Mahabaleshwar - City of Strawberries and ..'Points' :)

6th and 7th Feb 10 weekend I was off to Mahabaleshwar with my family which is some 5-6 hrs drive from Mumbai. We left early morning and the prospects of driving on the Mumbai-Pune expressway yet again excited me. The drive was smooth with wonderful views of the ghats once we reached near the destination. I drove on the winding roads uphill which was an experience in itself.

The city welcomes you with tonnes of strawberries lined up on the road side. I havnt seen this scarcely available fruit in North India in such quantities ever before. Needless to say, we gorged and ate nothing but berries till a long time when we finally settled down in a comfortable resort.

The city was cool and cleaner than most other cities but it did not had much to offer in terms of tourist spots apart from a lake and wonderful views of the western ghats. As with most hill stations in India the city lacked maintenance of whatever infrastructure the British build with Indians sticking to the task of inventing 'points' to attract tourists. and so I had in my hands a list of some 20 points within the vicinity of the city, names of which could not suggest what is the beauty of that point. So we began to check them out - some 12 of them lay 12 kms from the main city. My guess was right when i wondered how could 12 points lie so close to each other (and they were closer than i thought - spaced some 20 meters apart!! offering views from diff angles of the ghats). In fact, at some places the points could only be seen thru the telescopes ppl had planted (and the corresponding story that went with it as to Y is that point important). Most of the 'points', we thus realized, were pointless to visit.

The lake ride was better with all of us trying our hand at rowing and enjoying it. The evening walk at the market was also nice including the strawberry shake and shopping. The next morning also included visit to the remaining 'Points' which turned out to be better than expected (esp the Kate Point). The table top point had 8 more points within itself and offered fables which you would have heard as a child (and could appreciate only if u were one).

We started on our way back after lunch and it was my turn to scorch the expressway :) If you love driving than u cant afford to miss doing it on this driveway. All in all it was a wonderful wy to spend a weekend and i really enjoyed it. :)