Matheran

Matheran, the pedestrian hill-station with red earth. The last time I was in Matheran I was around 16 years old I think. So it was after 20 years that I went there in early September. 

The first thing I have to say is that I was positively thrilled at the ease with which I got there. I left home (in Ahmedabad) at 6 am, took the flight to Bombay, a cab from the airport to Dadar station, the local train towards Karjat and got down at Neral, then a shared taxi from the Neral railway station up to Matheran, and finally after a sweaty 45-minute walk with my rucksack (filled with some books... pant pant...) I reached the guest-house just after noon. In fact, it would be just as cool going by train – taking an overnight train from Ahmedabad to Bombay that stops at Dadar – that way I can have a smaller ecological footprint and even the cab from the airport to Dadar station can be avoided.

The monsoons were in full swing which was nice. The verandah at Rugby Hotel, and later the verandah at what used to be called Barr House – now a Neemrana property called “Verandah in the Forest” - were absolutely lovely places to lounge about, both to watch the rain and mist and to read and work on my writing. 

pages curling from the intense moisture in the air

rugby hotel verandah

When the rain stopped and I felt the need to stretch my limbs, I went for a walk through the mist. The mist cleared during only one of my walks to give me a lovely view of the valley below and the hills beyond. I reached this viewing spot quite unexpectedly. I'd noticed a narrow curving path between the hedges and trees during one of my walks and I had to take it. Emerged in a clearing at the edge of a cliff. The mist was less thick and there I stood, looking at the sunlight breaking through the clouds to stream down on to a small hillock across the valley. There was not a soul in sight anywhere. Only a group of youngsters, in silhoutte, in the distance on an adjoining hill. I went back the next day with my camera, only to find that I could not see anything beyond 10 metres. In a way that was good – the experience of the previous day could not have been repeated in any case. And some moments are best not captured on camera, for then they are more free to become a lovely memory in the recesses of the mind.

watchman and his umbrella, at rugby hotel

companion on one of my walks (don't know why this dog took to me; they never do usually. he refused though to look at the camera)

mist curling around the trees

I was enchanted with the ruined colonial-era bungalows scattered all over the place, and which looked all the more eerie in the mist. Hill-stations were made by the British as places of refuge from what they felt were the dusty plains, places where they could recover from the illnesses they seemed to contract in the plains. Their elite “native” collaborators took to the hill-stations too, perhaps more so near Bombay with its particular history of British-era “native” elites. I took my camera with me only once during these walks, when I went specifically to find a sanitorium that had been built during the colonial period, now in ruins and covered with moss and undergrowth.

gate of a colonial-era bungalow

sanitorium photos below:

And to end this blog-post with something entirely of the present: 

one, Shiv Sena's presence in Matheran. 

and two, "hope hall hotel since 1875" 

which has certainly been true to its word and given Matheran "a touch of the new"

beginning the jordan trip...

Its been a while since I traveled with a group of friends and it was a welcome change to my solitary travels. I used to travel a lot with friends during my CEPT days and did a bit during my Berkeley days as well but having traveled alone quite a few times over the past 13-14 years, I have often thought of the difference. I was - and still am - convinced that traveling with others usually makes me less able to "feel" my new surroundings... or maybe it is the nature of this "feeling" that changes profoundly when one is journeying alone in an unknown place amongst unknown people... it is only when I have traveled alone that places or moments or interactions with people have truly moved me (though a couple of moments in Syria proved to be the exception to this) or have remained stamped in my otherwise rotten memory. This is not to say that I find traveling alone "fun" and it invariably has its lonely moments too, but it is often also beautiful in a way that I have rarely found while traveling with others and which I wouldn't care to describe in words. But this trip wasn't meant to be one of those travel experiences. This was meant to be fun, in the company of friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in more than two years.

the girls at the beirut airport waiting for our flight to amman
(and it seems we were having such a good time waiting that we forgot to check our boarding time and then had to make a dash for it; they even had to announce our names)

"I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."
- Mark Twain

Like or hate - seems a bit extreme - perhaps Mark Twain was being witty or maybe he meant traveling with someone for a month! Still, the four of us had 3 days together which involved traveling by air and road, crossing international borders and one of us (me) getting held up for hours at the border, journeying everyday to a different place, searching for hotels last-minute and spending each night at a different place, most of us not knowing the language, sitting on donkeys, one of the donkeys stumbling and falling on one of us leading to a muscular sprain, etc. After that three of us had another 2-3 days together. So I am happy to report that we all pretty much still like each other ;-) In fact, before beginning the trip I had wondered how it would go, because each of us has probably somewhat different ideas about travel and because I've become so used to doing it all my way that now I find myself almost reluctant to travel with others (and I had another 7 days in Syria with V, another friend, so it was going to be a long trip in the company of friends). But the trip turned out to be quite lovely, despite a few mishaps and trying to squeeze in too much of Jordan into 3 days. I only wish I'd had more time to take off my shoes, sit back and enjoy the company of the girls.

still at the beirut airport: H doing accounts, C checking the net for hotels in jordan?

Jordan trip photographs coming soon - once I figure out how to retrieve them from my digital memory card coz I deleted them by mistake before downloading all of them to my laptop!