My first ever long and exciting trip
It was back then when I was pursuing my ISC, when school had planned Mumbai trip for outgoing students. It was just not Mumbai alone, the package involved other places as well like panchgani, lonavala, Khandala etc. All of us was excited as teenagers that we shopped so much to look good in the trip. But I had financial concerns and looking at my friends, my morale was completely down. However, I managed to go for a trip. We took a Train journey and we were 50 of us which included faculty members. No trip can be as good as Train Journey especially when we are travelling with our friends. I Loved each and every bit of it, listening to music, eating snacks, playing and talking to teachers .
When we are travelling to Mumbai in train , we travel via Doodsagar falls and Pune railway station. We were advised not keep our mobile phones near the windows as robbers might steal it. This scared me…but we were careful enough and slept soundly. I was studying in a Co-ed school and trip became much more exciting as it involved guys as well.
A 5 day trip just went with a blink of an Eye. We reached Mumbai and Mumbai is so called “Sapno Ka Shehar” made us too see how Mumbai is. While were waiting to check in to Hotel, we see a Lady who picks garbage on road side shouting at top of her voice. We checked into Hotel and got all decked up to check out attractions in Mumbai. We went to Gateway of India, Marine Drive, Haji-ali Dargah , planetarium (where few us slept) and few museums. The Best Of all is travel to Elephant’s caves. It’s an hour’s Boat journey from Gateway of India. Waves was to high that all of us were scared and thought if it was our last day on Earth.
One of my friend started thinking of her family members and relatives , the feelings I had was mixed – I was trolling over it and was scared at the same time. We reached , took photos and we were back at the Hotel. We were taken to Fashion Street Of Mumbai. This was the place we were waiting because it had the name “Fashion” in it. It had high-end name but when we reached there our faces frowned. However, we did little bit of shopping.
Let me tell you, It’s a good shopping place where everything is pretty reasonable much more than Bangalore. It was time for us to leave Mumbai and travel to Pune, Lonavala, panchgani and Khandala. On the way, we had visited Pune Zooo… Piky… But wait , How about the Food ? Well, It was arranged by caterers. Caterers which school hired was so bad that if they had plates they had no spoons and if they had spoons, they had no plates.
The taste of the food was pretty OK. Pune National Park / Zoo was no different than Bannerghatta National Park of Bangalore. After the zoo , we went to Panchgani. Wow ! what a place Panchgani is. We were told “Raja Hindustani” Movie was shot there. The ambiance, the feeling was incredible and we also saw few newly married Couple were getting photoshoot there. After Panchgani , we went to Lonvala and from Lonavala we had to go Khandala. It was so unfortunate that the Big Bus could not go to Khandala because of the roads. While we were coming back we bought few chikies for home and we boarded train to come back to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore and felt so good that it cannot be expressed in Words. No Place is good as “Bangalore”. So , Love your City !!