We have embarked on an ambitious journey. R and I with the 4.5 month old who has a mind of his own and already refuses to listen or reason. Spanning 6 days with travel almost everyday and 3 temples, it’s new territory. Travelling as a family with my parents and brother has always been memorable, hassle free and fun. But what I didn’t take too seriously is the amount of planning that goes into hassle free fun travel. R hasn’t travelled much by car and as of now BabyH is not averse to it but he doesn’t know how to handle the cramped space yet. Which is why we decided to limit our travel to approximately 250km per day. Everyone thinks we are crazy for taking so many stops and not covering a larger distance but where would the fun be in that? R is cranky, baby H is cranky which in turn means I am irritated. What does that amount to? A recipe for disaster.
Anyway getting back to the point, this is Baby H’s 4th trip but oh boy! Is it different from the rest! He’s grown bigger in size and in age which means he is more awake and wants more entertainment. We were armed with his car seat for travel safety, his baby carrier for temple safety and lots of toys and patience for a fun time.
DAY -1 (9th May 2025)
Mumbai - Satara (263km - 05:00)
We left Mumbai early on the 9th at 6:30am and headed to Satara. Our first stop was the food mall just after we crossed Lonavala at around 8:45am. I had a misal pav while R had a classic cold coffee from McD. Baby H just chilled and took in the new and different sights and sounds. After that we were back in the car. It was at this point that things went completely downhill. Baby H started howling. After a lot of cajoling he went to sleep. When he woke up the crying continued. This was when I realised that he needed a diaper change.
We stopped en-route to realise it was no ordinary diaper but a poopy diaper. Once changed we had the happy baby back. We reached Satara at about 12:00pm. We were booked at The Fern Residency, but they didn’t have a room for us as their check in time was 01:00pm. It’s peak summer in India. Temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius at times but at that moment it rained like it was the monsoon. Temperatures cooled down instantly and that made baby H happy. He doesn’t seem to be someone who likes the heat. We decided to head to Kanase punjabi dhaba for a meal of the local mutton curry, the cashew curry and jowar bhakri with refreshing Solkadi.
After we were done we headed back to the hotel checked ourselves in and hit the bed faster than anyone could say good night. But once we woke up we were quite refreshed. We headed into the city to buy some kandi pedhe which are the speciality of Satara. We went to Rajpurohit which is near the hotel and the quality of the sweets is good there. They also have other snack items to purchase.
We called it a night by eating dinner in our room. Mutton sukka, roti and Hara bhara kebab. All in all a good first day of a memorable trip.
Until next time… Adios Amigo.
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