Monday, August 27, 2012

Trip To Konkan - Part 2 (In and Around Diveagar)

Part 2: In and Around Diveagar - Afternoon and Evening, Day 1

We reached Diveagar around lunch time. Quick note here on road conditions - the Mulshi Tamhini road is pretty motorable. There are a few bad patches, and it's recommended you take it real slow because some of the potholes are bad enough to break your suspension. However, for more parts, the road is decent, especially once you enter Konkan.

We checked pretty much every possible place to stay - and it was mostly empty. So we had lots of choice. Unfortunately, most of the places we checked had very damp/mouldy bedding, and small beds. Exotica was pretty expensive at 4000/night. We finally found the very decent Patil Guest House, next to Exotica - at 1500/night, with free extra beds thrown in, with sparkling clean bathrooms and fresh bedding, this was really worth it, even though it did not have AC. The very helpful room boy Pravin even gave Samara a very good wash and was refusing to be rewarded for it! Highly recommended.



We were eager to explore, so took a quick "ghargooti" lunch at Swayam Patil Khanawal - again, highly recommended. I cannot speak much of the veggie options, but we enjoyed the Surmai and the chicken thali, got some extra Surmai too, washed it down with some awesome sol kadi, and finally, a masala paan to wrap it up.


Refreshed and excited, we set out to explore the area. First, to Dighi, a small fishing village with a port (which was out of bounds for us).







From Dighi, we turned back towards Diveagar, and then took a small road to the right that took us to Adgaon - a lovely fishing village at the end of a freakingly beautiful stretch of virgin beach and rocky outcrops.








Time for some more snaps with Samara.






By late afternoon, we came back to the hotel, freshened up, and set off for the Diveagar shore, a short 5 min walk from Patil's. The beach is long, uninterrupted and the sea is calm and perfect for swimming, but the oily patches on the sand are a real cause of concern. There was also para-gliding and dune scooters, but they didn't really appeal to us.




It was also a good time to get some horsepower in the water, without having to worry about corrosion!




Notice the metal barriers at the entrance to the beach. If this doesn't warn you to keep off, maybe my future posts will. Until then, enjoy the sun set!






At night, we made the mistake of going for Chinese and Punjabi at Shree Ganesh. Expensive and tasteless, it was a good opportunity wasted. We retired to our rooms, and while the rest played cards, it was time for me to rest and recuperate for what was to come the next day.

1 comment:

Aafreen said...

Samara's pics should be sent to Ford guys. They can use them for their next TV ad! Superb angles, just perfect! :)