Amby valley, Lonavla

Discovered a new place this time, as a venue for a business meet. Lonavla is fairly well known and it is a dream destination, more so at this time of the year. Though I have lived in Pune for a couple of years and passed by Lonavla a number of times, i never had a chance to be there for a couple of days.
Hence i jumped at the opportunity.The exact location was amby valley city. Yes, it is a 10,000 acre township owned by Sahara group. It also boasts of a helipad.It is more than 25 kilometres from Lonavla and regular signboards guide you to the amby valley city, make no mistake.
The table top mountains looked quite barren and shorn of any vegetation. I was imagining my next visit here during or soon after monsoon. The whole place will have a mesmeric appeal.The weather was pleasant with a slight chill in the air.
The site office is itself a massive affair, almost like a state headquarters.There were heavy security arrangements as you enter the city. The reception committee consisted of a group of turban clad artists with noisy instruments, which created a massive racket!
We were assigned a city vehicle and an escort to reach our 'tent'. It was easily five or six kilometres into the city and we reached a 'site reception area'. We were transferred to a third vehicle and made a small detour of the flat terrain on which massive tents were lined like a frontier base station.
The interiors were quite swanky and comfortable, thank you.
Nights are the best time to spend there, with inky black surroundings and the starlit sky like a svarovsky dome sparkling away. I was remembering the time in Mudukkur, a number of years back, where we could lie down and see the entire stellar constellations blinking at us back.
Dinner was in the open terrace and one did not relish the food, as the eyes were feasting enough.Lost our way back from the dinner place, as all the steps were leading to nowhere and we finally realised that the only way to get down to our rooms is to go up!children would have unlimited entertainment here going up and down myriad steps like a snake and ladder game.
If this location was beautiful, the next day dinner was arranged by the lakeside and it was still better. The lake was huge and had the backdrop of hills.Fountains were spraying myriad colours into the sky and the mountains were silhoutted .I was strugglig to cope with all the beauty around and suddenly found an entire flock of sparkling white swans gracefully walking away from the waters towards the lawns.Dinner was a washout as i had truly lost my appetite.
The late evening drive back to Lonavla and then Mumbai was a perfect end to a dream destination.The entire canvas of sky was painted in bold strokes of ever so many shades of deep red and orange and purple and deep purple and then night hawk black was specially got up for our benefit!