Thanksgiving

I celebrated Thanksgiving away from home this year, but I made up for it by talking to family and friends and enjoying a turkey dinner. It was pretty good for being so far away!

Mahabaleshwar and other good stuff

I got out to see Mahabaleshwar and the wonderful surrounding area this weekend. As usual, pictures just don't do it justice. It took 2.5 - 3 hours to get to the area. Most of the touring was done outside Mahabaleshwar itself, and we ate lunch at a hotel near the town.

We ended up on a horse-cart tour of one of the plateaus outside Mahabaleshwar. It was only about a 20 minute tour. The area didn't allow vehicles out there and it was a bit of a hike by foot. These tours seemed pretty popular and there were quite a few carts.

This is the view from the first overlook that we visited.

This is the Orchid Room at Mapro Gardens. We must have been early, as this area wasn't open yet. It was really something though - basically a dining area in a greenhouse.

This was at the same location as the horse-cart tours. There's a cave down these stairs, and apparently this makes a good hangout for local monkeys.

This was our last stop. I can't remember the name of this particular overlook, but it was really nice on this platform.

Food on the grill at Barbeque Nation - excellent. This was dinner back in Pune.

Thank you to my colleague that strongly recommended this trip!

Lonavala and Karla Caves

I visited Lonavala / Khandala this past Saturday. Lonavala is a hill-station about 1.5 hours from Pune and it's right on the highway between Pune and Mumbai. This picture is from one of the overlooks. It was sunny and very windy.

There were wild monkeys at a garden outside Lonavla. This guy is munching on some peanuts.

View into a valley outside Lonavla. There are waterfalls here during the rainy season.

Karla Caves. These were carved out of the rock-face around 1 B.C. by Buddhists. I had no idea that this was here - the guide just said that we were going to see some caves. The holes in the middle and half-way up are windows to meditation rooms. There are rock stairways to get up into the rooms in the bottom openings on the left. This was all carved out of the rock-face, from what I understand.

This is inside the main chamber at Karla Caves.

This is right outside the main chamber at Karla Caves. There are many carvings like this outside the main chamber.