Trip to matheran

Inspite of the initial reluctancy to go to Matheran I went to Matheran and found out of that the company was not as bad as i thought. I was reluctant t ogo for two reasons....1. financial crunch - I had 300 bucks in my wallet the previous night, 2. the company - Lohia, Mantry, Curie and Mannan....me not being very pally with the last three. The first problem was solved with Lohia ofering to finance my trip's expenses.

The preparations for the trip started on saturday with me caling curie and asking her when we were starting etc. She asked me and lohia to be infront of their hostel at 7:00 am. The next morning we got up and got ready by 7:15......fifteen mintes late already. We were asked to stay back in the hostel if we dont start by 7. Surprise surprise cuie called us at 7:15 to tell us that they got up just then and they will take atleast one more hour. So finally we met up at 8:30 at the grantt road railway station. Mantry joined us in Dadar railway station.

We took a train to Neral in the central line and reached the place at about 12 noon. from there we took a taxi to Matheran as we couldnt get a ticket for the toy train. 45 minutes taxi ride took us to the taxi stand from where on we had to walk along a muddy track to reach matheran. There were horses, but the group was against the idea of subjecting the horses to such cruelty. Half an hour of trek took us to the hill station. We got a room for ourselves in Janata Happy home with five beds. We freshened up, had lunch and left to look around while mantry went to have a nap.

The place is full of horses and horse shit. there are probably more horses than human beings in this place. The place is full of lots of look out points. Lord point, echo point, Louisa point, celia point are some of the points i remember. the scenary would have been better after the rains. My favoutite point is Celia point. here it is a sheer 200 meter drop down the rocks. there is also a reservoir called Charolette lake...people are prohibited from going down to the water. That didnt stop us from going to the water. All we did the entire day was walking. We reached an old bungalow whose doors were sealed ...... looked like a booth bungalow. We recharged ourselves with sugarcane juice and continued our trekking. our adventurous care free trek took us to an old victorian style hotel where a couple were having their tea in english ishtyle. We went back to the celia point and did valley crossing basically one had to go to one vally from another using a rope in the mid air.......30 meters.....was nice fun.

Stayed at celia point till we were the last to leave at about 7 o clock.We watched the sunset and the rising of the moon here.....an orange discand a white disc....... Created a stir among the gang by going to the edge of the rocks. then walked back to the hotel in the dark with the help of the cellphone light. All i could remember during the walk was the movie Wrongturn a gross movie about cannibals in the forest who eat trekkers.

Came back to the hotel, freshened up, went to the market, bought a can of beer (Royal Challenge) and joined the gang to have a plate of curd, ate nothing else.

The next day we got up at 8:30, took bath and packed our bags to leave the hotel. It was Curie's birthday, so wished her. We spent an hour or so in the market after our breakfast. The place is infested with casino kind of laces where u can play games with coins bearing "not for money for amusement only" slogan. there are also guys asking u to hit a pyramid of tumblers with a ball and chappies with a gun asking u to shoot down a doll for assorted kind of prizes. Managed only a perk chocolate.

Me and Mantry wanted to go horseback to the taxi stand while others wanted to walk. So rode Khilona while mantry rode Ronaldo. Reached Neral at about 2:00 clock and missed the train to dadar, so had to wait 45 minutes for hte next train. got into the train without any problems thought hte station was very crowded. Had a chat with curie for an hour on assorted issues. the other three were in the next compartment. joined the gang back in Dadar.Reached the hostel at about 5 o clock.

Went to Sri Krishna for dinner, had pan icecream and tender coconut icecream......

things to remmber from the trip...........celia point sunset and moon rise, valley crossing and the horse ride.......