"Expression of MY DAZE" - Analyzing Every Moment I Exist!

Holiday in Murud / Harnai

    Faced with a long weekend, Balam and I were desperate to get out of town for a little holiday far from the madding crowds. Unfortunately, Diwali weekend crept up too quickly and we had no plans. Maharashtra's Konkan Coast has some surprisingly nice beaches. So we decided at the last moment to head to Dapoli .

    We started off from Pune on the wrong foot though . Firstly, Sourav was not able to come because he some meetings to attend . So there were only three of us - Balam , Abhishek and me . Then , when we reached Swargate for our bus that was going to take us to Dapoli, the bus was an hour late ! We were travelling in one of those ST ' laal dabbas' literally meaning red boxes . The bus left Pune at 2:30 pm. Balam had got along his brand new Sony handycam.

    Well after the bus was on it's way and we reached the Bhor ghats , we managed to cheer up as we all thought that the scenery was pretty similar to that of Shillong. The scenery was truly breathtaking at some of the places. We got a few shots of the ghats on the handycam as we tried to use it properly .Our drive lead us to areas that were hardly populated at all .The bus journey though seemed to stretch on and on , more so as we had not had a proper lunch. The bus finally reached Dapoli at 9:30 pm.

    We were famished by now . We quickly headed to a hotel near the bus station at Dapoli. We had some fried pomfrets and 'surmai' curry cooked in typical Konkan style. We had our fill with a lot of rice !

    Now we were ready to hit the beach ! I had a plan that we would stay on the beach for the night and just have fun . I managed to convince Balam and Abhishek about this . We needed to find an auto now to take us to the beach which was around 16 km away . We found an auto and I tried to expalin to him where we wanted to go to (We did not know the name of the beach! ). The auto driver got it all wrong and he took us to some beach that was stinking of dry fish. So we had to ask him to take us away from there and to a better place . We had plans to see the Harnai fort in the morning , so we asked the auto driver to leave us on the beach near the fort . So the auto driver took us to the Harnai beach . It was now 11 pm.

    We were on this beach that was fringed by grass . The sea was near and we could see the surf breaking in the distance.But we could not see anything on the beach as it was a pitch dark night .The sky overhead provided an amazing sight .The stars were out in all their glory above us. We could also see international flights fly by high above us.

    We wanted a place where on the beach where we could sit down and enjoy ourselves. We went looking along this road that ran parallel to the beach. Unfortunately for us , we could not find any nice place and we had to walk back to where we had started. We sat at this small clearing near the beach. We all had something to say for the camera . I am sure Balam was not too happy , what with us ending up like this ! Abhishek was very excited though beacuse this was his first view of the sea ! I was enjoying myself . Balam was dead tired after the last two days of travelling and soon fell asleep . Abhishek and I tried to sleep but the insects would not let us . We had to wake Balam up again and ask him to come with us to this temple we had seen earlier. We spent the night sleeping on the steps of the temple . I am not too sure but the priest might have had a scare when he saw us all lying there and hearing Balam snoring loudly!

    We left for the beach again at dawn to catch some nice shots as the sun rose above the hills on the east and the haze lifted so that the earth and the sea slowly became visible. We saw that the beach was totally empty except for some people from the village who were answering the call of nature leading Balam to call this the 'toilet beach'. We had a walk along the entire beach none the less.
We decided we would go to the Murud beach . We had to walk the few kilometers there as there were no vehicles available . Balam had a sore on his foot and he was finding it difficult to walk.

    We chanced upon an advertising board down that was downright hilarious . The ad for a hotel on the Murud beach had such spelling that we could not stop laughing . Couple was spelled as 'coupal' and to top it all , bath tub was spelled as 'bath tuff' !

    We reached the village soon . It remined me of the villages in Kerela actually as the environment was so green. And we chanced upon Keralites, who had come to visit the village. We saw this really old temple in the middle of the village . We were hungry now after the walk , so we had 'vada' and tea. The 'pav' that goes with the 'vada' was not available as it was just 6:30 in the morning.
We now started to walk to the beach . We were looking for a hotel to put up in. I knew of some hotels at the far end of the beach , so I asked Balam and Abhishek to follow me. We saw a few people on the beach now . The water was looking very enticing and we all wanted to jump in but we wanted to get settled in somewhere first . We planned to have a bath as the humidity was making us sweat and we felt sticky all over.

    We soon reached the far end of the beach . This side of the beach was more rocky and much less crowded . The road here that runs parallel to the beach is a really wonderful sight. We were exhausted by now and the first hotel we enquired at was full . We sat down next to the road in this wonderful little clearing . We felt the wind on our faces. That was very relaxing . We sent Abhishek to enquire at the other hotel nearby. That too was full as it was Saturday !

    We decided to take a dip in the sea and move back to Pune in the evening ! We rested for a while on the grass . After this we all jumped into the water !

    We were in the water for more than two hours ! We loved it so much . Balam and Abhishek were a bit hesitant to come deep into the water as they could not swim . I told them not to worry as the water was shallow. Balam and Abhishek both wanted to learn some swimming . I helped then out a bit . They were floating around happily soon ! We all really enjoyed ourselves in the water.
After we came out of the water , we were exhausted . We sat on the beach chatting away . This beach was heavenly!

    We were soon very hungry and decided to find something to eat . Abhishek found out from the hotel nearby that their food was over . So we needed to go back to the other end of the beach but now we were too tired to walk back. We managed to find an auto thanks to a good samaritan . The auto driver took us to the 'Murud Beach Resort ' .

    At the resort , I went and asked if they had any food for us . The owner said that we would have to wait for an hour. We decided to wait . At the end of the hour , the food was laid out in front of us and we literally attacked it with gusto . We had rice , rotis , dal , fish curry and fish fry spread out in front of us. The food was wonderful . We really enjoyed it .

    After the lunch was over , we found that it was getting pretty hot . I decided to hit the water while Balam and Abhishek sat on the beach . Balam fell asleep under the hot sun . I had some fun in the water . After I got back , I found Balam still asleep . He was feeling dehydrated by now with the sun beating down on him . I pulled him up and asked them to follow me to some shade near the beach . We settled ourselves on some grass under the shade of the trees and tried to get some sleep . But this was not to be because of the insects that annoyed us no end. We still managed to get some rest.

    We hit the water again after we got some rest ! We had good fun again . There were a few people on the beach again as the heat became lesser with the evening approaching . We were tired after the exercise we had that day . We needed a bath badly now . We asked at the resort and they allowed us to have a bath . We all got fresh. We all felt much better after the bath .We ordered some tea and 'bhajjis' for our evening snack.

    We sat at the resort and watched as the sun slowly disaapeared over the horizon. We saw that a lot of people had now gathered to get a glimpse of the sunset . Unfortunately the battery of the handycam got over and we could not capture the beauty of the sunset.

    We decided to have our dinner at the resort before heading back . We ordered the same food we had for lunch . We were very hungry . The mosquites kept us company as we waited for our dinner to arrive which seemed to take unusually long for us hungry guys.

    By 8 we were ready to start on our trip back to Pune. It was really a difficult task convincing ourselves that we had to head back to the crowds . Do all good things have to have an end?

posted by Sabya @ 8:20 AM