Travel: Panchgani

Made a recent trip to Panchgani, a quaint little hill station , next to the famous Mahabaleshwar hill station in Maharashtra. It is nearly 170 km away from Mumbai. And there are 2 routes to reach there.

1. NH4 (Mumbai Pune Satara Highway)

2. NH17 (Mumbai Goa Highway)

And for the sheer pleasure of driving, i went via NH4. In fact the road goes straight through Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar.

We booked at MTDC hotel, Five Hills Resort. It is slightly off the main market area, and in a peaceful place. The road leading up to that was undergoing repairs, and we had slight discomfort of a distance of 200 m near the hotel. The Hotel has its own restaurant, and a dedicated play area for kids. The rooms looked fresh, and overall a reasonable hotel for mid-budget class.

As we enter Panchgani from Wai (on NH4) , we drove by the Sydney Point. This place was awesome with Paragliding being the attractive option to be around. The point is actually on a cliff overlooking deep valley. The cliff is like a wedge into the valley.

Panchgani's most obvious tourist destination is Table Land. This flat table like structure is red earth and slight grass. This natural marvel is worth a visit for an hour, no more. There are options to horse riding out there, and the young boy guides would mostly point out the various locations in Table land where Bollywood films had been shot.

A little known tourist point is rajapuri caves. This is 5 kms off Panchgani , at the village of rajapuri. the caves are under a hillock, and the descent is via Stoned Stairs. The caves contain stone slabs having carvings of deities. Apparently, this cave is also the temple of Karthik (the only Hindu bachelor god ), Hence, not to offend the god (or rather tempt the God), women folk are not allowed to venture into the caves.

Panchgani's second most obvious destination is the Strawberry garden by MAPRO. Mapro is govt run Agro-product industry specializing on the strawberry farms. Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani are known for the unique large, juicy and slight sour Strawberries. This farm has a restaurant that offers ice creams, shakes and other dollops with extra helping of fresh strawberries. The Choclate Brownies are a must try. It comes as a sizzler with the choclate sizzling around the fresh brownies. It was heavenly indeed.

Panchgani was not too hot, and the sun was bearable. However, a heavy afternoon shower turned this place cool and into truly a hill station. It was quite cold that night. It is learnt that it often showers like this when the heat goes high out there.

Last point we visted was Parsi Point. Nice place to visit with Kids. This has a good play area overlooking a valley around a lake. It was quite breezy , and view was not too clear due to dust. It is on the way to Mapro Farm from Panchgani.

Other things i wish i could do was a visit to Tapola Lake. This lake is actually the backwaters of a dam, and the boat ride is apparently full of surprises.