Matheran – Maharashtra

Matheran is situated in Maharashtra and is one of the most beautiful hill stations. The most spectacular thing about this hill station is that there are no vehicles allowed, and you need to travel by horse, or you just need to walk. My husband and I stay in Mumbai, and fortunately, it is very easy to reach Matheran from Mumbai. Due to this reason, our trip was almost a last minute plan, and we really enjoyed a weekend over there. We started from Mumbai on Saturday morning and came back by Monday afternoon.

How to reach Matheran:

From Mumbai, you need to reach to Neral Junction. The best train is Deccan Express which starts from 7:00 AM from CST (Victoria Terminal) and reaches Neral at 8:25 AM. Yes, it is a journey of near about 1.5 hours.

Once you reach Neral junction, you need to take a toy train to go to Mathreran, and this train takes near about two hours to reach its destination. The train is a heritage and goes through the beautiful valleys; however, unfortunately, there is no advance booking. The ticket counter would open an hour before the departure of the train and people can take the tickets. That’s it. No other way. Also, weekends are always crowded, and you will see huge queues on the Toy train ticket counter. Trust me, you will get scared by looking at these queues. This happened with us, and by looking at the queues, we figured out that our chance would come in three hours. You can see the toy train timings over here

However, the great news is that there are cabs which run from Neral to Matheran. Well, not exactly Matheran, but the cabs stop at Dasturi car park from where the journey to Matheran is about 45 minutes. The cab runs on sharing basis and costs 70 rupees per person, and it takes near about 25 minutes to reach to Dasturi Car park from Neral. However, instead of going for sharing basis, it would be better to book the entire cab (in case 2 – 3 people are travelling) which will cost near about 350 rupees because in the seating capacity of four people, they will generally take 5 – 6 people and will ask everyone to adjust.

Remember that no vehicles are allowed beyond Dasturi Car park, and you need to take a horse, or a toy train from Aman lodge to go to Matheran. Aman Lodge station is very near to the Dasturi car park; hence, once you got down from your cab, you will reach to Aman lodge station in about 10 minutes by walking. From the Aman Lodge station, take a Toy train ticket to Matheran, and you will reach in 15 – 20 minutes.

As the Toy train ticket counter at Neral was over crowded, we took a cab till Dasturi Car park and walked to Matheran which took us near about 30 minutes.

Where did we stay?

We stayed in MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation) heritage property. We took one economy room as there were just two of us, and it costs 1500 rupees per night which includes breakfast. The room was decent, although it was quite small, but it did not matter to us as we just wanted to use it for sleeping purpose. The staff and house keeping were very good. We really liked the service and decided to extend our stay. Also, the food was very nice.

We made the booking well in advance from MTDC registration site. You can book any MTDC resort by registering over here.
The choice of resort or a hotel always depends on the purpose of your trip. If you are on a vacation where you just want to take rest and relax, it makes sense to go for a huge resort or a luxurious room; however, if your purpose is to explore the place then you should not spend much money on your stay, and you should just make sure that the hotel or resort is safe and worth spending the nights.

Why MTDC?

1. First of all, it is owned by the government and is very safe. Whenever my husband and I travel to a new place, we always prefer staying at a government property as it is safe, and the crowd and people around you are also nice.
2. This heritage property is very near to the Dasturi Car Park. Also, the Aman Lodge Toy train station is just in front of MTDC. In case you are travelling to Matheran from Neral by road then it makes lot of sense to stay at MTDC. Once your cab drops you at Dasturi Car Park beyond which no vehicles are allowed, MTDC is just five minutes ahead where you can keep your luggage and take a Toy train ticket to Matheran from Aman Lodge.
3. The food is comparatively good.
4. The staff and room service are extremely good.
5. If you need a horse, you do not have to go anywhere as you can just get it in front of MTDC.
6. It is very easy to travel from Matheran to MTDC with the help of a toy train which just takes 15 minutes. You need to get down at Aman lodge which is just in front of MTDC.

Where did we eat?

Unfortunately, we did not have good experience in terms of food in Matheran. We had lunch at few places which were recommended by people; however, the quality of food was bad. We understood that MTDC serves very decent food, and we made sure that we would have our breakfast and lunch at this place only.

What did we do in Matheran?

Matheran has beautiful hill points. You can get a list of all of them over here. My husband and I are very adventurous; hence, we always prefer walking rather than taking a horse. And that’s what we did in Matheran. We did not take any horse and walked to all the hill points. It was so much fun because in order to reach these hill points, you need to cross the jungle. Also, lot of people do not go to the points which are at lot of height; hence, you do not see much crowd over there. As it was a short trip, we could not see all the hill points, but we covered almost all the major ones which are Louisa Point, One Tree Hill Point, and King George Hill Point.

Important points to consider:

1. Negotiate hard with the horse owners. In our case, he came down to 1100 per horse from 2100 within three minutes.
2. They have a package of hill points. For example: a package of 7 hill points would cost this much, a package of 11 hill points would cost this much etc. Be very discreet in selecting them because, in most of the cases, they do not show those hill points which are far and difficult to reach. As most of the people are new and do not know much about the hill points, they believe that horse owners will show them all the important ones; however, this is not the case.
3. Do cover these beautiful hill points: Louiza Hill point, Malang Hill point, One Tree Hill Point, Little Chowk point, and Rambagh Hill point.
4. Be careful with your belongings as there are lot of monkeys in Matheran.
5. Wear walking shoes rather than normal footwears because this place has lot of dust on the pathways during the non monsoon season. The major reason is that lot of horses walk along with you to different hill points.

The trip was amazing, and we had so much fun. I hope you will find this information very helpful while booking your trip to Matheran. It is a must visit.

Happy journey!!!!!!