I was travelling in Dwarka( You can click here to read about Dwarka trip) when I received a message from my friend Ajay as to whether I would be interested in joining him for the road trip to Jawhar, though I was travelling and knew that there would be hardly a gap of 2-3 days between my 5 days trip of Gujarat and this trip I was still not deterred away and I said I'll be joining him. Dil toh pagal hai...???? ????
Talking of Jawhar, you will be surprised to know that it is actually a hill station at around 440 metres above sea level. More than its hill station exploits its more visited for the the palace and Waterfall ! The best time to visit Jawhar is in monsoon , but as we are incorrigible wanderers so seasons are not a constraint for us.Ab jo dil kiya, toh nikal pade hum.
We are early birds???? hence I started from my house at around 5:30 am and reached Mira Road Railway station where one of our friend was getting a car. One car and 4 of us singing Our Journey: Suhana safar aur yeh mausam hasin ???????? we were off to our Weekend Wandering.
We took to the Mumbai Ahmedabad Highway, the morning was still dark, sun was just trying to come out of the blankets of clouds and apni toh bas... Manu bhai ghadi chali pum pum...???????????? When we were planning this trip I remembered that there is a Lake by the name of Vandri.
So I requested Ajay that we will make a diversion of 5-6 kms and visit Vandri which we did. Morning sunrise near the lake is always an enchanting experience and we were the lucky one to be present there. Enjoyed the place and moved on to the highway again
We took our breakfast halt at Datta Snacks, grabbed few hot Wada Pav and Misal and soon was on our way. If you are going from Mumbai to Jawhar, one needs to take a right after crossing Mastan Naka flyover. (Landmark is Manor Telephone exchange.) But as we all wanted to have Darshan of Mahalaxmi so we all decided that we will first go to Dahanu Mahalaxmi temple and later from there we will go to Jawhar. Thus we skipped this right and went till Charoti Naka and with hardly a kilometre away we came across the Mahalaxmi Temple.
Luckily as we were early so there was not much of a crowd. We had a quick Darshan, clicked few pictures of some interesting artifacts and were again on our way.
We came out of the temple and took the highway but turned left to go to Charoti naka aga in and took left on Jawhar-Dahanu road or Kasa village side to be more precise. This serpentine road went about through villages, forest which in the month of February was not at all looking attractive but I can promise you that in monsoon this same route will take your breath away.
We took our photo break at Kasatwadi, where they have built a watch tower kind of thing. (One can have a good look of valley from here)
We all dashed and climbed the tower in no time but the structure was too shaky for my liking , the wooden planks at the top platform was in a very bad state, Pata chal photo ke chaker me upar se crash land but then Men will be men Jeeye gaya marega , Saala photo ke liye kuch bhi karega.????
We all had a good photo session here for sometime and boarded our car once again.
Our next stop was Jai Vilas Palace.
It is a small but very nice palace built by Raje Yeshwant Rao Maukne at Jawhar.
This place could have offered much more grandiose than what it is offering today. Such beautiful palace lying in utter neglect. Itna neglected ki ek sign board bhi nahi lagaya for direction from the road.
Its owner Maukne Family I was told is currently staying in Pune. The Palace is taken care by the caretaker who resides just next to it. One can see the interior by requesting the caretaker.The door to the Palace was locked. so we took the opportunity to do a photo shoot. The place is built in thesyenite stone, brought from an quarry at Sakhara, which is 12 km from its location. It is said that when the work of the palace was completed, the quarry from, which the stones were extracted was broken down and covered; the exact location of the quarry is lost in time. The Geological Department, of Government of India has now taken up a task to locate the lost quarry. Due to its unique architecture style and location, the palace has featured in several films in Marathi and Hindi.viz Great Grand Masti (Source:Wikipedia) Just next to Jai Vilas Palace is Hanuman Point. Its basically a temple and also a kind of viewing gallery from where you can see valley on three sides.
The valley is 500 feet deep and one can see Mahuli fort from here during the day time and at night one can see the lights of train passing through Kasara Ghat. Hanuman Point is also called Devkobacha Kada.
We moved out from here to check out our next stop which was Jawhar Fort but was hugely disappointed to see that there was no such fort only a huge gate.
We left from here to go to Jai Sagar Dam and on the way came across a Clock tower san the clock feeling the cool breeze and the shade. driving was becoming a task s apart, we saw this dam from far and took the pictures. The climate was very hot so no one dared to climb the wall of the dam to have a closer look. Clock ke naam per sirf hollow hole. Anyways photo le liya socha sayad koi blog pad kar Clock lagane ki soch le ???? We diverted from the main road and took a left from the clock tower. The road to Jai Sagar dam was quite narrow but thank fully good in condition, in few minutes we were at the Jai Sagar Dam. Jai Sagar Dam is a small reservoir with beautiful trees across. As per the placard on the Dam, This dam was inaugurated by Yeshwant Rao Maukne on 14 th Sept, 1961 and Rs 12,27,158=00 was spent on its construction. we spent some time enjoying the beauty of the place , lekin kya kare yatri ko araam kahan... usse toh mazile pukarti hai.Apna mandatory photo shoot suru ho gaya We now started to move towards Khad Khad Dam. As we drove the road was getting bad to worse hence The road from this place to go to Dabhosha water fall was getting worse.kyo ki puri ghadi hi khad khad karne ne lagi thi.???? Ab samjha is dam ka naam khad khad kyo pada Anyway joke Zoom kar ke camera se view dekh liya ???? At one point laga ki Tractor me aana chaiye. We were infact planing to take a you turn and go via the main road, but then we saw a villager driving his wife on motorcycle, coming from opposite side, he encouraged us to risk it and go further.
Thankfully we joined the main road again and were on course to Dabhosha Waterfall. It was 2:45 by the time we reached Dabhosha Waterfall. The road was very very bad , pata nahi barish me log kaise aate hai. Would you believe that even in the month of Feb we were able to see the water falling in a waterfall.
Just watching the waterfall all the tiredness of the journey evaporated and we were so happy to be here. The heat was full on, the stomach was screaming with hunger and worse there was nothing available to eat , but trekkers that we are we do keep little bit with us. Ab joh bhi tha hum sab ne mil bantkar kha liye pyar se. We decided against going to the waterfall as we had to descend atleast 150 feet in the valley and later come up too ! we were hard pressed for time so we skipped taking a dip in the water and kept it for the rainy day (Literally) ????. We quickly drove back but not before hogging on a watermelon sold by the villager and later gulping chilled sweet lassi and Paneer Pakodas at Bhajanlal Dairy. It was 8 pm when we reached Mira Road. A Sunday well spent should I must say.I want to thank Dr Ajay, Jatin Shah and Ajinkya for allowing me to share their pictures, and Pritesh for driving his car and bringing us safely back.
To Read more about such travel escapades do check out www.chawlaaashish.blogspot.in
