Sounds weird? but yes. Couldn’t stop myself from getting on to a one day tour to Alibag on 14th Mar 2020 when India was passing through the first phase of COVID-19, the invisible enemy who, some say, got jumped in humans after a gourmet customer in popular fish market of China’s Wuhan city, drank ‘Soup of Bat’! Oh my God…this really sounds crazy...
This was mid of March. Weather was pleasant. We started in the afternoon with a plan to stay at Alibag overnight and return back the next day afternoon. Pune to Alibag journey is approx...130 km on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Alibag is a well-developed coastal town having a beautiful beach along the Arabian Sea. We reached the beach at 6pm and were fortunate to see the Sunset on the horizon.
Because of Coronavirus alert, the beach was having very less crowd in spite of it being a weekend. The beach sport activities like ATV riders, horse riders, etc. were idle and were offering big discounts. Demand-Supply economics was evident. After spending an hour at the beach, we were searching for accommodation nearby so that we could again come to the beach early morning, next day. We thought of taking benefit out of the prevailing Demand-Supply economics and selected a sea facing hotel room after hard bargain.
Now it was time for a good and hygienic dinner. Due to the viral situation, it was risky to eat outside especially when you have kids with you. But then we had no option but to go with one. We could find one Veg restaurant named ‘Atithi’. After all our culture taught us ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ that is ‘Guests are God’ we trusted the restaurant to serve hygienic food to at least its GODs! Jokes apart, the food was really good and liked by all of us and the ambience was clean. So after returning back to the hotel room we retired for the day listening the sound of waves and a long view of sea from our room window.
Next day morning, we all got ready in adventure suits and started from the room at 6 am for the real fun in water. Alibag beach is clean but the sand is mixed with black soil or something of that sort. Making sand castle was not possible and the kids didn’t enjoy it there being a muddy sand. Kolaba fort was just a 10 minutes’ walk inside water. One can take a horse baggy or a boat or even a walk to the fort depending upon water level in the sea.
Kolaba fort was one among the many forts ruled by the great Maratha king Shivaji during 18th century. The Maratha admiral Kanhoji Angre established Navy headquarter at Kolaba. After Kanhoji, this fort subsequently fell in the hands of Portuguese, Sindhs and East India Company. It seemed, the fort once had many buildings, palaces, treasuries, horse stables and gardens within it. The fort was strategically important because Angre controlled the coastal length between Mumbai and Janjira from this fort. Currently it is protected by The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
Some interesting pics of structures within the fort:
After spending quality time exploring history, we moved on to enjoy the beach and went up to a group of fishermen who were harvesting their catch from net. It was a fun to play in the sea water and was worth it, especially for kids.
While returning back to the hotel room, the ever crowded Alibag beach was conspicuous by its calmness and a fearful silence due to the prevailing global pandemic. After checkout, we went back to Hotel Atithi for our lunch and then embarked on the return journey to Pune.
During our journey and stay, we tried to maintain sufficient hygiene, ensured we didn’t go to any crowded place and even avoided halt at the food mall.
Rest all was taken care by the GOD OF GOOD TIMES!