While searching for a place to stay in booking sites, I always uncheck the homestay option. While I appear to be an extrovert, I think i am like a closet introvert – someone who always shies away from social interactions. Recently when a girl of my age and designation joined the same company that I had joined a year back, I realized she had spoken to more people in a week than I had in one year! Anyway, so long story short, I finally let go off the inhibitions and decided to go for a homestay.
Parents were in town and were not interested in doing the usual Lonavala, Mahabaleshwar trips. So i just started randomly checking for stays in Kashid, preferably beach front properties. While Alibaug has lot of well known hotels and luxury resorts, I was struggling to find something ínteresting’ in kashid. And then I stumbled upon Anandi Villa – a beach front property around 7 miles from Kashid in a place called Adi and after checking reviews across sites, I decided to go for it.
For people driving from Pune, there is a certain patch in Pen that is really frustrating because of the poor condition of roads. But once you reach Kashid, all the pain of Pen ( a joke my dad craked!) goes away because of the scenic drive with the sea visible at one side of the road.
We got more and more skeptical as we approached the location. The roads had dense forests on both sides and some houses in between and definitely no sea. I was going in my mind how on earth could this be a beach front property?
The host welcomed us at the gate and the rooms were on the first floor of the villa.The rooms are not luxurious but they have all the basic necessities of an urban life like AC, Wifi, Hot water etc. From one of the rooms, we could see the dense garden of betel nut and coconut trees and a narrow path that led to the sea. In August, we were greeted with a very humid weather and the AC was a savior.
Since our room offered no sea view, I wasted no time in changing into my beach clothes and heading out. What greeted me was beautiful and cannot be explained in words. The sea was pristine and was totally secluded. So basically we got our own private beach.
With all the disheartening news of the Amazon rainforest fires and Arctic glaciers melting and Plastic waste pollution killing oceanic creatures,it was a relief to spend couple of days in a place that was so green, where no visible deforestation had occurred and where the beaches were pristine and the waves didn’t wash in plastic waste.
Konkan has such beautiful gems to offer, Adi (about 7km from Kashid ) is one of them. Happy that there are still some places where human encroachment or commercialization hasn’t destroyed nature. Definitely need to explore more of the konkan coastline. .
The pictures below will tell you more.
Travel Tips
- How to reach – If you are in Pune, you have to drive. If you are in Mumbai, you can take the ferry till Alibaug.
- Where to eat – The food at Anandi Villa is very good and home made. They serve non veg food. We had lunch on the way at a dhaba in Kashid and that too was delicious.
- Activities – This is a secluded beach with nature in all its glory. But if you are looking for something ‘to do’, there is nothing and that for me is a good thing. So you basically have to talk to each other or just enjoy the nature.If you are too bored you can drive till Kashid where usually over the weekend there is lot of crowd.
The Chronicles of Life 