Last weekend was a long weekend in Maharashtra. With three days of holidays and nothing to do I like every other person living in Mumbai decide to go to Matheran. Not that I haven’t been to the place before. But there is something magnetic about Matheran which lures one towards it whenever one thinks of a cool (as in cold) weekend getaway from Mumbai.
So me and a friend of mine decide to do the unthinkable. Now we have always stayed in this hotel called Hotel Rugby and never made a booking prior to our visit. The hotel has been kind enough to give us a room everytime we land up there. For those of you who do not know, the hotel is quite something in itself. If you are not the exploring or walking kinds, you may just chill in this hotel and can pass the weekend gloriously. But then, Hotel Rugby is shut since 2 months now.
We decide to take up this adventure KNOWING the fact that all hotels are packed in Matheran for the long weekend. But the optimistics that we are, we venture on this journey where as my friend rightly put, the journey was more important than the destination.
Matheran is this virgin hill station devoid of anything commercial apart from the hotels. Hence the only mode of transport is your two feet or the horses four feet if you please. If you are going from Mumbai by the good old local train, you can get off at Neral station and then NORMALLY take a ramshackled taxi to Dasturi Naka from where you are on your own or on the horse.
So we land up at Neral station at some 3:00 in the afternoon. NORMALLY, you will find yourself surrounded by people asking if you needed a taxi to go to Matheran. But this was not a NORMAL day at all. To our surprise the station is completely deserted. No taxi fellas escorting you to the taxi stands. We considered this as a bad omen. On further investigation we find out that there is a strike going on of taxi drivers since the government has decided to start a minibus from Neral to Matheran. So one must walk some random kilometers in order to take the bus or the hotel association taxis. We walk & we walk & we walk in the hot sun. We finally reach the so called taxi stand and manage to get to Matheran. Mind you, these taxis were way better than the regular taxis that you get.
The people of Matheran are very hospitable. In the sense that the moment you are out of the taxi, there will be someone to take your luggage and hound you for a hotel till you select one of them and tell them where you want to go. We found our guide in a similar way and then started our hotel hunt. We practically scoured the entire of Matheran for hotels and found some really exorbitant deals. On offer was a dingy room in the attic of a hotel with hardly any space to move for Rs. 9000 for 2 nights. You freaking can get a room in the Taj Lands End in Mumbai for some Rs. 5000 per night if you want. Well, but then that’s the effect of a long weekend in Matheran.
Also we were spoilt by Rugby. The place is heaven. It has these cottage type rooms all of which open into beautiful lawns. The place looks like if it were straight out of a picture book or something. And the food. Oh the food. It is purely vegetarian but excellent. Also they do not have silly prices for long weekends. Atleast we haven’t experienced so far.
Moral of story, we could not find anything satisfactory. After spending 2 hours of hiking and horse riding (as my friend put it) we decide to go back. I must say, I enjoyed every single minute of those 2 hours even if it was really taxing on my body once I was back.
The first day of the long weekend was quite an adventure I must say. But then, what the hell, I am sure there are very few people who might have done this!!!
Technorati Tags: Matheran, Hotel Rugby
So me and a friend of mine decide to do the unthinkable. Now we have always stayed in this hotel called Hotel Rugby and never made a booking prior to our visit. The hotel has been kind enough to give us a room everytime we land up there. For those of you who do not know, the hotel is quite something in itself. If you are not the exploring or walking kinds, you may just chill in this hotel and can pass the weekend gloriously. But then, Hotel Rugby is shut since 2 months now.
We decide to take up this adventure KNOWING the fact that all hotels are packed in Matheran for the long weekend. But the optimistics that we are, we venture on this journey where as my friend rightly put, the journey was more important than the destination.
Matheran is this virgin hill station devoid of anything commercial apart from the hotels. Hence the only mode of transport is your two feet or the horses four feet if you please. If you are going from Mumbai by the good old local train, you can get off at Neral station and then NORMALLY take a ramshackled taxi to Dasturi Naka from where you are on your own or on the horse.
So we land up at Neral station at some 3:00 in the afternoon. NORMALLY, you will find yourself surrounded by people asking if you needed a taxi to go to Matheran. But this was not a NORMAL day at all. To our surprise the station is completely deserted. No taxi fellas escorting you to the taxi stands. We considered this as a bad omen. On further investigation we find out that there is a strike going on of taxi drivers since the government has decided to start a minibus from Neral to Matheran. So one must walk some random kilometers in order to take the bus or the hotel association taxis. We walk & we walk & we walk in the hot sun. We finally reach the so called taxi stand and manage to get to Matheran. Mind you, these taxis were way better than the regular taxis that you get.
The people of Matheran are very hospitable. In the sense that the moment you are out of the taxi, there will be someone to take your luggage and hound you for a hotel till you select one of them and tell them where you want to go. We found our guide in a similar way and then started our hotel hunt. We practically scoured the entire of Matheran for hotels and found some really exorbitant deals. On offer was a dingy room in the attic of a hotel with hardly any space to move for Rs. 9000 for 2 nights. You freaking can get a room in the Taj Lands End in Mumbai for some Rs. 5000 per night if you want. Well, but then that’s the effect of a long weekend in Matheran.
Also we were spoilt by Rugby. The place is heaven. It has these cottage type rooms all of which open into beautiful lawns. The place looks like if it were straight out of a picture book or something. And the food. Oh the food. It is purely vegetarian but excellent. Also they do not have silly prices for long weekends. Atleast we haven’t experienced so far.
Moral of story, we could not find anything satisfactory. After spending 2 hours of hiking and horse riding (as my friend put it) we decide to go back. I must say, I enjoyed every single minute of those 2 hours even if it was really taxing on my body once I was back.
The first day of the long weekend was quite an adventure I must say. But then, what the hell, I am sure there are very few people who might have done this!!!
Technorati Tags: Matheran, Hotel Rugby
4 comments:
You and your friend must be out of yor minds to go to matheran after knowing the place is booked. Both of you are either overworked or plain crazy!
But it does seem like a nice little adventure though... lol...
And this Rugby place seems to be good, the way you've advertised it. Too bad it's shut.
sounds like u had quite some time !! reminds me of my days in kolhapur ... spending time in panhala .... gosh that was awesome fun .. riding bikes on the curvaceous roads of the western ghat ... jannat !
What say kedar?
I so much agree with u... the drive thru the ghats was great... I remember we had even stopped at a place where the guy was making jaggery frm sugar canes... And the view from Panhala was amazing.
It's a similar case with Sinhagad, which we used to frequent from Pune... all of us Thermax junta, except Ton ofcourse! Remember him?
My husband and I used to take our children to Matheran quite often, and now that we have settled down in the US (since 1988), we were actually talking about visiting Matheran and our favorite "Rugby Hotel" too, but just realized from your comments and another blog that not only Rugby but even the mini train has shut down. How sad, Matheran and Rugby were truly some of our best memories ever.
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