Visit to Murud - Janjira - Alibag

Location: Murud/Alibag, Maharashtra, India

Attractions: Fort, Beaches
Best time to visit: Any time (Janjira fort remains closed during rainy days) 

After lot of delays and discussions four of us (me and my office friends) finally agreed to go out for a break. 11^th October 2014 was a day planned to have that awaiting break.

11^th Oct 2014, It was 9 am by the time we finished with breakfast, picked up our friends and left Kothrud, Pune. Plan was to visit Murud-Janjira and spend night at Alibag at my friend’s place. 

Route:

Kothrud -> Paud road -> Mulshi lake -> Roha -> Murud/Janjira -> Alibag

We took Paud road and drove via Mulshi lake. We had a tea break at Quick bite. From the backyard of Quick Bite restaurant we could get down along the edge of the Mulshi lake. We spent some 15 minutes taking pictures of blue water and then left the place.

View of Mulshi lake from the Quick Bite restaurant

We continued driving through the ghats of Tahmini and discussing stories of Mughals and Maratha warriors. My friend said that these route becomes really scenic and full of water falls during monsoon. We crossed Roha and drove through the green forest to reach Murud.

It was 2.15 pm by the time we reached Murud and our stomach started praying for food. My friend suggested to have a lunch at place called Patil Brothers. We quickly reached that restaurant and ordered food, two of my friends were really disappointed because that day being the Sankashti (fasting day to praise lord Ganesha) hotel did not serve non-veg food. But at the end all were happy with that awesome, tasteful and colorful veg food. I absolutely recommend Patil Brothers for food and ambience.

Our lunch at Patil Brothers

After lunch we took rest for some 15-20 minutes and by 3.45 pm we left for Janjira fort which was our main point of interest for the day.

My friend enjoying ice-golas after lunch

Janjira fort seen from the boat

Boat sailing towards fort

It took 10 minutes of drive to reach the point from where the boats take people to the fort. Fort Janjira is on the island in Arabian sea. We parked our car and took boat ticket from the ticket counter near the parking area. Boat fare was Rs. 20/- per person for return journey.

It was a simple sailing boat with two guards and  around 40 passengers. I got to sit along the edge of the boat. Excitement was rising up looking at that big black mysterious mansion far in the middle of the ocean.

All of sudden, there was a loud sound giving instructions to all the passengers in the boat. Actually it was a guard who started telling about the history of Janjira. He talked about many historical things related to the fort but at the end he created suspense and said we must hire him to know more and quickly finish the tour of the fort. He said that we will have just 45 minutes to spend in the fort and will have to get back in the boat before low tide starts. I was not bothered at all as one of my friend had visited this fort before and he knew the places inside the fort. 

Janjira Fort:
This architectural marvel spread over 22 acres of land in the middle of the ocean was initially just a wooden fortress constructed by a local fisherman of Murud. It was later captured by Siddis and refortified in 15th century to the massive mansion. The name Janjira got derived from Arabic word Jazeera which means island.

Janjira fort main entrance

This amazing piece of engineering standing firm against the salty waves of Arabian sea has witnessed many attacks from Portuguese, British and Marathas but remained unconquered in the history.

I was not able to guess where this fort will have the main entrance until our boat really got close to the fort. Guide in the boat said that placement of the entrance was tactfully done so that enemies can not enter the fort easily. After 5-10 minutes of boat ride we reached the entrance of Janjira fort.

We started our tour in the fort with my friend as our dummy guide. There were no astonishing intact structures inside. All I could see was the ruins of huge buildings, mosques and ponds. We decided to go to the top of the fort to have a complete view of this fort.

View from the top of the fort showing bastions on the periphery, ruins of palace with ponds on either sides.

From the top, fort looked like an oval shaped structure with strong bastions on the periphery. Once there stood a seven floored palace with shish-mahal (palace of glass) but now only the ruins of it are seen inside the fort. There are two ponds which were the source of water for the residents of the fort. Nature does miracles, sweet water ponds right in the middle of the ocean.

We started walking down, and reached the broken walls of palace. I was happy to see that initiative is taken by authority to do cleanup work to maintain the remains of that palace.

Ruins of the palace

Ruins of civilized rooms

Kalal Bangadi

We kept walking towards the big pond which was full of water with algae. We walked further towards the periphery and came across the area which was used by soldiers to rest and store their weapons and explosives. There exists back door to escape from enemies. There is a tunnel from the fort to the shore which is not accessible now and remains closed. There exists a section with lots of small broken rooms covered by weeds, which once were in use by the residents of this fort.

We further walked towards the nagar-khana (the top of main entrance). There were three cannons lying there pointing towards the shore area. The middle one which was really huge is known as 'Kalal Bangadi'. As per our guide in the boat Kalal Bangadi is made up of alloy and weighs nearly 22 tons and had a approximate range of 6 km. This range was good enough to target the fort 'Padma Durga' which was constructed in the near vicinity of Janjira by Sambhaji ( son of Maratha king Shivaji ) to keep an eye on the Janjira to conquer it. I wanted to walk along the periphery of entire fort but I started hearing screams of our boat man and my friends for me because it was almost an hour in the fort. I quickly got down and walked towards the boat and was the last person to get in the boat. Boat departed but my mind was still there in the fort trying to visualize this fort during its heydays.

my friend lost in the thoughts while returning from the fort

By 5 pm we were at the shore. We headed back towards our parking area. We left Murud to reach Alibag which is approximately 1 hr drive from the Murud. On the way we took a sunset-tea break at the Kashid beach.

Sunset at Kashid beach

After tea we quickly left Kashid and headed towards Alibag. On the way we visited Ganesh Birala temple near Alibag. We took early dinner at Alibag and then left for my friend's place. But at the last moment my friend's home got occupied by some guests so he arranged a stay at local known friend's place. By 10 pm we reached the place and after getting fresh we left for the night walk to Alibag beach. As my friend had spent his childhood days there in Alibag he entertained us with some funny incidents of those days. We spent more than an hour at beach talking and walking and finally returned to have a nice sleep.

Next day morning we again came for a walk to beach. After spending an hour at beach we returned to get fresh and leave for Pune. We left by 2.30 pm after lunch and reached Pune by 6 pm.

Alibag beach

my companions of the trip

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