Road trip to Ganpatipule

Yes.. the monsoons have finally arrived.. Ahh.. such a relief after those hot summer days.

The last weekend was a long weekend and my husband and I decided to go on a Road trip in our new car to enjoy this monsoon. Road trips with my husband have always been very memorable. They give both of us to spend some amazing time together, which we generally don’t get in this fast paced life of Mumbai. And this year it was going to be special as our 2 year old son Aryaman was coming with us.

Since it was Aryaman's first road trip, I wanted it to be perfect. With this road trip I wanted to bring him close to nature. Till now he has just seen the concrete jungle of Mumbai. I want to show him the beauty of God's creation. We thought what else could be better than visiting konkan. It has some beautiful white sand non-commercialized beaches, clean sea water, greenery and exotic scenic beauty. Also the simple and sweet village/small town life is worth experiencing. The people are so simple and hard working and the food simple, but can beat any restaurant food in Mumbai.

So we decided to drive to Konkan region this time. And visiting Konkan in monsoon will be a different experience all together. We planned to take a route via Harihareshwar, Diveaghar, Dapoli, Chiplun and finally Ganpatipule

For a perfect road trip my car has to be fully equipped with all the necessary items that are going to be required for the trip. So we took utmost care of it. The most important thing to have is the navigation system. Exploring new places without navigation is very difficult.

The other things that I generally carry always is my non electric mini stove. As Aryaman is just 2 yrs old I wanted to avoid outside food for him. And this idea turned out to be a high point of our trip. Because, whenever required we would stop somewhere and I use to make some tea, maggi and even rice and dal for my son. And believe me cooking on road side (sometimes under an umbrella) is such a fun. Without this experience my road trip would have been incomplete.

How can I forget to mention the sandwiches…Aryaman and I just loved the sandwiches which my hubby had himself packed for the journey.

Music was also a highlight of our road trip. We both love to hear some soft romantic songs while driving. I had copied all our favorite songs in a pen drive along with the songs that Aryaman liked to dance on (whenever his music use to play he would start dancing on the backseat).

Our first destination was Diveaghar via Mahad. The drive was beautiful as we drove through some exotic scenic roads. Diveaghar I should say has some most beautiful beaches of Konkan….clean and serene. This was a first visit of Aryaman to a Beach. We spent some time on the beach where I showed him how to make sand house as I use to make during my child hood.  

Next we visited the Temple of Harihareshwar. It was an amazing temple and its Parikrama I could never forget. Here half the parikrama is in the sea. We were literally walking on the path with water on both the sides. We took a halt in Harihareshwar for that day.

Next day we again started our journey. Our next stop was Dapoli. The road had this amazing scenic beauty that made me fall in love with Konkan… We drove through the hills and steep valleys… And since it was monsoon we also sighted few waterfalls on the way. Dapoli has some amazing non commercialized beaches around it. We could not visit all of them.  After spending some time on the beaches of Dapoli we headed towards Ganpatipule via Chiplun and halted there for that night in the MTDC resort which was just on the beach.

Next day was fully dedicated to Ganpatipule. Ganpatipule has this white sand beach which is quite famous and the Ganesh temple which is just on the beach. After temple visit we took Aryaman to the town visit to show him how people here stay. I wanted to give him a glimpse of life of people in small town. They don’t have video games, gadgets, internet etc. but still are so occupied in their work. The children here play all outdoor games and never get bored of it. The visit was a good learning for him as he got to learn and see many things which he could not see in Mumbai. This made us both very content and made our trip successful.

Will relaxed for the rest of the evening on the beach and played some games.

Next day we headed back to Mumbai again. I should say that we had a very smooth drive thanks to the Navigation. There was not a single incidence where we had to ask people for the directions nor did we lose the direction. 

This was a very memorable trip for me because I got to spend some most amazing time with my hubby and my son. The amusement that I used to see in my son’s eyes as he saw all these things made all my effort worth. Also along with fun we tried to teach him various things which going forward will be very useful to him.  We will took lot of pictures on the way and will preserve them as a memory of Aryaman’s first road trip which I think was the most Perfect one…!!!

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.