Khandala

Khandala sits at the top of the Bhor Ghat, the great step of the Sahyadri between the Konkan coast and the Deccan plateau. For two thousand years this was the way up: Buddhist monks cut their monasteries into the cliffs along the trade route, and in 1863 the Great Indian Peninsula Railway hauled its line up the escarpment through tunnels and viaducts that were among the boldest engineering of their day.

The railway, and later the Mumbai–Pune Expressway, made Khandala and its neighbour Lonavala the weekend escape for both cities. It is not a wilderness — there are resorts, traffic and crowds — but in the monsoon the whole escarpment goes green, every cliff edge pours a waterfall, and the clouds come up the valley and sit on the road.

The deeper history is in the rock. The great chaitya hall at Karla, from around the first century BCE, is the largest of its kind in India — a vaulted hall with carved pillars and a teak ribbed ceiling that has survived two millennia. Bhaja, across the valley, is older still. At the top of the Karla steps is the temple of Ekvira Devi, the Koli fisherfolk's goddess, so the hill is shared by monks long gone and pilgrims still very present.

Food here is what travellers have always wanted on a mountain road. Chikki — jaggery brittle with peanuts or sesame — has been sold in Lonavala for well over a century, alongside fudge in every flavour. At the ghat stalls it is vada pav and hot bhajias in the rain, and in the villages, misal pav and bhakri with pithla.

Come midweek. On monsoon weekends the expressway backs up and the viewpoints become car parks. Do Karla and Bhaja in one morning, then walk up Lohagad, an easy fort climb with views over the Pavana reservoir. Duke's Nose and Tiger's Leap are best early, before the cloud closes in. And treat the waterfall streams with respect — they rise in minutes after heavy rain, and people die in them most years.

Monsoon waterfalls and dam spillways are dangerous and often closed by the district after accidents; obey those barriers. Take your plastic down the hill with you, keep music off on the trails, and do not feed the monkeys at Tiger's Leap or the caves. At Karla, dress for a working temple as well as a monument.

Karla and Bhaja are the beginning of a story the Deccan tells at greater length. Ajanta and Ellora, further inland, are where the rock-cut tradition reached its height — painted, carved and astonishing.