Monday, April 18, 2005

Across the pale parabola of joy

Of Kashid, Pi and life in a hammock

It was a thursday when I got the call about going to the west coast on one of the virgin beaches dotting the Arabian Sea. The plan was to leave Pune early in the morning towards Kashid , a tiny hamlet of 820 people between Alibaug and Murud-Janjira on the west coast of Maharashtra.

The Geography.

Kashid is between Alibag a small town on the west coast of India / Maharashtra and Murud , whose claim to fame is the presence of a fort in the sea, Jal-Jazeera , built in 1140 A.D. a.k.a. Janjira in popular slang. Kashid has a lovely beach with palm trees and hammocks slung by the owners of small stalls that are the only signs of commercialization.

How to get there.

From Pune . Take the express highway to Mumbai, take the exit off Khandala and go towards Penn. From Penn take the road to Alibag and at the entry to Alibag take a left towards Rohas and Nagvas village . After a point you would cross a bridge (the landmark is Vikram Ispat) and then take a right turn towards Murud . Travel for approx. 30 km towards Revas village.The road winds through the Western Ghats parallel to the Arabian sea affording a large number of scenic spots. Finally after a climb you hurtle down a valley where the beach appears all of a sudden with a beautiful grove of palm and coconut trees with some stalls appearing on the right. This would be Kashid beach .

Boarding and Lodging.
One of the major revenues seems to be tourism and there are a number of small resorts dotting the main road to Murud, the road on which you reach Kashid. There are a couple of expensive beach resorts with costs upto 5k per couple or there are these small hotels / cottages including one in which we stayed during our trip. The beach resorts require booking in advance, in fact booking in advance might be a good idea. We were lucky in obtaining a cottage in one of the many resorts available. Sea food is apparently very good, with the non-veggies in our group going ga-ga about the idea of living on sea food, yours truly however being a pure "eggie" ended up with daal and rice and other vegetarian substitutes which by themselvers were very good.


Whats the big deal about the beach anyways ?
Quiet , peaceful and an amazing getaway from the hustle and bustle of civilization. Life without noise, junk food , television , mobile phones was brilliant ( though my sources tell me that a big cellular company is planning on destroying the peace by getting a mobile tower in place. ). Having been used to the dirt and grime with the Marina beach in Madras finding a beach where one could actually relax was phenomenal. The hammocks are strung in the middle of trees affording shade even during the hottest part of the day, combined with a cool sea breeze makes life extremely relaxing and enables one to laze away. I spent close to a day in a hammock reading a book, sleeping , eating and doing nothing much else. This in the middle of an extremely torrid Indian Summer.

The water is also amazing and extremely clean . The group of people that I went with spent most of their hours on the beach only in the water , whilst me being the lazy bum on the beach entered the water only a couple of hours before we left for Pune. Nice solid sleep left me spent on a Monday morning saying "death where is thy sting" and groaning about driving through crazy city traffic .