New Year's in Matheran

After a lovely two weeks in the US for Christmas (it was great to see so many of you!), I returned to Delhi on Thursday night only to leave Friday morning for a NYE trip. Muna and I decided to do something easy to get to and relaxing. It was a wonderful weekend but not at all what I was expecting. We booked a room at a Neemrana property. Neemrana is this "non-hotel" chain that takes old heritage buildings through out the country and refurbishes them into simple, gorgeous, no frills, mid range hotels. There's no room service so that's why they say "non-hotel". I've stayed at three others. This one is called Verandah in the Forest in Matheran. The description says it's about 2 hours outside of Mumbai at which point cars aren't allowed and you have to take horse, hand-pulled rickshaw or walk the remaining 2 km up the hill. So I'm thinking this is in the middle of nowhere and it will be a weekend of reading, napping and walking around.

The description was accurate, except that when we got to where cars have to stop about 45 people crowded around the car to get us to use their rickshaw and horses. I deferred to poor Muna to do all the haggling (as she's of indian origin). We ended up on horses and as we went I realized Matheran is a full on tourist destination with tons of cheesy hotels and souvenir shops and restaurants continually blaring Justin Timberlake's 'I'm bringing sexy back'. This was anything but quiet. However, the Neemrana place was outside the main area so it was quiet (minus the paper thin walls and obnoxiously loud neighbors) and true to form, lovely. The hills were crowded but if you walked just a little further than most, it became totally serene with stunning views that reminded me of somewhere between the grand canyon, utah's rock formations and california's hills. But the shorter walks, to the lake and such were true indian tourist style with the 'knock down the cans' game and 'throw the ball in the bucket' game. Didn't see very many foreigners, it's really a get away for Mumbaikars.

We almost had one more monkey attack in 2006 when a monkey went for Muna's chikri (indian form of peanut brittle) but I successfully scared it away. I did not prevent the monkey from attacking a french mom and son who were playing some dice game (the monkey just wanted to play and through the dice everywhere!). The hotel people came out armed with special sling shots for monkeys.


India never ceases to surprise me. On a closing note - I got an email from Cheinan who is still traveling around India listing what Christmas in India was like (for a Jew). My favorite
" 4. My breakfast masala dosa was shaped as a triangle instead of the usual roll. "For christmas," my waiter said. I'm not sure what the significance of the triangle is."

I didn't know the Christmas triangle either until Muna informed me that it's the indian universal symbol for the Christmas tree:)


Happy New Year!