The Wandering Two: Monsoons and Wonky Ears

We spent this past weekend in Panchgani, a hill station 2-3 hours from Pune. We went with our friends Farshad and Yeeteng and left early Saturday morning. The drive up was one of the craziest experiences, firstly it was an insanely winding road through the hills and mountains up to Panchgani (it gave us all “wonky ears” in the words of Yeeteng) and secondly it was raining, raining raining! I mean seriously, monsoon raining. The road was actually a river and waterfall in parts all flowing down the mountain. There were waterfalls along the cliffs by the road. There was also so much mist and fog from the rain that we couldn’t see a thing, but we imagined in our heads how beautiful the view must be when we’d catch a break through the fog and see beautiful green hills and mountains, waterfalls and valleys. We drove up higher to Mahabeleshwar to eat some lunch, passing many more waterfalls and flooded areas. Farshad took us to a couple lookout points; we enjoyed looking at the fog. At one point I got out of the car to look out to see if I could catch a glimpse of the valley below through the fog and it just felt like I was standing on the edge of the world, beyond which nothing existed. We also visited the hotel where Farshad & Yeeteng’s wedding is going to be held and helped them a bit with the planning. We went to sleep that night hoping that the next day would clear up, and it did! We woke up and actually saw the sun trying to peek out and the view from our hotel (Mount View Hotel…) was spectacular! There were hills surrounding the valley just covered in waterfalls. We had breakfast at a place owned by some Baha’I friends in Panchgani town; it was delicious and cheap. From there we decided to go trekking up to the Tableland. It started raining again but we decided to go anyways. The hike up was pretty slippery and difficult at points but once we reached the top it was incredible. The rain stopped and started on and off so we were able to sneak the camera out for some shots. Tableland is huge and so green with amazing views all around. We spent a couple hours walking around and taking pictures, getting soaked and muddy. We found some cows, and also a group of boys swimming in a newly created pond thanks to the heavy rains. That night we ate the most incredible biryani at Delhi Darbar, a famous Biryani restaurant that has a branch in Panchgani. We drove back to Pune the next morning, delayed for a while by a massive accident; a truck had flipped and blocked the road with huge bags of sand. We luckily got there near the end but others said they had been stuck for nearly 3 hours! We were glad to have a chance to get out of the city for the weekend and enjoy some of India’s beautiful nature. We’re excited to go back in 2 weeks for the wedding!

In other exciting news, our friends, Sholeh and Sohayl, have arrived in Delhi!! We will be meeting them on Friday to spend a week traveling around Kerala, then coming back to Pune and Sholeh will be staying for about a month to volunteer with Deep Griha as well! More on that in our next post.

Love,

The Wandering Two