Guhagar & Hedvi

After the diwali rush was over, last year, I visited GUHAGAR in Kokan area of Maharashtra state in India. I went there with my wife and 4 year old son.
We travelled to Guhagar by State Transport (ST) bus. There are two direct ST buses from Pune (Swargate) to Guhagar: one at 21.15 Hrs. and the other at 07.30 Hrs. We opted the morning bus and reached Guhagar by 16.30 Hrs. that day. If these two times are not suitable to any one, then travel to Chiplun and then there are many options to reach Guhagar.
In the route to Guhagar comes the largest HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER PROJECT of Asia, the Koyna Dam. We could see the wall pf the dam as the bus halted at Koyna Nagar for lunch break. This Koyna Nagar was originally established for the labourers and engineers who were part of the dam construction project. After departing from Koyna Nagar, we started climbing down the Kumbharli Ghat, second most difficult ghat in the Sahyadri ranges after the Varandha ghat. Once the bus climbed down the ghat, we all were in the Kokan region and few kilometres away is Chiplun.
The journey from Chiplun to Guhagar was as breath taking as the Kumbharli ghat. The road hardly was on plain surface and major part of the way to Guhagar was ghat road.
There are lodges around with good facilities but the rates they charged were too high compared to the facilities they provided. hence we opted to stay in the sanitorium near the Vyadeshar Temple, managed by the trustees of the temple itself. The rooms of this sanitorium are clean and tidy.


After getting little fresh, we walked to the calm and quiet beach of Guhagar We played there in the water and I captured on camera, my son making castles in the sand! We could easily see the Jetty of the DABHOL POWER CORPORATION from the Guhagar beach. We were on the beach till it was dark.

After dinner we all came back to our room in the sanitorium and slept. Next morning we woke up early as I was to do the POOJA & ABHISHEK to SHREE VYADESHVAR, our family god (Kuldaivat). The Pooja & Abhishek went on for about 2 hours. I felt very pleasant during and after that!
Before checking out at 10.00 Hrs, we purchased a few good books; one about how the land of Kokan was aquired by Lord Parshuram from the Western sea and the other about the places of interest around Guhagar.
This second book I just said about described about the only restaurant near Hedvi beach, which served fresh sea food. So we now planned to go there. Hedvi is a small town about 1 hour of drive away from Guhagar. This journey was again in a ST bus whose destination was "Rohile". This bus departs from Guhagar at 12.15 Hrs and one can catch the same bus at Hedvi at 16.30 Hrs. to go back to Guhagar.


Hedvi is famous for the temple of Lord Ganesh. This idol of Lod Ganesh had 10 hands, hence aptly called as DASH BHUJ GANESH! Then we took an Auto Rikshaw to this Suruchi restaurant. It is very close to the Hedvi beach and is surrounded by cocoanut trees making a very cool and sheddy ambiance. After the lunch we went to the beach and played in the sea water. The wet sands of the beach were reflecting the cocoanut trees on the shore. The returning waves of the sea had left very pretty markings on the sand and tiny crabs crawling there were breaking the pattern! We took a few more good pictures of the beach and of my son sitting on small rocks emerging out of the sands.

Very close to the beach is the famous BAMAN GHAL. It is a big fissure in the rock and the sea water gushes into it during high tides to make huge splashes. I took couple of snaps there and we returned.
The return journey to Chiplun was equally memorable! From Hedvi to a villege called Rampur we had to travel in a jeep and then in a tempo before we could get a ST bus for Chiplun.
At Chiplun we stayed at my cousine's home and departed to Pune the next morning......