Tapola - the stress buster.

If the monsoons in the city (Mumbai-300kms away)/Pune-150kms away) are getting on your nerves with all the flooding, building crashes, road accidents, road cave-ins and tree falls, don’t despair. Just hop on to your favourite mode of transport and get up to Mahabaleshwar and then down to Tapola to enjoy the true beauty of nature in the rains. There are plenty of agro tourism homestays out there that will help you unwind and awaken the poet, romantic, playwright, storyteller or maybe assist you to meditate, introspect and commune with nature in all its glory.

Last weekend we, a group of friends, drove down to Tapola and had the time of our lives. We stayed

in a River view Agro Tourism homestay and could view the gently flowing Koyna river rippling with raindrops and then calming down, and it had a muddy look to show how much of fun it had rolling 

down the hills.

One afternoon we requested the homestay to get us fish from the river for lunch. They obliged and fried and curried the fish. It was very tasty and as fresh as it can be.

If you want to go boating or kayaking or just plain cruising on the river, there is a boat club which conducts all these activities for a reasonable cost in downtown Tapola. After that if you wish you can spend some time sipping a beer or two in the local bar for local flavour. You will be pleased with all the creature comforts and consider yourself blessed if you don’t have a BSNL mobile connection as that is the only one that works in Tapola. And if the need arises to make an urgent telephone call, the locals are very helpful and lend you their mobile phone to assist you make that important call.

But of course, unless you plan to stay there and write a book or a screenplay or maybe have your easel and paints with you, after a couple of nights you want to get back to the urban buzz.

On the return, near Panchgani, there is this beautiful one street village Bhilar where almost all the 

houses lining the street are libraries and each house specialises in a specific category of books like History, Science, Politics, Fiction, autobiographies and the like. But all the books are in Marathi and anyone can drop in and browse/read to their hearts’ content. Most of these house have some beautiful

murals on their walls too. Hence painting and reading seems to be the mainstay in Bhilar. We visited

the house that had fiction and browsed around on our return to Mumbai.

And of course don’t miss visiting MAPRO garden which has a great variety of crushes, juices, jams and the like to carry sweet memories home.

If you are a foodie the ‘Jai Bhavani’ restaurant in Katraj is a must visit for its yummy delicious

 mutton and Jowar Bhakri, a typical Maharashtrian meal followed by solkadi as a digestive. After this

 meal just ensure you don’t drive/ride immediately as it does tend to make you drowsy with satiation.

Panchgani

For me, Panchgani had always been either a transit point or a place to visit strawberry fields and shoot the breeze on the tableland.

Last month we decided to visit Panchgani and spend a couple of nights and enjoy whatever the place has on offer.

Panchgani has been famous for its residential academic institutions where a lot of parents, from neighbouring urban sprawls like Mumbai and Pune, sent their children to be groomed into adulthood.

Panchgani is very laid back as compared to its happening neighbour Mahabaleshwar hence frequented only by those who wish to unwind by going for long walks, listening to bird song and 

eating delicious omelettes in ‘Lucky Store and Bakery’ and parathas in Akbarallys or maybe drive 

down for a Parsi meal to the homely restaurant ‘Rustam’s Strawberry Inn’ on the road to 

Mahabaleshwar.

One place that should not be missed is the Mapro Garden on the road to Mahabaleshwar. It is very 

beautifully maintained and you can pick up your stock of squashes and juices of fresh berries apart from the visit to the wonderful chocolate factory in the complex.

Anytime of the day you feel bored or feel like inhaling fresh air, just go for a walk on the tableland. 

If you like to ride horses, you can do that too or if you feel like going for a ride in the horse cart, 

even that is possible! The options are available for whichever way you wish to spend your time.

Then there are stalls selling the famous corn patties which are yummy to be followed by 

strawberries with fresh or ice cream! Heaven!

Panchgani has me hooked. Shall visit again soon!! You should too!

We stayed in Millennium Hotel which is behind the tableland and not on the main road but we loved it for its ‘away, but there’ location. There are quite a few accommodation options available to suit all types of budgets.

By road Panchgani is just 95kms from Pune and 250kms from Mumbai. Pune and Mumbai are well connected by air, rail and road, nationally and internationally.

Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh

Amarkantak also know as Teertharaj or King of pilgrimages is situated in Madhya Pradesh.It is the birthplace of the Narmada and Son rivers.
Situated at a height of 3500 feet it is a natural hill station with wonderful weather.
We went on a guided tour of Amarkantak.
Our 1st stop was at the under construction ‘Shree Yantra Temple’. The Acharya 

Mandaleshwar of the Attal Akhada Sri Swami Shukdevanadji is constructing a Temple in the form of the Maha Meru Shri Yantra in Amarkantak for many years now. In the field of Tantra, the worship of Sri Vidya is considered to be an evolved, sophisticated, elite and mysterious system of worship of the supreme power in the form of the Divine Mother as the beautiful goddess, Tripura Sundari or Empress Beauty of the three Worlds. Sri Yantra is the instrument of this worship. In Sri Vidya worship, the system involves focusing of the entire energies of the universe. The Bindu or point in the Sri Yantra in one aspect signifies this process. This is the zenith of all methods of worship. Through this system of worship one may achieve almost anything that is desired.

Then we visited the source of the Son river. It was on a beautiful isolated spot on top of a hill.

A beautiful place to meditate.

Next was the source of the Narmada river. The history of this area goes back to the 8th 

century when Sankaracharya built a Surya Kund to specify the origin of Narmada river.He also installed the idol of Shiva at Pataleshwar in Amarkantak. All these temples are in the Nagara style of architecture.

A little distance from Gaumukh, the source of the Narmada, is Kapildhara, where the 

Narmada leaves Anuppur District and enters Dindori District by cascading more than 20 metres down a sheer basalt rock.

Amarkantak is a lovely peaceful hill station and a beautiful place to unwind. There are no luxury hotels there but reasonably priced clean decent accomodation apart from a few dharamshalas.

Getting there:

By Air: The nearest airport is 245 km away to Amarkantak at Jabalpur. Pre-paid taxi services are available from airport to Amarkantak.

By Train: The nearest railhead to Amarkantak is Pendra Road at a distance of 17 km from the heart of the city. Anuppur at distance of 48 km from Amarkantak is also convenient for the tourists.