Mini-tour of Maharashtra: Part I

I’m back to the world of blogging with much to tell you folks about and a light background so that you complainers can read dark font in your e-mail/google reader! These past few weeks have been quite interesting for me: adventure, self-reflection, meeting up with other fellows, and most exciting of all- Joost! Since there’s so much to tell, I have to divide everything up into a few blog posts. So here’s the lowdown on Joost’s three week visit.

Weeks one and two were fairly uneventful. They consisted of lazing about, playing with the puppies, eating copious amounts of pomegranate, Christmas, a very uneventful NYE, and work. Although Chetna assigned Joost the position of temporary Mann Deshi photographer, he was still sweet enough to spend every day in the office with me whether or not he had anything to do. I think he really enjoyed getting to know and photographing the bank’s clients; it gave him a different perspective on and experience of India. If I get the permission of some of the women, I’ll post their photos at a later date. Until then, you’ll have to be satisfied with some mouthwatering pomegranate!

Our adventures began at the beginning of Joost’s third and last week when we set out to explore a bit of Maharashtra.

Stop 1: Ganpatipule is a small village with a beautiful long beach on the Konkan coast. With nobody else on the beach, we spent our days swimming in the warm, deep blue (yet painfully salty) water and flying Joost’s ridiculously powerful kite. Our first two nights we spent in a hotel with a beach view until we found little huts right on the beach for the same price. There’s something really soothing about falling asleep to the ocean’s waves.

Stop 2: Mahabaleshwar is a small town in the Western Ghats, the same mountain range I hiked while I was in Kerala. The town itself was very touristy but cute. We managed to escape the hordes of people by walking through the woods and enjoying the views. On our first night we were befriended by a Muslim family who was preparing for the following day’s festival. By “befriended” I mean that we took dozens of photos with them and the shrine-ish thing they were building, and then separated by gender. Joost spent some time with the men (they invited him to drink) and I with the women and children. Separately we were asked if we were married, for how long, whether it was by love or arrangement, if we had children, etc. (I hope we got our story straight!). The women then shoved a crying baby boy into my arms and told me that I wanted to have many baby boys just like him. Hahaha :) Nothing scares me more than crying children!

Stop 3: Pune is the second biggest city in Maharashtra so we decided to dig into our wallets and spend some money on a little luxury. We sprung for a pretty luxurious hotel, Italian food, Thai food, a massage and some wine. Although I love Mhaswad, a little culinary variation is necessary once in a while. Oh how relaxing it was!