Klishmaklaver

Trekking up to the old and formidable fort of PratapGarh near Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra.This has been brought out of the archives for Monochrome Mania T rekking through memories sweet H ow many friends made I' m thinking about them N ow, time and again K indly tell me if  I 'll meet them again N eed them to know G od! I miss them This has been written for the Z-A in 26 Days Challenge at 'I Rhyme Without Reason!" And for the Acrostics Only Prompt # 2 for November.

Come summer and one longs for a break from the sweltering heat! The lesser beings like me don’t always get a chance to escape to some exotic locale but where I went it was no less beautiful. Mahabaleshwar is aptly referred to as the queen of all hill-stations. Nestled in the lush greenery of evergreen forests, Mahabaleshwar is a cool hill-station located in the heart of the Sahyadri hills in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. I call this pet summer destination MahaB and it takes about an hour and a half to reach there by road (located about 120 km (75 mi) southwest of Pune and 285 km (177 mi) from Mumbai to be precise). Being a complete foody uppermost on my agenda were Strawberries and Mulberries. MahaB provides for almost 85%of the Strawberry cultivation in India. As soon as we arrived at the toll Naka we were flocked by hawkers and we readily bought off small baskets  full of fresh, ripe and humongous sized strawberries and lovely rich purple Mulberries. I found the fruits tas...

As if to establish what I heard many of my traveler friends say time and again, we discovered one of the most superb Indian holiday destination when we were least expecting it! The real thrill out of traveling does come when you discover something you did not map, just out of the blue. Or should I say in the GREEN? My hubby and I felt like we had hit a jackpot and our delight knew no bounds. As a newly married couple dutifully should, we, the clueless couple, had set off to visit our KulDaivata temple at Ankola for the first time. For the uninitiated, Ankola is a small town in Karnataka close to Mangalore and also accessible from Goa . We chalked the route to the LaxmiNarayan Nagve MahaMaya Temple on our own. And Google came in handy again. Being a last minute plan to travel, as always, the only option was to hitch a ride in the next KSRTC Volvo bus to Mangalore or drive down. We obviously chose option A. The conductor and driver was such a co-operative crew that they though...