Trip report – Lonar Crater

I had always wanted to visit the Lonar crater in Maharashtra, having read about it earlier in newspapers and recently on the net. After some research on the internet, I finalized plans for a trip to Lonar on the long weekend of Dussehra. Travel information on the net regarding this place was very sparse, and that’s one of the reasons why I decided to write this detailed report for the benefit of others. We chose to go during September end, as that’s when the crater walls are still green, abundant water in the lake and skies are clear. Any later and the crater walls and the surrounding would turn craggy brown, with just a thin band of green forest around the lake periphery.

Getting there:

The MTDC website says the nearest railhead is Malkapur on the Mumbai-Bhusawal line, but that’s false ! A bit of research on Google earth showed that Jalna station on the Mumba-Nanded line is much closer, with a road distance of 90 km. I booked AC chair car tickets on the Tapovan express, leaving Thane at 6:50 am and reaching Jalna at 2:20 pm. The Jalna-Lonar leg was a difficult problem to solve. I preferred a rented car to take us directly to MTDC Lonar, but I couldn’t find details of any tour operator or taxi driver at Jalna/Lonar on the net. One guy based in Lonar driving a Sumo quoted Rs2000 for the journey which I found too expensive. On calling the MTDC hotel reception, I was suggested to take a taxi from Jalna station or the bus stand. I did as he suggested – big mistake ! On reaching Jalna station at 2:45 pm, taxis were nowhere in sight. We took a share auto (Rs10 per seat) to the ST bus stand. There were no taxis there either, so I resigned myself to traveling in ST buses. I had researched the bus timings for Jalna-Lonar beforehand, and as per the MSRTC website there was Aurangabad-Lonar service at 3:20 pm. But a short wait and a few minutes after 3, a bus coming from Beed going to Lonar pulled up. It was quite empty as lot of people got down at Jalna, so we clambered in. The bus journey lasted about 2.5 hours and though we were surrounded by village crowd, the journey wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Tickets priced Rs 60. We reached Lonar bus stand at about 5:35 and took a rickshaw (Rs30) to the MTDC hotel which is situated just on the outskirts of Lonar.
I would recommend potential visitors to speak to the resort Manager Mr Agre, who can arrange for car pickups from the station.

The Hotel:

My research had shown that there was no other option but to stay in the MTDC ‘resort’ here. The very few reviews of this resort on the net were quite favourable. I had booked AC rooms online through their website. On arrival we had quite literally a warm welcome since there was no electricity then, and this hotel doesn’t have a generator ! Since this place is in such a rural area I had braced for some possible shocks on seeing the room, but to my surprise the room was quite clean and definitely ‘stay-able’. On the down-side the bathroom tiles were stained, the shower head badly scaled but sprouted enough water for a bath, AC used to trip frequently and the twin beds were quite narrow – a person turning frequently in sleep would fall off the edge ! The location of the hotel is the best, bang opposite the crater on the other side of the road (there is a road running tangent to the crater rim at this point). From the restaurant one can have a partial view of the crater lake as well. Sipping evening tea while watching the sun set over the crater lake, with strong cool breeze whipping against the face was bliss ! We later had dinner and lunch in the hotel restaurant, and we ordered some veg dishes along with chapattis, and found the meal quite tasty and cheap.

The Crater -first sight

On arrival we dumped our bag in the room and then set foot excitedly to see the crater. Walked across the road, climbed a small elevation and then wow – the sight which stood before us took our breath away ! We were standing on the rim of the crater looking down with a panoramic 180-degree view of the crater and the lake. The enormity of the crater made us feel small and insignificant. The perfectly still waters of the lake reflected the high crater walls and the pink sky with the setting sun provided a great ambience. Having taken in the first sight of the crater, we made our way back to the hotel.

For the following day I had planned a walk around the crater and down to the lake in the first half, and after lunch and a brief snooze, a ‘local sight-seeing trip’ covering 3 points of interest. One hurdle was the check-out time of 9 am, however I managed to strike a deal with the resort manager who allowed us to use the room till evening for an extra charge. We had to leave by 6 to catch our train from Jalna station in the night.

Trying to climb down – in vain !

I had read that the crater walls are steep and had braced for a possible tough climb down to the crater and up. The resort manager Mr Agre said there were 2 main paths leading down – stone steps which led to an old temple and further to the lake, and a newer walking path starting from just across the hotel gate. He suggested to take the path rather than the steps since it was less steep due to its zig-zag nature. Making our way back to the crater rim the following day, we were mesmerized by the sight of the crater lit up by the morning sunlight. There was thick forest cover surrounding the lake and much of the crater walls, but some areas in the periphery was sadly being used for farming. The lake appeared emerald green in colour. To our right we could see the flight of stone steps and a steady stream of locals using it to visit one of the temples below (it was last day of Navratri).

We started climbing down the path but hardly a few metres down my wife declared that she cant go any further, given the steep decline. We retraced our steps and made our way to the point where the steps start, which incidentally gives another lovely view of the lake. One look at the steps and both of us deemed it out of our bounds – the rocky steps were severely eroded, steep and in poor condition. The locals were climbing up and down with ease, but I reckoned it too dangerous to take any chance. I decided to try the climb down myself, so after dropping wife back to the hotel, I gingerly started my climb down using the ‘easy path’. This path too has considerably eroded, and at some points looks like a waterfall path or as if hit by a landslide. I made my way down till about half-way on the steep path, and I could see the forest very close up front, and could hear occasional peacock-calls among other bird sounds. But alas I had to stop short as I encountered a stretch of path going straight down steeply without any twists or good footholds, and the risk of slipping and hurtling down was just too great. After savouring the view for a last time, I climbed back up to the rim, huffing and puffing with energy levels knocked low and returned to the room.

In summary, I would surely recommend a trip down to the lake, but only if you have some experience in climbing steep paths and are in good shape and stamina to last through the climb !

The other ‘sights’

Later in the afternoon we hired a rickshaw through the resort manager, who agreed to take us to the following ‘points’ – Mota Maruthi, Gaumukh and Daityasudhan temple for Rs125. I didn’t expect much out of this visit, but wanted to check them out anyway having come all the way to Lonar. The first stop Gaumukh was unimpressive - there was a small sarovar like pool which was full of local villagers taking a dip, the water of which was being fed by a small stream. The water further flows down to the crater lake. The huge crowd was a turnoff and we retraced our steps after a brief survey of the scene. This is the spot where the meteorite was supposed to have first touched down, hence there is a small gorge and the crater wall slope is gentle. Moving on to Mota Maruthi which is actually a privately owned Hanuman temple, its idol is supposed to be a piece of meteorite with magnetic qualities. I couldn’t see any resemblance of the idol, which was painted bright orange, to Hanuman ! Our final stop was the Daityasudhan temple, which is a small structure partly in ruins, with its walls covered with rock sculptures similar to the Khajuraho temples. It was quite impressive and we spent a lot of time studying the various sculptures, though many of them were broken and some had been restored. We then left the place and reached the hotel, our total tour time was 1 hour. We also briefly stopped at the PWD guesthouse for another view of the crater lake.

Departure

On returning to the room from the local tour, we packed our bag after a brief rest, and proceeded to check out and spend the remaining time in the restaurant as we waited for the car to pick us up at 6 pm. I had arranged this Indica car through the manager, and after negotiation the rate for drop to Jalna station fixed at Rs1200. The ‘taxi’ is actually the private vehicle of a practising doctor in Lonar town! The drive takes about 2 hours, I had budgeted an hour of buffer which actually got used up as the car had a puncture and the tyre replacing and repairing took time ! We reached Jalna station at 9:15 and had lots of time to catch our train Devagiri express arriving at 10:05 pm, which we later found out was late by an hour so we spent the time in the upper class waiting room, munching away on packed puri-bhaji we bought from the railway canteen !

Retrospect

Lonar crater is certainly not your run-of-the-mill tourist destination which you can head off to for the next long weekend. Its for the serious nature-lovers or adventure seekers and science/geography buffs. A pleasant effect of the non-commercialisation is there is no shopping, no touts, no tourist traps and no tour operators trying to squeeze out the last drop from visitors. Its clear that this crater with its pristine beauty is miles ahead of the much touted Meteor crater in Arizona US (which charges $15 just to see the huge dry hole in the middle of a desert). Lonar is neglected and has much potential as a major tourist draw provided facilities and infrastructure is developed and the crater structure protected as a national park.

P.S. photos are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22168996@N02/

I checked wikipedia about world-famous Meteor Crater in AZ, USA and to my surprise, Lonar Crater surpasses that one in all respects, including diameter, total depth, total crater periphery. Lonar crater has real potential but it is sadly neglected.

Good Post. Nice detailed description. Good Photos too..
I Guess I will add this to my T0-DO List.

Wow - what a nice place
Thanks for sharing

Nice detailed report..Thanks for sharing your experience....

Regards,
Yogesh

Informative and you got some great pictures there - thanks for sharing

It looks like you did your research to zero in on "The other sights" but did you find out of any more places that are close to Lonar?
Any interesting flora/bird sightings at the sight of the crater?

I enjoyed visiting Meteor Crater in Arizona but Lonar looks far more scenic.

Great report. You should be working for Lumpy Planet.

Thanks all for the comments, theres hardly any trip report on Lonar crater on the web, hopefully this will start showing up in google search results

@niknik, am not really a bird-watcher but I did see few birds (couldnt identify) on the way down, but was devoid of the prize sight - the peacock since I couldnt go all the way down, had to make do listening to their calls ! Some people also reported seeing antelope and some monkey types in the forest.
There might be few places around Lonar worth seeing but I didnt try to research that since my sole aim was to see the crater..

Yes, Great trip report. On internet we always get very thin details.

Please also tell what is the Mean Sea Level at Crater ?

I think you mean the height above mean sea level at the crater from Google Earth the lake surface is shown as 1575 feet above sea level

wow really good review, all my childhood I stayed in Aurangabad and just last month we shifted permanently to Chennai, since long time I had in mind to visit lonar crater, but seems not in my luck, it is only 150 kms from Aurangabad. Lets see if in future get opportunity to visit Aurangabad will surely visit this gem of marvel.

Excellent write up and a lovely picture , need to put this down in one of the things i need to do when in Maharashtra next

Wow! Thanks for the review, Shailendra! I have been planning to go to Lonar for quite some time now but the temptation to club it with Ajanta-Ellora, and hence the need for a longer holiday, has been the barrier!

I am inspired once again!

If you cant do the long holiday then you can do as i did.. Do Ajanta-Ellora on a long weekend, and Lonar can be done as a separate trip on a normal weekend from Mumbai!