I visited Kaas Plateau, Bamnoli backwaters and Sajjangadh fort yesterday with my family. If you have not visited it even after you are staying in Pune for quite some time with your family and kids, then I would say it is sad.
Timings: I had decided to visit the place with four other families from our housing society but unfortunately nobody showed up so I just hired a cab and went solo. The cab was booked to come at 6:30 in the morning but it reached at 7:15 and then instead of me it picked up somebody else from some other housing society. When I called the driver at 7:45, he dropped the other customer wherever he was and came back to pick me up so finally we left at 8:15. I would suggest you start early so that you can visit Thoseghar waterfall too.
How to reach: I took the route shown here. From chandani chowk, take the highway towards Bangalore and continue till Satara. When you are just leaving Satara, there is a flyover which you have to go underneath and take the right turn towards Kaas. You will actually go through Satara city. Make sure you take proper turn towards Bogda (Tunnel). When you reach Bogda, take right before tunnel towards Kaas and if you want to go to Sajjangadh, go beyond tunnel and then take right.
Parking: The Kaas Pathar is a no-parking zone so you better drop your family there and then go ahead 1-1.5 KM where you are allowed to park your car and then come back.
Tariffs: Satara Forest Department charges INR 10 per person when you enter Kaas. You also have to shell out INR 50 if you carry a camera. The cab I took charged me INR 8 per KM. From my home to Kaas, it is around 150 KM. To go to Sajjangadh, you have to come back to tunnel and then it is 15-20 KM more. So the total trip came to around 400 KM which costed me around INR 3200. The boat-ride in Bamnoli backwaters charge INR 450 for a boat of 6 people.
Food: I had searched for some restaurants/hotels in Satara and found 'Radhika Palace Hotel', 'Rajtara', 'Sagar Deluxe' all of them near Powai naka on the same road. I chose 'Radhika Palace Hotel' and ordered 'Poha', 'Dosa' and tea when we reached Satara at around 10:45. The food was average but the environment wasn't. The hotel stinked a lot and I decided not to come there again for food. In the afternoon at around 3:30 after visiting Kaas, when I came back to Satara, my wife found 'ShivSagar' and she thought most of the restaurants with that name generally offer good food. So we visited it and to our pleasant surprise, it was offering above average quality food. We ordered Hakka Noodles for my daughter and Naan+Roti and Veg Kadhai for ourselves. We finished our part but my daughter didn't take a single bite. So we took the noodles in parcel which my daughter did eat when we reached home at night.
Activities: Once you cross the toll collection booth on NH-4, both sides of the road is filled with bed-sheets of flowers. There were clouds in the sky and some of them were touching and playing with the mountain ranges of Sahyadri in front of our eyes. I had decided to take a nap along the way in the cab but the beauty of nature didn't allow me to blink my eyes.
All in all, it was an amazing experience. Have fun visiting these places.
Timings: I had decided to visit the place with four other families from our housing society but unfortunately nobody showed up so I just hired a cab and went solo. The cab was booked to come at 6:30 in the morning but it reached at 7:15 and then instead of me it picked up somebody else from some other housing society. When I called the driver at 7:45, he dropped the other customer wherever he was and came back to pick me up so finally we left at 8:15. I would suggest you start early so that you can visit Thoseghar waterfall too.
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How to reach: I took the route shown here. From chandani chowk, take the highway towards Bangalore and continue till Satara. When you are just leaving Satara, there is a flyover which you have to go underneath and take the right turn towards Kaas. You will actually go through Satara city. Make sure you take proper turn towards Bogda (Tunnel). When you reach Bogda, take right before tunnel towards Kaas and if you want to go to Sajjangadh, go beyond tunnel and then take right.
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|
Parking: The Kaas Pathar is a no-parking zone so you better drop your family there and then go ahead 1-1.5 KM where you are allowed to park your car and then come back.
Tariffs: Satara Forest Department charges INR 10 per person when you enter Kaas. You also have to shell out INR 50 if you carry a camera. The cab I took charged me INR 8 per KM. From my home to Kaas, it is around 150 KM. To go to Sajjangadh, you have to come back to tunnel and then it is 15-20 KM more. So the total trip came to around 400 KM which costed me around INR 3200. The boat-ride in Bamnoli backwaters charge INR 450 for a boat of 6 people.
Food: I had searched for some restaurants/hotels in Satara and found 'Radhika Palace Hotel', 'Rajtara', 'Sagar Deluxe' all of them near Powai naka on the same road. I chose 'Radhika Palace Hotel' and ordered 'Poha', 'Dosa' and tea when we reached Satara at around 10:45. The food was average but the environment wasn't. The hotel stinked a lot and I decided not to come there again for food. In the afternoon at around 3:30 after visiting Kaas, when I came back to Satara, my wife found 'ShivSagar' and she thought most of the restaurants with that name generally offer good food. So we visited it and to our pleasant surprise, it was offering above average quality food. We ordered Hakka Noodles for my daughter and Naan+Roti and Veg Kadhai for ourselves. We finished our part but my daughter didn't take a single bite. So we took the noodles in parcel which my daughter did eat when we reached home at night.
Activities: Once you cross the toll collection booth on NH-4, both sides of the road is filled with bed-sheets of flowers. There were clouds in the sky and some of them were touching and playing with the mountain ranges of Sahyadri in front of our eyes. I had decided to take a nap along the way in the cab but the beauty of nature didn't allow me to blink my eyes.
- Kaas Pathar: When you reach Kaas, the beauty of the nature just astonishes you. The Satara-Kaas road is surrounded by two dams on two sides so when you travel in your car, you will just want to wait at several places and keep taking snaps. Once you reach Kaas, you will see nothing but bed-sheets of flowers on both sides and you will just feel sleeping on them. I felt like I am God Indra who is taking a stroll in the gardens of Heaven with my wife and daughter. The only problem was that it had rained a lot in the morning so most of the ground was wet and I didn't take the risk of spoiling my clothes by taking a nap on the bed-sheets of flowers.
- Bamnoli Backwaters: If you go beyond Kaas, you will reach Bamnoli backwaters where there is Shivajisagar lake and you can take boat-rides.
- Sajjangadh: This is a fort. We reached there at around 5:30 in the evening and it was getting very late and dark so we just reached its entrance and came back.
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All in all, it was an amazing experience. Have fun visiting these places.
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