Lonavala

Lonavala sits at the top of the Bhor Ghat, the climb from the Konkan coast onto the Deccan plateau, and people have been going up and down this pass for over two thousand years. The traders who did it in the centuries around the turn of the common era paid for monasteries along the way: the great chaitya hall at Karla, carved from the cliff with its wooden ribs still in place, and the older caves at Bhaja across the valley. They are among the finest rock-cut Buddhist halls in India, and most weekend visitors drive straight past them.

Later the hills were forts. Lohagad and Visapur, twin ridges a few kilometres apart, guarded the trade route and changed hands between the Marathas and the Mughals. Then, in 1863, the railway came up the ghat by way of a reversing station cut into the incline, and Lonavala became what it has been ever since — the cool, green place an hour or two from both Mumbai and Pune.

Lonavala's own invention is chikki, a brittle of jaggery and peanuts, sesame or cashew, sold from shops on the main bazaar and carried home in boxes by every visitor. Fudge came with the hill-station years. The rest of the food is roadside Maharashtrian, eaten best in the rain: vada pav, misal with its oily red tarri, poha in the morning, and plates of hot kanda bhaji at every bend in the road.

Older faith runs underneath. At the foot of the Karla caves stands the temple of Ekvira Devi, family goddess of the Koli fishing communities of the coast, who come up in their thousands for her yatra in the spring. Ganesh Chaturthi in late summer fills the town with pandals and processions. And the monsoon itself has become a kind of festival — the waterfalls switch on in June and half of Mumbai seems to arrive to look at them.

Never drive up on a monsoon Saturday morning — the stretch past Bhushi Dam locks solid and you will spend the best of the day in a queue. Go on a weekday, or start before seven. Local authorities often close dam sides, waterfalls and some fort paths in heavy rain after drownings; when they do, listen. Lohagad is an easy, rewarding climb in the drier months. Karla is busiest on Ekvira's festival days, so see the chaitya on a quiet weekday morning. The fireflies of Rajmachi appear for a few weeks before the monsoon breaks, roughly late May into June; go with someone who knows the trail, and leave the torch off.

The forts are protected monuments and the waterfalls run through forest, yet both carry a weekend's worth of bottles and wrappers. Carry everything back down. Alcohol on the forts is banned and disrespectful to the people for whom they are history, not a picnic site. During firefly season, keep lights low and stay on paths — the insects live in the leaf litter you would otherwise trample.

Travellers who found themselves lingering at Karla and Bhaja rather than the viewpoints should keep going to Ajanta and Ellora — the same tradition of carving temples out of the living rock, on a scale that has no equal in India.