It was my wish from quite some time to visit lord Ganpati’s temple. Although, I usually don’t like visiting temples, but somehow, I had some kind of inclination to visit this place.
Finally, my wish came true this year in March, when we were in Mumbai to attend a family function. And from there, planned our short trip to Ganpatipule.
Ganpatipule fallsin Ratnagiri district in the western side of Maharashtra and also referred as coastal ‘Konkan’. Konkan in Maharashtra is nothing but a coastal belt, so all districts situated on this belt are commonly refereed as Konkan. Due to its serene beaches & outstanding location, konkan attracts lot of tourists. It is also a weekend gateway/picnic spot for locals in Maharashtra. Entire Konkan belt is famous for its association with pilgrimage and the serene beaches. Like Ganpatipule is famous for lord Ganpati, Harihareshwar for Lord Shiva, Guhagar for Goddess Devi….etc. This place caters to all age groups. People who like to visit religious places, young couples for picnic/honeymoon, families for weekend gateway for relaxing, water sports…etc .
Our journey began on Friday morning. We hired a car and started early morning-around 6.00AM to avoid city traffic as it was a working day for schools/offices. It was a lovely morning and luckily the weather was very pleasant that day (Usually it starts getting hot in Mumbai in the month of March). After couple of hours in our journey from Mumbai, we stopped for having breakfast and later for lunch.
It took us about 7 hours to reach Ganpatipule. The entire road journey was spectacular- foliage all around, mountains, rivers etc. Very beautiful must say. On our way, we also visited a place Pali before reaching Ganpatipule. It is among the famous “Ashtvinayak” tour.
This is was first time that we had not booked our hotel in advance, as it was an off-season due to school exams. But we had shortlisted couple of hotels in advance for our stay. Few shortlisted hotels were – MTDC (government owned & Hotel Abhishek. Reviews for both the resorts were good.
So we first thought of visiting MTDC, as it was our first choice due to its good location. Honestly, I was not expecting much from MTDC property but when we checked the various rooms & locations, I found it to be really nice. The rooms were neat and clean. We checked both AC and Non AC rooms. Both rooms were good, but AC rooms were little better than Non AC in terms of room size and furniture.
We decided to settle for non AC, as these rooms had nice balcony facing beach right outside, the rooms were little economical than AC and we were there only for a night. But, I think it was a really good decision, for taking non AC. It got really cold in the night; there was no need of AC.
We didn’t go to check other shortlisted hotels as we decided for staying in MTDC only. Generally, during peak season & weekends, this property needs to be booked 4 weeks in advance. It is always fully booked. But we were really lucky that we got the booking on the spot. And I would suggest to go with MTDC It has the unbeatable location, situated right on the beach and walking distance from the famous temple. And with all the basic amenities.
We checked–in around 3.30 – 4:00 PM. After refreshing ourselves and having the much needed tea, we went for sightseeing .
We went to Konkan Village/Museum – the konkan culture, its heritage was shown in a very interesting manner. Not typical, museum style, otherwise it would have been boring. It was depicted/presented in the most natural way, we had a guide who showed us an entire village. The tour usually takes around 2hrs, depending on one’s speed. It gives lot of opportunity for camera lovers. One can get himself clicked at every 5 steps of walking.
Later, we went on the beach, we enjoyed lot of snack items like – chat, gola…etc and enjoyed the famous sunset. The view was so beautiful; it was difficult to distinguish the boundaries of water where it meets sky. Skyline was million shades of red, which we promptly captured in our camera.
Post sunset, the night stated getting colder, that too in the month of March. I guess, it was set for us by the god. It was his style of welcoming us. And we truly enjoyed it. After dinner, we went to our room to for some goodnight sleep.
Next day after breakfast, we checked out from our hotel and went to Ganpati temple. We had such an amazing “darshan” of the almighty. We could spend as much time as we wanted in the temple. Otherwise, it is very difficult to stay there even for a minute due to rush & crowd of devotees. At the time we went, there were very few people, and the temple was almost empty, so we really had good time.
After, offering our prayers, we proceeded for Mumbai. Taking couple of breaks in-between for lunch and evening tea to reach home comfortably late evening.
This trip of ours was very relaxing, there was no hurry for reaching anywhere/covering so many places…etc ….and the best combination of god’s blessings and beach beauty.
Would love to go there again….
x…………………………………………….x