A small but adventurous trip around Pune

On this Sunday, we had some guests in our house. They had come to Pune from Roha via Tamhini ghat in the morning. They wanted to visit a place in Chinchwad along with me and my wife. After that they planned to start back for Roha via Lonavla by the 5 pm bus - and reach Roha by 10 pm.

To give some background, there are two routes to Roha from Pune. One is through the beatiful Tamhini Ghat. This is a short-cut. The longer route is through Pimpri-Chinchwad-Lonavla, which is a longer one. The only bus on this long route from Pune in the noon is at 5 pm which reaches Roha at 10 pm.

So we all started from my house in Kothrud at 12.30 pm and surprisingly reached Chinchwad in just 25 minutes. The roads were near empty in the hot noon and so it was a very easy and pleasant drive via the highway. Luckily, our meeting at Chinchwad ended in an hour and a half, so we had plenty of time in our hands before the visitors could catch their 5 pm bus. It was then that we all decided to change the visitor's plans.

According to the new plan, all four of us (The two visitors, me and my wife) would start immediately (@ 2.30 pm) from Chinchwad towards Hinjewadi. From Hinjewadi, we would take a road towards Pirangut. Pirangut is located on the Pune-Roha road about 30 KMs away from Pune. But the big advantage is, there are many buses from Pune that go towards Roha from this route at that time of the day, as compared to the only 5 pm bus on the Lonavla route.

So off we went from Chinchwad - back towards Pune on the Bombay Banglore bypass. We left the bypass at Hinjewadi, showed our guests a number of cool IT buildings in Hinjewadi. And then crossed Hinjewadi to travel towards Pirangut. It was around 2.45 pm. We knew that a bus from Pune would start towards Roha via the Tamhini route at 3 pm. This bus was expected to reach Pirangut at around 3.30 pm - 3.45 pm. So our target was to reach Pirangut before 3.30 pm at any cost so that the visitors could catch this bus at Pirangut. With so much of time on hand, we were more than confident that we would make it in time.

Then the shocker. With 5 KMs. still to go, we stopped at a place known to the visitors. They had an acquaintance working in a plant on this road. When we met that person, he told that the road ahead had a bridge before Pirangut which had recently fallen off! So according to him, the only way out for us was to go back to Hinjewadi, take the bypass, come to Chandni Chawk and catch the bus. But that would have taken us more that half an hour at least, and we would have surely missed the bus at Chandni Chawk. Disappointed that all our optimizations had fallen apart, we began our drive back. On the way back, about 5 kms still away from Hinjewadi, we saw a (kind-of-kaccha) road to Pirangut. We stopped a vehicle on that road coming from the other side and confirmed that the road was accessible right through to Pirangut and had no broken bridges :-) However, this road was severely damaged and kind of risky. We still decided to take the risk as the distance was only 10 Kilometers.

As we moved ahead, we realised that the ride was very bumpy but equally beatiful. This road goes through hills and rivers with lush green fields on both the sides. It was really enjoyable but scary. We had almost no other human being visible in the near vicinity. The road condition meant the car could break down or catch a puncture anywhere and we would have no help at hand! After a long wait, we reached Pirangut at sharp 3.30pm. The bus reached there at 3.45 pm and the visitors were only too happy! They reached Roha at 7 pm whereas via Lonavla they could not have reached before 10 pm.

It was a bit tiring, but the beauty of the nature generally over-rides such exhaustion. And so we had a wonderful drive. The sudden and un-expected changes in plans right throughout the journey made our day really memorable. Looking forward to many more such trips in the future.

Cheers,
- Tosh