Saturday, July 24, 2010

Morachi Chincholi - A Short Monsoon Ride to the Peacock Country




This monsoons we have been riding from one place to another like there is no tomorrow. From hill station to forts and hill stations again. So this weekend we thought of changing the pattern and we visited Morachi Chincholi. The land of peacocks and tamarind! 
Havent heard much about Morachi Chincholi? neither had we until recently. Morachi Chincholi is small village about 50 Km from pune towards Ahmadnagar. According to the villagers, a pair of peafowl had arrived in this village many years back. The villagers rather than shooing it away welcomed them and shared their land as well as grains with them. Over the years they made the place their name and even gave the place a name on the tourism map of Maharashtra.We left Pune on sunday afternoon after lunch. From the information that we had gathered the birds camouflaged themselves in the woods during the day and do not come out in the open. Only in the early morning or evening after 4:30 do they come out for the "show". The ride on Ahmadnagar highway is one thing that i do not like, dirty roads and cluttered traffic characterizes the ride. Once we reached Shikrapur we took the off road to Morachi Chincholi. Its about 18 Kms from Shikrapur. Once we took the off road the ride was much better with open fields on either sides dotted with trees on the sides of the road. The roads weren't of the best possible condition and the last 8 Kms had no tarmac.  Once we started to see the tamarind trees around we knew we were in Morachi Chincholi. As we entered the village there was a temple on the left. Morachi chincholi has been developed as a agritourism destination. Agritourism or Agricultural Tourism is the concept of Visiting a working farm or any agricultural, horticultural, or agribusiness operations for a holiday. In Morachi Chincholi there is the added attraction of the celebrated national bird. There are couple of organized farms who have taken agritourism very seriously. Mayur baug and Mauli Krishi Paryatan Kendra. Mayur baug is a complete farm with horses and camels and swans. These agritourism centers feed the peacocks every day and they are conditioned to visit these farms every day for food. In turn the visitors get to see a close up show of the birds. A perfect symbiotic relationship. We roamed around the village a little more. Though there was nothing spectacular about the landscape of Morachi Chincholi we soaked in the rustic charm of the village of end less farms with farmers working in their land and the rural fresh air and by twilight we headed back to Pune after our tryst with our National bird!!

1 comment:

  1. Hi, Shrikant here,Visited the same place have amazing atmosphere to visit now in monsoon.
    They are now having their website also www.morachichincholi.com, for more info you can write to me shrikantguthe@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete