Matheran

2 Days 1 Night
Total Expense: Rs. 350

   Matheran trip was the first for us when we stepped out of our doors with little bit of nervousness and a feeling excitement which made us act over cautious for ourself and for our friends. You can address me as a detail planner and respecting this we started our preparation two weeks before.

   We began with deciding route which we will take to reach there, allotted time to each destination, fixed target. I have a dinosaur in my group so next thing was to make arrangement of snacks for him as well as for us. Snacks included biscuits, wafers, farsan, chocolates, Dabur Glucose,etc.

   It was Saturday, we had decided to meet Bhayandar station at 5 AM somehow after too much of gali galauj all four assembled and took 6:22 AM Churchgate local. From Bhayandar itself we took tickes for Neral the base station from where people either catch mini train or hire taxi to reach Matheran hill station.

Enjoying train ride from Dadar we reached Neral around 8 AM and decided to use legs to reach Matheran.

   Starting one and half hour was very exciting as we quickly climbed a good amount of height from where we enjoyed looking at tiny houses which clubbed to become villages. Two chavas Kodhi and Gangya (Sachin) from the first minute itself started posing this irritated me a bit as we were slowing down and sun was getting high.

Summer kept us away from enjoying beautiful green sceneries and waterfalls. But nevertheless this place is wonderful throughout the year.

At lake. From left: Sachin, Rajkumar and Niraj (me)

   There are two-three routes to climb up. The best one is by using road and other are trekking routes. We preferred roads :) Climbing was not much difficult specially when you are surrounded with such surroundings. But when we saw a truck which was carrying food and vegetables for some hotel up there we lost our patience and negotiated the truck driver for 10 Rs reach.

   You need to pay a nominal entry fees to the authority to enter the hill station. Collected receipts and we started searching for keeping our luggage. We settled down for Rs 500 for a single room which was around 400 metre away from main market. Selecting residence away from market as two advantages i. You get comparatively cheaper and ii. The main reason for visiting hill station i.e. enjoying solitude is hundred percent guaranteed.

Valley point

    

    We refreshed ourselves and moved to main market. Market is around 500 m long where all hotels are lined up and you can shop for clothes, glares, hats,etc. It was around 1:30 PM so we were having complete afternoon. So decided to visit a lake which takes around 20 minutes from market. Same day we also visited Sunset point and Valley point named by us.

   

    We returned to main market by 8 PM, we were getting desperate to search a cheap veg hotel. Inquired one or two and got to two about a Jain hotel located in cross road in main market only. Paid Rs 50 for good food. As soon as we left the main market it was 101 % dark with mountains and there long dense trees all around. Our room was half a km away from market. It was pretty sure to hear strange voices from nearby shrubs we ignored considering that of a monkey. Our blood was running with good pressure and we were giving promises to stay together. This was all because it was our first experience. After some 200 m we noticed rail track of toy train which passed from main market to our room. Took that and started moving our feet quickly. Entered our room regained our normal bp and started matter of belonging (jokes normally part of long friendship).

    Slept around 3 AM and woke up at 8 AM. Went to main market had breakfast and started searching how to get down to Neral. It was decided we would travel by toy train. It think was the biggest mistake we did i.e. traveling by toy train without getting prior reservation. From 10 AM to 1:30 PM our time was wasted in standing in queue to get tickets. The only thing we did after getting reservation is we went back to our room packed our stuffs and returned to back to Matheran station as our train was at 2:30 PM. Toy train journey was awesome. I would recommend everybody to either go up or come down with Toy train. From Neral it was a comfortable journey back to our home :)

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