The town is a hill station about 2 hours from Thane. Uniquely, the town's council have maintained a motorised vehicle free zone in the villiage. This means that to get to the villiage, you can either get the toy train, or drive half way, pay to park, and then get a horse or hand pulled rickshaw the rest of the way to the villiage. It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "park and ride"!
The town also do not allow polythene bags. These create a huge pollution problem in the rest of India, and when monsoon comes they can create havoc with blocked drains. Part of the problem is with the attitude of Indians that as long as they are not directly littering their own driveway, there will be someone else less fortunate than themselves there to clear up their litter. Many of the women we treat work picking through other peoples rubbish, and they earn less than a pound a day!
Catherine, Jess (friend who is also doing voluntary work here for a womens charity) and I went for a 2 hour horse-ride the evening we were in Matheran. We all really enjoyed it in the end, once we had got the hang or the rhythm! We even galloped a short way!
This photo is of Catherine and I at "sunset point". There are many viewpoints in Matheran. It is a plateau type hill, which you can walk or ride all around, getting views in all directions. Most of the paths are in the shade of trees, which is definately a Godsend. We also went for a bit of a walk the next morning. It was very hot! However I think that Alistair and Freya had the right idea of how to travel, as you can see below!
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