Beaches and forts of Alibag, India

[Guest post by Abishek D.S. in Alibag, India]

 I recently travelled to Alibag, a small coastal town 120 kilometres from Mumbai. On this two-day trip with my friends I documented impressions and recorded memories in monochrome sketches using silver and gold coloured markers. Mostly they were completed within 10 minutes.

Like the one pictured at the top, Alibag has many street carts selling snow ice. This is one of the major attractions for tourists to enjoy varied Indian flavours of snow ice. My favourite flavour is kalakatta which is tangy in taste and most popular among other flavours like lime, watermelon, or strawberry. You also get to eat a multi-flavoured gola snow ice which is popular.

Being a coastal area, Alibag serves fresh seafood delicacies. These are hot, out-of-the-pan, usually deep fried and served with some onion rings. This will give you an experience to taste Indian seafood from a street cart. The pricing is worth the serving for budget tourists.

This is the hotel where we checked in. Most of the constructions in town have slanting roofs as it rains cats and god’s during monsoons.

Kolaba Fort is one of the main tourist attractions in Alibag. Built in the 17th century, it is situated in the sea at the distance of 1-2 km from the shore of Alibag Beach. It therefore can be visited only during low tides, either on foot or on a horse cart. The fort acted as a naval station for the great king of Maharastra, Shri. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. We could not visit the fort due to high tide, so I sketched the fort exterior from the beach. The beach is crowded with tourists, lots of horse carts and a few dogs.

Kashid Beach is around 50 km from Alibag. It is a white sand beach with scenic beauty. It has many water sports including paragliding, banana boat rides, speedboat rides and sand biking.

Nagaon Beach, 15km away from Alibag, is a black sand beach famous for adventure sports like speed boating. It is relatively cleaner than the main Alibag beach and has many Australian pine trees. The sketch here shows the horse cart seen with a shelter on Nagaon Beach. You can also see several boats heading into the sea. Usually, a bigger boat is connected to smaller boats which tow them in the sea.

This is the century-old Hindu Balaji temple which is in the city centre. It has two domes, one is round and other is a tier shaped which is mostly inspired from ancient temple domes from southern India.

Flavoured pani-puri is one of the most savoured street food. A puff-pastry stuffed with potato, it is a speciality of Alibag, sold at very few other places. Each plate of pani-puri consists of six flavours, like pudina (mint), sweet, sour, spicy, regular flavour, garlic, or lemon. My favourite is mint. Go try for yourself to experience the Indian roadside serving for an evening snack. A regular flavour pani-puri is made of tamarind mixed with spices. 

A horse cart ride is the most sought-after activity at the Alibag beach front. Horses are short, resembling ponies. Each horse cart is crafted with a different design. Each one can carry up to six customers. The cart drivers are locals whose primary income is to make money through tourism. So, take a memory home, enjoy the ride.

A balloon seller on the beach is set up next to the watch tower. One can walk on the beach with a heart-shaped balloon!

On our last day in Alibag, our final spot was Murud-Janjira, the fort situated in the middle of the sea. It is considered to be one of the strongest marine forts in India. Boats seen in the sketch are boats which carry 35 passengers. These boats are managed by three drivers who manually shift the mast based on the wind direction, which is a tedious task. The ride would last for a good 20 minutes before you see the magnificent fort.

It was a memorable trip as I could record my entire travel through sketches on the spot, using minimal drawing tools.

Abishek D.S. describes himself as a daylight banker and a passionate urban sketcher and illustrator from Mumbai, India. He is part of USk Mumbai. See more of his work on Instagram: @Inkswamy