Thursday 10 March 2011

Exploring nearby


Another area that Tom was considering as one of the places we could live is a place called Koregaon Park, which is one of the most expensive areas to live in Pune. It is just the other side of the Mula-Mutha River, about a 10 minute walk from our apartment in Kalyani Nagar.

On my first weekend, we decided to explore that area. We got an auto rickshaw and asked to be taken to the German Bakery where apparently they sold the best cakes and pastries around. We couldn't see it anywhere around, so we decided to walk back along the main road that runs through the centre of Koregaon Park towards Kalyani Nagar. (We recently found out that the German Bakery had closed down, which is why we couldn't find it. The name of it is still used as a location landmark for locals though).

I’d heard that Koregaon Park was really good for shopping but as we were walking down the road back towards Kalyani Nagar, there didn’t seem to be much around. The area was mainly residential with lots of nice looking apartment buildings in gated societies. The road was quite wide with two lanes for traffic both sides and it was lined with large trees; giving us much needed shade as we walked. 

There were a few shops around but it was nothing like I was expecting, I thought that it would just open up and there’d be an area like a high street with lots of cool shops to explore; but no. I did go in a couple of clothes shops but they were very small boutiques and were the kind of place that made you feel a bit uncomfortable because the shopkeeper would just stare at you as you looked around at their stock.


Half way down the road, we came across a Pizza Hut where we stopped for a cheeky bite to eat. It wasn't a sit-in restaurant but there were some seats outside that we could use. We shared a large cheesy bites pizza and had a can of diet coke each. Naughty, but nice! I was surprised at how much it cost as it was only 340 rupees! (That’s just under a fiver!)

It took us about 20 minutes total to walk down the full length of the road to the busy crossroads at the southern edge of the bridge that leads over the river to Kalyani Nagar. 

Walking over the bridge was my favourite part of our outing. I thought that the view was absolutely beautiful. I’ve always liked rivers and no matter how noisy it is around, I find them really peaceful. At the moment the river is not very wide but I’m sure during the monsoon the banks get swallowed up and it gets pretty deep. The wildlife I saw was really cool too, there were lots of large eagles flying around and a man had led his herd of buffalo into the water, they looked quite funny because you could only see the heads of most of them.








1 comment:

Rob said...

The German Bakery is pretty famous spot in Pune. Originally it was a just a popular place for expat Europeans. But it is now mostly famous for the bomb blast in February last year. Have a look at this article, or even wikipedia. When I did a tourist's round of Pune back in September the guide showed me the burned down building. A bit macabre actually.