RoustAbout

The day could be divided into two clear parts. The first was our astounding visit to the Bhaja caves. We had to choose between Bhaja and Karla, and Diya reminded us that Dalrymple had described the beauty of Bhaja as rivalling that of the caves at Petra. Since the caves opened at 9.00am and our room came with complementary breakfast, we asked for an early breakfast and went off to see भजे लोणी as it is called in Marathis. Both Bhaja and Karla caves are roughly 10 kilometers from Lonavla and on either side of one of the several Mumbai – Pune highways. At a place called Karla (not the caves) we turned off the road towards Bhaja caves, We reached the Bhaja village around 9.30 am. There were several cars travelling with us and we thought they too carried tourists visiting Bhaja, but that was not so. There was a temple in the Bhaja village which drew more visitors than the caves. We knew we would have to climb some distance from the road, but we were not sure where the path began because ...

  Our plan to visit Lonavla was partly due to my desire to see the Buddhist caves that were close by. I had read about Karla, Bhaja and other less well-known caves in William Dalrymple’s newest book The Golden Road and was keen to check them out. We were expecting a 6 – 6.30 hour journey and we were out of the MTDC Ganapatipule resort by 7.15. The map read 296 km to destination and estimated arrival was 1. 21 pm. If we were in around that time we could probably make it one of the caves that day itself. The first stretch of 20 kilometres was on a flat plateau. It was later when I was reviewing the route that I came to learn that we had passed by a couple petroglyphs . We had seen petroglyphs at Usgalimal near Rivona in South Goa and the prehistoric rock carvings from 8-10000 years ago were very impressive.   At Jakadevi, a village where businesses had already opened and children were turned up and on their way school, we turned off towards a more rural road. The area became m...

We had been wrapping up our flat in Benaulim the previous day so were packed and ready to leave at 7.20 am. The car was gleaming as I had taken it to the car wash a day earlier Now it was free of all the sand that had collected in the crevices over the last four months. Since we were driving back, we were carrying back a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have if we were flying. The car slowly filled with the many big and small bags. Two of the bigger suitcases and a duffel bag were enough to fill the boot. Three suitcases that had the stuff we would use on the trip were put on the rear seat. We had packed biscuits, namkeen, energy bars, the makings of coffee and some fruits so that we were not stranded for food anywhere. We were now ready to leave and I was excited with a tinge of anxiety as I pressed the started button and we slowly moved forward. A short visual presentation Our first point of interest was Malvan, a coastal town in southern Maharashtra. We had been told that the Malvani cuis...