Lovavala, Khandala

We visited Lonavala, the popular hill station of Maharashtra for a day. There are many hotels and resorts available for stay. You need to hire a taxi for sight seeing. They charge around 1500 to 2000 INR to show all the points including Khandala ghat.

The Ekveera Devi temple is about 6 kms from Lonavala and is located on a hill and next to the famous Karla Caves. You need to ascend around 500 steps to reach the temple. You get an excellent view of the surroundings from the hill top.

Ekveera Devi Temple Hill

After we visited the artistic Wax Museum. It contains around 32 celebrity wax idols. It is a real fun being here. The ticket is 100 INR per head. 

Wax idol of Mahatma Gandhi at Wax Museum

In Lonavala, there is a Botanical garden, having so many ancient trees. We saw one tree was reclining for about 15 feet in length, and the other had a hollow trunk and inside some other tree had started growing. 

Reclining tree

Tree inside of a tree

There is a beautiful Bushi Dam located a few kilometers from Lonavala. In monsoon this dam overflows and the water flows over a series of steps on which everyone can enjoy the flow of water.  

Way to Bushi Dam in rain

The Mumbai-Pune express highway passes through the very famous Khandala ghat.  There is a public garden on the top of the ghat, from this garden you can see an artistic view of hills, Highway and many small waterfalls. The highway actually passes beneath this garden, making a long tunnel.

View from Khandala Ghat

View from Khandala Ghat

Khandala and Lonavala both are famous for their seemingly innumerable varieties of chikki. There are many local shops, where you can taste and buy them.