry. Getting off at Tavsaal, we wandered around the place for some time, having tea at a small local shop..  :) , pretty happy with our decision of not bringing the car along seeing the long queue on this side too. A good capture here was that of a huge mango tree fully laden with fruit. It was an amazing thing to see. From far, you could only make out white dots on a green tree. Only after a second do you realise, it’s a mango tree. Getting back to the port, we had to wait for atleast an hour for the ferry to return. As night falls, the water filled with lights of goods carrier ferries, small boats, construction cranes, one keeps guessing which one is the right ferry, always hopeful. Finally, it arrived, starting the journey after hell lot of chaos fitting vehicles onto it. It is like a mathematical problem. Fit smaller rectangles each of various sizes into a big rectangle in an optimum manner. These people do it every hour of the day on each side. Don't know if they think of mathematics though...

We reached back to the lodge after a pretty confusing drive, going in the wrong direction for almost 2-3 km before returning to the right one. The thing about night driving is, what seems pretty obvious and easy during the day seems to confuse routes at night, especially in a place where there are no street lights and no homes in sight. A light veg dinner ended the day. Next morning, we paid another visit to the Ganpatipule temple, helluva rush being a Sunday. 11 am, we were on our way back to Mumbai. I had known all along that it would be a difficult drive, being a continuous 10 hour journey, unlike our arriving trip where we took a night stop at Mangaon. The fatigue was tremendous. I was wrestling in my seat, my knee hurting from pressing the clutch over and over again thanks to the villages that keep coming on the highway and then the city traffic. A cramp in the neck since the day before, made things even worse, making it difficult to check vehicles zooming past. I heaved a sigh of relief as we reached home and I landed on my bed...dreaming about Ganpatipule and the unexplained.

Let me put together the acknowledgements and few lessons that I gathered:

1. I am thankful to mom and dad that they could accompany me and I thank god for having such sporty parents (at their age) who gave in to my wishes. The friend drain (and brain drain) to US has made holidays and weekends torturous for the last three years. Hopefully, I should get drained too in some time..though not sure about the brain part.. :P
2. Ganpatipule, for an amateur driver of 6 years, is a 9-10 hour journey, if you want to reach there and safely.. :). So if you plan to reach the same day, the best time to leave would be very early mornings (3-4 am). That way, you escape the city traffic, you get to experience lesser heat, you can safely take breaks in between without worrying about the time and most importantly you can enjoy the journey.
3. You need to be extremely careful about the driving. Please excuse me, pro drivers. Sometimes driving on a highway, especially at night, becomes mechanical and the flashing headlights tend to hypnotise. NH-17 is a monster with a single lane for each direction. Hopefully, the road-widening work on NH-17 should complete quickly and make driving safer.
4. You definitely need to slow down in villages. But additionally, elsewhere, you should also be on the lookout for animals - cattle, monkeys, dogs and unintelligent humans crossing the road out of nowhere. A single sudden brake on NH-17 can turn into an exciting contraption for Yamdev!!
5. Please ensure that in no way are you disturbing the sanctity of a holy place by any means. One may be a non-believer or a forward thinking person, but it is equally un-forward to mock other’s beliefs.
6. A final plea for all people who love Ganpatipule, Konkan or for that matter any tourist place. These places are meant for everyone, for generations to come. If you are done seeing them, you should make sure that you maintain these places clean for other people to come, by not littering the place, using the garbage cans, disciplining your kids, if any, to do the same. Do not think, “It’s just a small wrapper...”. A small wrapper can be a trigger for many others to make a dump out of a clean place.

I think, that’s enough... Do visit Konkan, keep posting and I would love feedback, if you have read this monster of a post....

PS: Please ignore the timestamps on the photos. They are off by an hour or more. I have set it right now, on the camera.

Ganpatipule, Day 2

Sequel to Day 1...

By Day 2 (1st June), we had decided that we need to extend the stay one day more to 3rd June and it wasn't an issue since it was a Sunday. As is always the case, a visit to any region in case of our family starts with the major temple in the area. I have no issues with that. In fact, I love it. I love to take in the piety of the place, learning about the history of the temple, the beliefs and trying to remember and link them with whatever little I already know. So the first spot for the day was the Ganpatipule temple, a temple devoted to Lord Ganesh as the name suggests. We also checked out of our first lodge and shifted to Durvankur. Luckily, Durvankur is at a walking distance from the temple and the beach. Before I miss it, I need to mention an ingenious method of drying clothes that I found at Morya lodge, which I had only heard of but never seen. Check the images and you will find out. No more neck straining for pushing clothes onto the drying rods....

The temple, the Ganpatipule beach and the MTDC resort are juxtaposed to one another. With the sea touching the temple, the scenery is awesome, but the popular beach also makes it kind of messy I feel. The sanctity of the place is diluted to some extent thanks to the beach-going public. The temple does the job of mentioning that devotees should try and wear traditional clothes such that it does not become a distraction for others. However, it is not just the clothes, it is the overall atmosphere. Add to that few groups of people who feel it is just another spot and try to "cover" the beach and the temple at the same time and that makes it all the more weird. Instead, imagine a temple that is separated from public places and touching the sea and you will probably agree with me. To some extent, Harihareshwar was inline with this environment and it was indeed pleasurable. About the MTDC resort, I have read good reviews about it. I even called the resort before leaving Mumbai and found that since May-June is a "tourist season", the booking has to be done atleast a week in advance and it can also be done online.

So going back to where I was, we reached the temple in the morning. There was hardly any queue being a weekday. On our way to the sanctum sanctorum (gabhara), we read and heard about the history of the place. It can be read in the image (click to see enlarged image). The temple is built on a hill. The gabhara houses only the chest and the stomach of Lord Ganesh, the  trunk is at a different place on the hill. In short the whole of the mountain is a representation of the Lord and so the pradakshina around the temple is a walk around the whole hill. The pradakshina is 1 km long (approx. 15 min). The place can get confusing for one who is not curious. The pradakshina starts near the main entrance of the temple and ends near the actual temple building. 

Though there are painted messages saying "Pradakshinecha Marg", you will find ignorant beach-going people or others loitering along the way with their footwear on. It can get irritating sometimes, but that's the way it was supposed to be. Post 10 am, walking on the pradakshina path can be quite terrifying, considering the laterite stone. Not only does it become super hot, but is also irregular in shape with peaks that can give you acupressure, acupuncture and terror all at the same time.. :| .....The prasad (generally ladoos) was not available for distribution due to heavy rush and this continued over the weekend when we paid another visit to the temple before we started our return journey. Bought a bag of karvand fruit and finished it in no time.. :)... Had some quick food at Shivanandan and we were on our way to Pavas. 

Pavas is approx. 40 km away from Ganpatipule and is popular for the place of samadhi of Swami Swarupananda. It was a calm place and it is more rewarding for people who are interested in spirituality, who are aware of his teachings. Amongst us, only dad had some idea about it while me and mom paid our respects by being quiet. We also had the privilege to find Parmarth Niketan, which is a centre that follows Parampujya Kalavati Aai. Such centres are wide spread across Mumbai and Belgaum. We attended a quick bhajan and were on our way out to return back.  

The way to Pavas and back was quite beautiful, running alongside the coastline, passing by beaches of Vaare, Aare, Bhatye and few others, each view picturesque. For me, as the saying goes, the journey was more pleasurable than the destination... :) .. Also, we enjoyed another shot of Kokam sherbet at a stall between Aare and Vaare beaches. The stall owner was a good person and also helped us with directions. It was an obvious stop on our way back too. But we tried Bhel this time. What's better than slowly eating away bhel while looking at the sun set into the sea at a distance...We also made a quick stop at Aare beach before that. The soil here was quite loose. One step would sink your feet 3 inches into it. The water looked quite clear though. Ganpatipule beach was the plan for the next morning...that and more in the next post...

         

Ganpatipule, Pre and In situ Day 1

This is going to be a huge post, probably divided into multiple parts, partly because of my pre-knowledge that I would write about it, partly because of the supporting photos and of course the non-viscous nature of my thoughts.

So mom says she is taking a "sick leave" from 30th May to 1st June. I pounced upon this opportunity and made her agree that we are going to Ganpatipule from 30th May to 2nd June. It was almost a month since I had first mentioned it always to be dismissed due to her non-availability. It took breakfast on 30th May to convince both mom and dad on a common plan. I was off to research. Reading online about Ganpatipule told me it is a 357km distance and should take 6 hours to reach there. I tried calling one of the resorts to book our stay there and the lady on the other side says, "No, you will not be able to reach here today. It will take you a minimum of 10 hours driving." It was 2 pm on 30th May when this happened  and my spirits were half dampened. Mom already started suggesting her best solution," No problem, we will start tomorrow morning." I do not know what gave me the stubbornness, but I was hell bent on leaving that very day, come what may. We finally agreed that we would take a halt midway for the night and continue the next day. So, off we were at 4pm, me in the driver's seat..after all..long drives have always been a passion...

A tea halt (unavoidable..:P) at Kamats hotel near Karnala and we were already seeing the wisdom of the lady whom I talked to. We were unable to go more than an avg. 35-40 km/hr (peaks of 90 max.) due to traffic conditions and night was going to be even scarier. So while we continued, we started finalising on a mid way halt location..deciding on Chiplun since it is pretty much a town in that area and it would be easy to get a place to stay. The night drive was very scary especially because it was NH-17 (also known as Bombay Goa highway..has just one lane per direction without a road divider ..one overconfident and misjudged overtake...and you will be history..only to be remembered as an idiot to have tried overtaking on NH-17). While adrenaline rushed as I sped my way, the responsibility of the safety of the whole "crew" kept me calm. Luckily I was aware of the perils of this route thanks to few experiences during our visit to Diveagar and Harihareshwar (haven't blogged about it) in Jan 2011 ( I was the lucky driver then too..:)..). As the clock ticked 9 pm, we were still far from Chiplun and had to take a stop. Dad suggested stopping at Mangaon which he knew was a place popular for the spiritual guru Tembe swami who used to be a resident of this place. So we stopped at a lodge called "Madhu Shanti lodge" in Mangaon. We would have been doomed had we not found this place. All other lodges in this area were "unfit" for any middle class "family". It turned out to be a costly affair, paying for the whole day while staying just for the night. But most hotels that we encountered had fixed check-in and check-out times. So if you reach at non standard times, you lose. 

                                         

   

                                                       

   

The next day starts with news of the Nation wide BANDH. I was ignorant about it while mom had forgotten (good for me) about it. We had planned on checking out at 7am from the hotel. While dad was a bit neutral (as always) and I was near successful in convincing him to start out, mom made it pretty clear that she will not move out until the bandh subsides while also convincing dad with her "what can happen" stories. Add to that the news channels beaming stories about bus windows being smashed in Pune, traffic services disturbed in Delhi and blah blah. Frankly she almost got me convinced for some time that we should not leave, my stubbornness getting me back to my senses. During our stay there, we tried to find out about a popular temple that is associated with Tembe swami only to find out that this was a different Mangaon. The Mangaon known for Vasudevanand Saraswati or Tembe swami was near Sawantwadi, a long way from there. But anyways, thanks to him, we landed in a safe place. :)...After three hours of debate, I got mom and dad convinced to adopt a "slow and steady" strategy. We were out again at 11 am (damn!!) heading towards Ganpatipule. There was not a sign of bandh anywhere on the road. Everything looked pretty smooth, but you cannot be sure. On the way, we found some cashew trees and mom collected a few cashew fruits from under them, desperately searching for more and more. We reached Ganpatipule safely at 2:30 pm, the trip distance from home to Ganpatipule measuring almost 360 km (pretty close..). 

We checked into the first lodge (Shri Morya Lodge) that we found inhabitable without any recce of the area. We were pretty tired thanks to the undying heat and the weak AC that Alto offers. Mom agreed that it was a good decision to start from Mangaon (one victory). She also agreed that had we waited for another day in Mumbai and tried to start on 31st May, we would have stayed home another day thinking about the bandh(second victory..:)..). "Shri Ganesh Krupa" is a good hotel just behind Morya lodge. Loved the food there, though it's only Pure Veg. We did not have the strength to frolick in the hot waters of the Arabian Sea at 4 o clock in the evening. So we thought we will do some sightseeing instead. So enter Prachin Konkan. It is a place where they have tried to put forth the image of a typical konkan village and its members including the khot (the village head), the kumbhar (potter), the nabhi (barber) etc., the tools, instruments they use, and how the village functions as a whole. It has also maintained a collection of fruit-bearing / flower-bearing  trees and spices popular in the Konkan region. Relished the first Kokam sarbat for the day there and enjoyed it thoroughly.The concept of Prachin Konkan is good, but the guide, especially the one that we got, was pathetic as she went on and on with her content without the full stops and the commas. You had to listen carefully to make sense out of it.  

                                              

Out from there, mom and dad suggested a rent-check of the nearby lodges. With a balance between quality, availability and pricing, we found that Durvankur lodge would be a better fit for us since it was cheaper than Morya and the place felt better with similar services. Happy to have found a good place, we returned home planning about the next day while also relishing another Kokam drink, this time, Kokam soda at Shivnandan hotel which is in the same premises (probably also owned by the same family) as Durvankur. The sour taste of Kokam mixed with an effervescent and cold soda is a nice and refreshing experience. Thus on a bubbly note ended a very eventful day one in Ganpatipule...