Trip to Pune, Bhimashankar, Panchagani, Mahabaleshwar, Alandi and Dehu

It was long time I had been any place. Monsoon just started. So I decided to make a trip to western ghats.

My uncle stays at Pune. So I planned a trip to Mahabaleshwar and other Pune nearby places.

26/06/2015 - Friday
Pune is about 560km from Hyderabad, so this time I planned to go by train. My uncle suggested me to come by Pune Shatabdi. No need to book in tatkal as it will be empty always (except in summer holidays) as the cost is around Rs.1050/- including the catering services. One will really enjoy the trip, specially couples. I booked 2 tickets for my wife and me. We started from Secunderabad station at 2:45PM. We were served snacks & tea at first. Snacks include 1 veg sandwich, 1 alu samosa, 1 sonpapidi, ketchup, sugar, amul milk powder, tea bag and hot water.

The AC in the train was very high. We forgot to bring any blankets. So we came outside the coach and stayed at door for a while and repeated the same for 2-3 time :)

After 8:30PM we were served with Dinner which includes 2 chapati, dal tadka, alu curry, dahi, 1 pickle packet. Pickle as not good but others were good.

We reached Pune by 11:45PM on time. My uncle as waiting for us at station. We went to his home and planned to visit Bhimashankar, one of the Dwadash Jyotirlinga next day.

27/06/2015 - Saturday
Though we planned to leave early for Bhimashankar, we woke up late and my aunt prepared Lemon rice, puri, alu curry, white rice and curd. It was 120km+ distance and we started from home, Kharadi, Pune around 10AM by Waganor Lxi, stopped in between for photos. One can see the beautiful scenes of Bhima and Bhama rivers on the wayand reached Bhimashankar by 1:30PM. Road was good.

Kharadi - Lonikand - Chakan - RajGuruNagar - Bhimashankar

As it was weekend we hardly got any place to park our vehicle. Then we stood in line for darshan it took around 40 min for darshan. Temple is in valley and we have to walk down. Temple architecture is very good. There is one shaneshwar temple just opposite to main temple. We poured oil on Shanidev as it was saturday too. There is Kanifanath temple behind Shaneshwar temple but it was closed at that time. There is Ram Mandir/Koneru(Holy water) left to the main temple. We visited all these and returned to top. There is Kamalaja Devi temple(Durga Maa) on the top. We visited the temple and returned back. While coming back we stopped just beside a pond, we finished our lunch and took some photos and returned home. We reached Kharadi by 8PM. We finished our dinner and planned for Mahabaleshwar next day. This time we wanted to start early :)

28/06/2015 - Sunday
We succeeded to wake up early :) and we started for Mahabaleshwar. This time we did not prepared any food but wanted to enjoy the locations, beauty of Mahabaleshwar and outside food.

We started from home around 6AM and we finished our breakfast at Hotel Abhiruchi which is on Pune - Satara highway. We visited "Sri Venkateshwara Samy Temple" which is on the way to Narayanpur. We did not jhave enough time and we were eager to reach Mahabaleshwar, we did not visit the "Ek Mukhhi Datta Bhagawan temple, Narayanpur". We had been to that place earlier.
One should not miss the datta temple. It is also very famous datta kshetra.

After visiting "Sri Venkateshwara Samy Temple" we drove to Panchagani.We have been to parsi point initially. And it was very good. Then we visited Sydney Point. The view at this point was amazing. One can see the Krishna and Savitri Rivers Sangamam point. We spent more than 30 min and we captured plenty of photos.

Then we moved to Table land. We enjoyed the horse ride. We have paid 2400 + 100 for 3 persons and we have visited all the places on top of table land. It is said that Pancha pandavas stayed there for some time. There are footprints of pandavas. Lot of cinema shootings happened there. We saw "tiger cave" but we did not see one more cave "pandava's cave" as e were tired. Be careful with the horses you choose :)

After that we had misal pav, vada pav and tea. Then we left for Mapro Gardens where we tasted blueberry, strawberry, chocolate flavoured drinks. There is chocolate factory too but it was closed as it is rainy season. We spent 1 hour there. As it was Sunday there was huge crowd. Then we left for Mahabaleshwar.

We have been to Venna lake boating. Tonight we stayed in a hotel. It was good we took two rooms. It  has a very good restaurant serving chinese/indian food. As we were tired already we finished our dinner and slept.

29/06/2015 - Monday
When we woke up the weather was too good. We finished breakfast and tea. We left for Elephant head point. It was awesome weather and we enjoyed 2 hours watching the nature and capturing the scenes.

We have been to PanchaGanga temple which is the sangama of 5 rivers. There are 2-3 lord shiva temples around this temple. Shiv linga will be in 'Rudraksh' shape in one temple.
The starting point of Krishna river is also nearby. One can find the directions at panchaganga parking place. We have been to this temple and enjoyed the view of Krishna river from there.

After that we finished our lunch and as my cousins had their exams next day we left for pune early.
But there are other tourist places and various temples to visit in Mahabaleshwar.

We have reached Pune tonight.

30/06/2015 - Tuesday
We woke up lately and finished our breakfast. My uncle went to his office and asked us to visit Alandi and Dehu. He left his car for us. Me and my wife finished our lunch too and we started for Alandi, where Santh Gnaneshwar Maharaj took his samadhi on the banks of indrayani river.

Pune to Alandi is just 30km. We reached Alandi with the help of google maps ;) We entered mandir. There was a queue and it was stopped already. After 5 min we were allowed and we had our darshan with in 15 min. We roamed around the temple and in the temple surroundings. We have been to Indrayani river. We bought one "Gnaneshwari, Marathi version of Bhagavadgeetha which Gnaneshwar maharaj wrote".

We asked local people for the "diwar/wall" which Santh gnaneshawar maharaj flew. After sometime we could find that. Then we left for Dehu which is the birthplace of Santh Tukaram Maharaj. We have been to the "Panduranga temple" whom Tukaram maharaj worshipped and there will be "Annadan/free food" held daily in temple. This is also on the banks of Indrayani river.

We have been to the place where GarudaSanth Tukaram maharaj left for vaikuntha on Garuda vahana.

After that we left for Pune, we finished our dinner, we booked tickets for hyderabad that night. And we reached Hyderabad by next day morning.