"Khandala - A walk in the clouds" Khandala by Escadora7

Khandala is a charming little hill station on the western slope of the Sahyadri range of mountains, straddling the Mumbai-Pune highway, at an altitude of 625m. Its a perfect getaway town for the mumbaites, close for a quick retreat to tranquility and yet far from the everyday hustle and bustle of city life.

Temperatures vary between 12 deg. C in winter to around 36 deg. C during summer. The annual rainfall is 450 cms, though however wet, the place can be extremely beautiful during the monsoons.

Quite popular as a health resort, Khandala has a lot to offer; beautiful green hills filled with lush vegetation and enchanting green valleys. Many-a-time when the fog sets in, the hills look like pictures out of a story book.

Picturesque valley in Khandala

The best time to visit Khandala is between October and May. The climate is pleasant. There is almost an ethireal calm in the air, though the valleys scream out enchantment.

During the monsoons, numerous spectacular cascading waterfalls take birth right in front of your eyes, and meander down the sides of the hills into the lush ravines.

My memories take me back to lying down atop one of these hills and spending a relaxing afternoon taking in the entire splendor, and breathing in the cool, crispy air, trying to reach out and touch the clouds as they swirled around me.

Look beyond the trees

The last and only time I ever visited Khandala was over 15 years earlier, so I guess a lot must have changed since then. However the beauty of the place will always remain in my thoughts. There always has been an urge to visit once more, some time soon hopefully.

It was my early teens and this was one of the first trips I would take, so, as one might expect, I was a bit nervous though excited at the same time. While there, I had stayed at a friends place, who also travelled down from Bombay over the weekend for a bit of a getaway, and her family had been extremely hospitable and made me feel right at home, especially her dad and two much older brothers.

My memories are of being fussed over like one of their own in a huge beautiful bungalow, with a lawn and driveway as big as a football field. The weather was chilled and it drizzled slightly, and my hosts threw a small barbeque party with some of their neighbours invited. Here was where I had my first cigarette and a few glasses of rum and coke.

Unfortunately her dad was gunned down a couple of years later in a bit of a shootout just before the 1993 bomb blasts that rocked bombay. The pain ebbed, but the memories remain. This little space is dedicated to him.

• Pros:Couple of hours from bombay.
• Cons:None that I know of
• In a nutshell:A perfect weekend getaway.