In March of this year, I had the opportunity to visit Matheran, a ecologically preserved plateau a couple of hours drive from Mumbai. It was a wonderful trip. This post will mostly consist of a small subset of pictures I took on the trip. I cannot thank my TCS colleagues enough for arranging the visit. I do not include any individual pictures except myself to preserve our team’s privacy.

The trip was to Matheran, an ecological preserve and resort area about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from Mumbai. It was a several hour drive in a nice bus. Here is an aerial view of the plateau of 2500 feet (500 meters) altitude that makes up Matheran. I was lucky to get this from a flight from Bangalore to Mumbai during the same trip.

Look below the fold for many more pictures and detail.

The bus trip here was typical. Traffic not bad by India standards but there were some bottlenecks.

Refreshments were available on the way, but we did not stop.

We arrived at the base of Matheran and were advised that driving our bus to the parking area was not a good idea. That was good advice. We took local cabs. The drivers knew the route well, so it was exciting, if you know what I mean. When you get to the parking area, you can take an occasional train, horses, or walk. We took horses. Horses do a lot of work on Matheran, and they are much smaller than the horses one sees in North America. These are pack horses who took off carrying concrete mix.

So we all took horses to the village.

I can drive.

Matheran has many, many horses. This picture is from the next day, but there are many more like these pretty beasts.

Once arrived in the late afternoon, we must see the sunset. So off to Sunset Point on horseback. My horse’s companion (I was not allowed to ride freely) was aggressive. So on the way out and back, we did a fair amount of trotting. I resisted the gallop as the saddle was a little loose. Sunset Point has a great view of, of course, the sunset.

A nice view of a reservoir to the north.

A couple was roasting corn for sale. Very tasty. The woman had a device that blew air over the coals to heat them and more quickly roast the corn.

The sunset was very nice.

We had a nice evening of karaoke, dinner, and scotch. After a wonderful breakfast at Adamo, the Resort (a great place to stay), we walked out into the village for our adventure.

We walked many paths to Echo Point.

The view was great.

We headed off toward the reservoir and Lord Point.

At Lord Point, there was a man who rented views through his spotting scope. We had five views and the best was this one. A rope ladder used by the locals to climb up the cliff and (according to the guide) collect honey.

Now on our walk, it was clear that many houses, retreats, resorts, and other developments had started and may or may not have continued on the mountain. Here is a set of pictures of the spooky gates and one garden from Matheran.

Our trek complete, we returned to Adamo, cleaned up, and headed for the train station. We did have ticket to get to the parking area, although the train to the base was cancelled due to an official visit by a government official. The walk through the town was pleasant, as was the short train ride.

We got a look at the train on our way down in the taxi.

And I got a good look at Mumbai on my flight to Bangalore.