Weekend Trip To Kihim – Alibaug: Part 1

During my summer vacation stay at Pune this year, D and I had gone on a short trip to Kihim and Alibaug during weekend. So before I get too late in posting my account of the trip like Vimmuuu [ ] and I forget the details for the travelogue, here is the first part of the three post series.

27^th May: Kihim is a beach at south of Mumbai. By road Mumbai to Kihim is 120 km and takes approx 3 hrs. Pune to Kihim is 150 km and takes 4 hrs. So we decided to go to Mumbai by train and then by ferry to Mandwa port which takes 1 hr only.

Our train from Pune to Mumbai was at midnight. While we were waiting for our train which was running late, I tweeted that I was at Pune station. To my surprise, @Sparklinglory,a tweep from Pune, replied that she was there too!! Before I could reply back to her my BSNL GPRS went down. But she managed to recognize me from my twitter DP!! And thus took place my first impromptu tweet-up at a railway station! It was wonderful meeting a warm, friendly and extrovert woman like her.

Our train arrived at last. As it was a short journey we had booked tickets in sleeper coach. After boarding we realized it was a mistake. Found a woman and a man sleeping on our seats. The woman was one unreasonable and quarrelsome character. To cut a long story short, at last we got our seats. Few minutes later a man came and poked D (who was on upper berth) and asked him if he could stay with us in Bombay as he could not afford accommodation!! Do people going to “The City of Dreams” ask strangers on train for a place to stay for free??

After D told him that we don’t live in Bombay, the man left. It was 1.30 am by then and sleep eluded us still. The crowded compartment and the increasing humidity in weather as the train approached Mumbai worsened the situation.

28th May : Our train was to reach CST at 4 am or so. I had thought CST would be like Howrah station and we will be able to spend 1.5 hrs there easily as the first ferry for Mandwa port leaves Apollo Bandar at 6 am.

But I am sorry to say that we were disappointed. Too many people, lack of enough place to sit, poor air circulation and extreme humidity are the only memories for us of CST station. After having tea and sandwich, we decided to go and sit at Gateway of India as there would be open space and oceanic breeze at least.

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It was wonderful seeing the dawn break at Gateway of India. Lot of people had gathered there by 6 am…I guess Alibaug is a popular weekend getaway for Mumbai folks. Our ferry left at 6.15 am and thus began my first boat ride.

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