Lonavala & Khandala

Lonavala and Khandala are twin hill stations at 622 metres on the sweeping Sahyadri ridges of the Western Ghats, close enough together to be treated as one place. They sit on the busy road between Mumbai and Pune, and the draw is the landscape: near-vertical cliff drops, deep green valleys and seasonal waterfalls. In the monsoon the whole plateau goes under thick low cloud and rolling mist. These are the towns city families come to for a break, and they hold an odd mixture of things: the layouts of old British sanatoria, new luxury villa developments, the complex ancient Buddhist rock-cut caves at Karla and Bhaja, and market streets selling the local traditional sweets.