Friday, November 05, 2010

Kelva

As much as I hate to love the madness and drudgery of Mumbai, I love to speed out of city limits and peer at it from far away. I like seeing the blue of the sky, uninterrupted by upward scrambling skyscrapers. I like watching cattle amble through fields and people bustle through the weekly market. I like seeing the car lap up black, tarry kilometers as I try to pocket and preserve the green, the blue and the brown.


The drive from Mumbai to Kelva Beach is rather long (120kms), but pleasant. Getting onto NH 8 from Thane is quick and smooth in the early morning. The roads are good, but trucks and lorries of all shapes and sizes lord the roads even at this hour. Hues of gray, brown and blue dominate a major leg of the journey. There is little buzz on either side of the Highway. The concrete stares back at you squarely until you turn right at Manor Naka.











The landscape magically changes. Concrete gives way to an expanse of fields and greenery and a faint smell of the sea.



The four lane highway and the rumbling traffic is left behind. A lazier and prettier stretch, lined with trees yawned ahead, in front of us.
















We finally reach a sleepy village which is Kelwe (in Marathi). The locals seem to be used to see cars revving down their narrow roads. Vada pav and Chai shops dot the roads at corners. Some new ones seemed to have sprouted recently to sell the Diwali goodies. We see colorful roadside carts selling diyas, rangoli, lanterns and crackers. The village houses carry no garish traces of glitter and other luminous monstrosities as their urban counterparts.

Our car trundles down a very narrow, rough patch and we enter what is called 'Kelva Beach Resort.'













There is nothing  good about this resort. Except may be a little bit of aesthetic sense here and there.

The final destination, the beach, sadly too is a let down. There is something distant and unfriendly about the sea here....and the sand doesn't sparkle.
 
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while. The best thing about the Kelva is definitely the drive and the sights en-route.

3 comments:

domain name registration said...

Really nice place and all of pictures are awesome. I like this place. Thanks for sharing.

Henry said...

Wow, great pics. Thank you for these. Sure would be great to see your country. My sister went to Mumbi a few years ago and said it was amazing! Maybe some day I will get there. Have you ever been to America?

overturned blue shoe said...

Hi Henry! Thanks for visiting my blog and all your comments :-) You must visit India and of course, Mumbai. I look fwd to visiting some parts of the US,not been there yet!