We had a super romantic 1st wedding anniversary celebration trip. It was on the 24th of December 2009. We had a short leave of 3 days and so planned to go to Tarkarli in Konkan. This place is near Malvan in Konkan.
We did online bookings for resorts through rtne.co.in and since it was a last minute booking we managed to get confirmation from Namita beach resort. MTDC has a cool resort there with great view though most people love to eat in the town. Namita is a doable home stay right near the beach with the sand just one step out of the rooms! It has coconut trees and a cool hammock where it is a amazing to have a cup of tree in the evening!
24th Dec, Evening: We did reservations for MSRTC semi luxury bus from Sant Tukaram bus stand Pimpri (Rs. 664 for both of us one-way). The Nigdi-Malwan bus starts in the evening at 7pm from Nigdi, Pune and reaches Swargate at 8.45pm (but was late as usual and left from Swargate, Pune at 9pm instead). We needed to book our return tickets to Pune since we cannot do it from Pune city.
25th Dec Morning: We reached at Malwan at 5.00am on 25th. Malwan to Tarkarli is just 15 mins away by auto rickshaw and they have standard rate of Rs. 60 per trip. W
e walked a small lovely walk amongst coconut trees and wells, and sand to our resort. On reaching there, we had a bath, some refreshing tea, pohe and left for sightseeing. We had decided to check out Malwan town first for booking and site seeing and beaches and fun for later.
25th Dec afternoon: Reached Malwan by some walk and then by auto and secured our return tickets from the ST stand! Then we began our exploring…starting from Sindhudurg in Malwan.
Sindhudurg: Sindhudurg meaning a 'Fort in the Sea' was built by Shivaji Maharaj. We need to take up a ferry from the Malwan coast to there. The fort has intact outer walls but the buildings inside have collapsed and nothing remains.
We did online bookings for resorts through rtne.co.in and since it was a last minute booking we managed to get confirmation from Namita beach resort. MTDC has a cool resort there with great view though most people love to eat in the town. Namita is a doable home stay right near the beach with the sand just one step out of the rooms! It has coconut trees and a cool hammock where it is a amazing to have a cup of tree in the evening!
24th Dec, Evening: We did reservations for MSRTC semi luxury bus from Sant Tukaram bus stand Pimpri (Rs. 664 for both of us one-way). The Nigdi-Malwan bus starts in the evening at 7pm from Nigdi, Pune and reaches Swargate at 8.45pm (but was late as usual and left from Swargate, Pune at 9pm instead). We needed to book our return tickets to Pune since we cannot do it from Pune city.
25th Dec Morning: We reached at Malwan at 5.00am on 25th. Malwan to Tarkarli is just 15 mins away by auto rickshaw and they have standard rate of Rs. 60 per trip. W
e walked a small lovely walk amongst coconut trees and wells, and sand to our resort. On reaching there, we had a bath, some refreshing tea, pohe and left for sightseeing. We had decided to check out Malwan town first for booking and site seeing and beaches and fun for later.25th Dec afternoon: Reached Malwan by some walk and then by auto and secured our return tickets from the ST stand! Then we began our exploring…starting from Sindhudurg in Malwan.
Sindhudurg: Sindhudurg meaning a 'Fort in the Sea' was built by Shivaji Maharaj. We need to take up a ferry from the Malwan coast to there. The fort has intact outer walls but the buildings inside have collapsed and nothing remains.
Things we saw there were -
- Clear sea waters from the walls of the fort. You can even see corals and sea weeds from the top of the fort!
- Entrance of the fort is well preserved. It is curved, so not visible to the enemies from afar and well protected from threats or ramming of enemy elephants.
- Nagarkhana (on the top of the entrance)
- Hand impression and foot impressions of Shivaji Maharaj in lime
- Drinking water pond in the fort that was used for drinking water in the past.
- Temple in the fort of some deity
- Temple of Shivaji Maharaj constructed by Rajaram Maharaj, his younger son.
- A secret underwater passageway (chor vaat) in one of the temple for escape outside the fort.
- Rare but famous two branched coconut tree (which is dead now with only trunk remaning)
- Snorkeling: We had already made up our minds to try snorkeling when at Sindhudurg and found some boatmen who would take us there. Charges are Rs. 250 per person for 30 mins. Yogesh had already done snorkeling at Kovalam beach, Kerala and was not as excited as me.
Our boat sailed around to the back of the fort and was anchored. There was a ladder from the edge of the boat leading to a floating tube waiting below in the water. I descended into the ring and began floating in the sea! Wow! The boatman gave me directions to breathe using the face mask and what to do in case water fills up the mask. Yet, the moment I submerged my head using the mask... PANIC!!! I immediately wanted to get out and hold on to something stable. The life guard held the rope to my floating ring. He calmed me down and after a little reassurance I tried it again. This time it was ok. Yogesh joined me in, and we were off to see the corals.
Corals were shiny... white, black, silver, green and blue shaded. The fish were dotted yellow and stripped and some were white... the guy gave us some bread crumbs and we fed them with our hands!!!! Wonderful experience totally. Snorkeling was an amazing adventure! This one in Sindhudurg, Malwan is very safe however types of corals and fish are limited. - After this we changed back to our dry clothes and left back for Malwan coast. We were terribly hungry and now wanted to eat some delicious Malwani food! And what would be better than the famous old 'Bamboo restaurant' in Malwan! We walked to this place from Malwan beach, and reached at 1 pm.
Bamboo is a relatively small outdoor place with about 10 tables of fours. Sad part is the wait. Hungry but determined now, we waited for 1 hour before we got a table. We ordered fish curry and rice and solkadi! The food was Simply Delicious! We couldn’t lift ourselves out of our chairs when we were done! :)
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