Malvan… A trip into the New Year

Yup, it’s a little weird considering everyone drives to Pune or Mumbai during this time of the year to blow cash on the most ridiculous parties. And I decided to go to Konkan with my family. Why? Hmm… no dance partner for New Years, as simple :) So decided to go to Malvan, which is famous for its Sea Food (major point of attraction for me), its distinct spices and the Tarkarli Beach, which was around Malvan. Also because all the places in Konkan I knew were already booked and packed. The drive was going to be long, almost 400kms from Pune. We reached the small town after almost 10 and half hours drive.

Malvan… the land of ‘not so virgin’ beaches, narrow roads and gay dogs :)) I had already spoken to Mahesh from Dariya Sarang Resort (I got the number from here). We were to be put up at someone’s house which Mahesh had helped us in getting the contact. This was after loads of searches on the internet. It was very surprising that a place like Malvan does not have a lot of web presence. Anyways, so as soon as we entered this small town, we were hit by traffic jams. No, not because of heavy traffic, but because someone had parked a car on the road :P

The apartment

The apartment was a nice one and the best thing about it was it was barely 20 meters away from the water that flowed from the sea into the land. It was low tide then, so the exposed land was seen, which caught my eye and started off shooting the pictures. We first hit the Malvan Beach that evening to have a quick bite and then explore the beach. The beach has nothing much to be boasted about since it is a fishing center with many fishing boats to be seen. The good thing was, even though it’s a little busy, one could enjoy the crisp sunset there, gazing at the gorgeous Sindhudurg Fort, built in the sea some 100 meters away from the shore.

The view from our room

We had a quick bite at Hotel Sagar Kinara (located right at the Malvan Beach) and we moved to the Chivla Beach (North) from here. At Chivla, the locals were celebrating the Koast Fest (an annual festival of the locals). I was expecting a lot of activities here, but it was more of a “stalls that sell local spices and stalls food” place. We bought a pack of dry Kokum here. The major attraction here was Santa made of sand. It was really well crafted by 2 of the locals there. We sat there for sometime waiting for the sun to go down. Ganesh Visarjan was going to happed there, which I learnt was done every year at this time too. We didn’t wait that to happen, since the folks were waiting for some VIP to arrive. We moved from there since there was nothing much to do here.

The Sand model - Santa

It was around 7:30 and we didn’t want to go back home. So I drove towards Tarkarli (which was on the to-visit list for the next day) and looked around for a nice place to eat. We stopped at a place called Chintamani opposite to MTDC resorts, after trying to barge into some other hotel, who very conveniently said “NO FOOD” to me, since we didn’t stay there. Chintamani served “home-cooked” food. No fancy stuff, just a nice Maharashtrian lady preparing food for people staying there and now for us too. Xerxes and I took full advantage of this and hogged a lot. We had 2 portions each of Prawn Curry and Fish Curry with Rice and some ‘n’ hot chapattis with a glass of Kokum Juice. And our entire bill came to some 300 odd bucks including a bottle of beer. After the hearty feast, we drove back to Malvan to hit the sack and to end my long day’s tiredness. By now, all I could see with my eyes shut was prawns, more prawns and the highway :)

Day 2 coming up in my next post…