One day trip to Matheran

Matheran, which means "forest on the forehead" (of the mountains) is an eco-sensitive region. It is Asia's only automobile-free hill station.
We started off at around 12pm from Nerul Station.
We took a train to Thane which is around 30mins, from there boarded train to Khopoli and got down at Neral station which took us around 1hr.
From Neral we boarded the toy train at around 1430hrs and reached Matheran by 1745hrs.
This journey offers the vintage feel of travelling in a old school machine and it gives you spectacular views of the mountain ranges around.
The 2nd class ticket rate is INR 75 whereas 1st cass is 300.
By the time we reached Matheran it was already getting dark.So we directly  headed to our hostel which we had booked earlier in the day.
Bombay Backpackers hostel gives you bunker beds for a nominal rate of INR 604 per person.
The host was a friendly guy and made us very comfortable.
This was the only budget stay we could find in Matheran and it is in very close proximity to the railway station.
Once we got freshen up, we headed directly to the very famous Matheran Bazaar.
It is very lively market that has many eateries and other shops.
Also there are also many stalls nearby which provides maggi and other munchies.
Once we finished with the dinner, we spent somemore time roaming around the beautiful market and went back to the hostel.
We could not afford to miss the sunrise tomorrow.

After roaming around for a while, we had our dinner which wasnt that costly either.

We started our day by heading for the sunrise to Rambaug point  which is around 3.5km from railway station.
We reached Rambaug point by around 7 and  were lucky to see the sunrise over the beautifull Sahayadri ranges.
There are around 6 view points in this area,Rambaug point, Alexander point, Chowk point and One tree hill point to name a few. You can either walk or hire a horse/hand pulled cart to go around these points. Horse ride will cost you around INR 1600.
Walking through the forest without the sound of any vehicles was very refreshing.
We had breakfast from Bharat hotel and continued our trek to Charolette lake and other hill view points.
We visited Charolette lake and  echo point  on the other side of the hills which is bit crowded unlike the Rambaug point side and rushed back to hostel as we had already exceeded the checkout time.
Finally by 1pm we were back in our hostel, got ready and checked out by 2pm.
We had lunch from a restaurant near railway station and walked back till Aman Lodge station, from there we could get a cab till Neral railway station who charged INR 80 per head.
From there we took train back home.
Matheran is a place where you can unwind yourself and best for people looking for a day away from busy city lives.