Tarkarli, a coastal village in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra, has state’s only scuba diving training centre. The distance between Pune and Tarkarli is 387.8 km. You can choose from three different routes, if its a long vacation you can even stop over.
A long yet wonderful road trip to Tarkarli:
The shortest route to Tarkarli from Pune would be via Kolhapur – Radhanagari -Dajipur. We decided to have a road trip to Tarkarli via Konkan enjoying the beauty of forests.
The journey started from Pune around 6 am in the morning just after the day of Holi. We could feel the tranquilized wind of coming summer. We were four friends : Isha, Palash,Paresh and me. Palash was driving and we were enjoying slow music, fresh air and sneaking out of window and enjoying the greenery of Pune.
We took Pune Bangalore highway after 2 hours and then stopped by at a small tea shop for breakfast. And Thanks to Palash’s camera, we captured every moment we enjoyed. But of course there was fight as nobody wanted to be behind the scene. We asked chai wale bhaiya to capture one snapshot.
On our half way around 220 kms from Pune,we found farms of beautiful sunflowers. The beauty and charm of those huge yellow flowers was just so natural and irresistible. We immediately parked the car and captured their beauty for our memories. They were as heighted as us.
We took pictures with them in the mid of farms and then on tractors of local people over there.
Thrilling experience with ghost in car:
Approximately when we were left with 60 kms to reach tarkarli around 8pm, We picked up a shortcut from Dajipur. It was a narrow road between forests. The area was a bit creepy, dark , and we could not see even a single person nearby. We could just hear the sound of waves and suddenly we could hear creepy and demonic scream as we hear in horror movies. We got scared and stopped the car and there was silence again. Palash started the car again and we moved for a while and the sound was back again. We were all terrified. After a moment Paresh started laughing. We were all shocked and giving him angry look. Actually Paresh’s phone was connected to car as we were playing music through it and that sound was the recorded audio of his flatmate’s snoring.Sigh… We took a long breath and laughed so hard. Palash started driving as quick as possible to come out of that creepy area.
Here comes our destination:
Continuing the journey finally we reached our destination at night ( in around 10-11 hours ). After having dinner and relaxing for 1-2 hours at the resort we booked, we went to nearby beach to chill for sometime.
We spent two nights and a day in Tarkarli. This vacation was full of good as well as bad experiences.
As we were all vegetarian and Tarkarli is a Malvan region which is famous for its seafood, so it was difficult to find good vegetarian food. Also there day to day food is seafood. Somehow we managed to get one restaurant where they also served eatable vegetarian food.
We managed to get a scuba diving trainer’s number from the hotel reception and then he pre-booked our tickets for scuba diving for next morning.
Finally, after returning from beach, we went to sleep and early morning left for scuba diving.
Fresh morning with excitement for beach visit:
The trainer came to pick us up from hotel and then from beach side we went to the Tarkarli fort ( which was in almost center of sea area ) by motor boat.
The smell of sea water and the cold wind in sea’s humid was so relaxing. For a while, I could not even sense if anybody was there. I was lost in the nature enjoying the wind, blue water and gazing at never ending sea shore.
There were ten more people on that boat along with us. The trainer called everyone one after the other and finally our group’s turn came. He provided the kit for scuba diving.
Everyone did diving successfully even some of them did not know swimming like me. We do not need to know swimming while scuba diving as the kit contains floater, life jacket and oxygen cylinder tied to your back with a mouth respirator which contains rubber grips which you have to hold in your jaws and hence you will be able to breath inside sea. To know more about scuba diving you can refer this link
http://www.scubadiving.com/training/basic-skills/your-first-set-gear-buyers-guide.
Paresh’s Scuba diving experience:
Paresh’s experience was pretty good. Let’s hear it from him: I was really excited as scuba diving was in my to-do list for so long. As I stepped into sea wearing the kit and I knew swimming, so I easily went just above the corals. After reaching there, trainer guided me to breath using mouth respirator and then I started snorkeling and was moving towards the surface under sea. I couldn’t believe my eyes; I felt I was in a different world altogether. There were plenty of Corals, Rock patches and fishes. We were surrounded by beautiful and colorful small fishes, they aren’t harmful and watching them is like a treat to the eyes I found a beautiful pearl oyster but unfortunately it was empty :). Slowly I moved towards corals and held myself steady with the help of rocks inside water. It was a bit difficult though as the stones had fungi all over, finally the guide clicked some pictures and videos inside sea and finally after taking a round I reached directly at the base of boat after 40 minutes.
My Unfortunate Experience:
Unfortunately, I could not complete it successfully like Paresh and others did.
I have hydrophobia and apart from that I could not hold the mouth respirator properly even the trainer guided me. I was not able to hold the grip as I was scared. So saline water was going inside my mouth and unfortunately I had to come out.
Everyone in my group did it except me, I was really disappointed with myself. But this is not the end of life. I will definitely try some other time.
Trip continues..
Then after scuba diving.We dived into sea taking tubes and enjoyed the sea water.
Paresh is pretty good at swimming, he was enjoying more than any of us, lying and relaxing on the water surface as if it was his bed. I could not stop myself from capturing that moment when he was overjoyed.
Finally we returned back around noon, and went to explore places all around Tarkarli to have good vegetarian food which was very difficult to get.
About MTDC Resort in Tarkarli:
It is recommended to choose the Home-stays close to MTDC Resort Tarkarli which is sort of junction between Tarkarli and Devbaug. Although we went on a long weekend and the trip was unplanned, we could not get any accommodation over there and had to stay near malvan beach. Distance between Malvan and Tarkarli is 7 km. Resort MTDC is consider as end point of Tarkarli.
we went for lunch at MTDC resort, they have a good restaurant. As we went inside the entrance, it was beautiful, located at beach side, small wood huts just to relax and enjoy the sea view. The whole Tarkarli beach was connected parallely behind the resort.
Rusty orange sky touching the blue water:
We went for water sports near the beach and finally came back to our hotel after enjoying the sunset.
Its just perfect when you can see the sunset without any obstacles coming in between the view as if sun is hiding itself in the sea and making the sky rusty orange.
Oops I still can picture it but that’s too much to digest for my readers.
Next day morning we left from Tarkarli. So here the journey ends at Tarkarli.
Places Visited: 4
Malvan beach, Tarkarli beach, Sindhudurg fort, MTDC resort.
Best route from Pune: NH4( National Highway 4 ) to Kolhapur and from Kolhapur join Radhanagar forest road,which is little creepy but full of greenery and amazing views.
Photos taken: 1100
Money spent:
- Accommodation: Resort charges for 1 big room for 2 nights and 1 day was Rs.5000 as it was peak time after holi.
- Car Rent: Rs.13,000 included round trip from Pune to Tarkarli including petrol.
- Food: Rs: 3500
- Activities:
- Water sports: Rs. 300 per person.
- Scuba diving and snorkeling : Rs. 750 per person.
- Miscellaneous:
- Food on the road trip including breakfast, lunch and snacks: Rs. 3000.
- Shopping of Hat and Tiaras: Rs. 500
Total amount spent: Rs.30,000
For more of our travelling experiences and if you have craving to explore new places, please keep in touch and share your experiences here.
Good going….
so adorable u look paresh n anisha :*
CravetoExplore very beautiful thoughts and ideas to put memories and pictures on a platform for others to feel and experience or rather built a craving for experience.
I really liked it infact loved it. Wish to join you someday to such wanderous trips to explore the baeutiful world around us.
We would love to join you in our trips and you can freely add your posts any time you want to. 🙂
Thanks alot for appreciation.
Very nice Initiative guys … Somehow I liked the way you are exploring these places and sharing it.
Unbelivable experince with both of guyszzz…
And waiting for your call for another exciting trip…???
Will definitely plan soon 🙂