Chaturmukh Shiv Temple near Bopdev Ghat

Around Saswad, there are so many small hill temples. The entire region towards the back side of Purandar and Panwadi has lot of villages and invariably many of their have the local deity on top of a nearby hill. That provides opportunities for so many short trips (from Magarpatta). Some of the temples have a road up to the top while others need a short trek to reach.

Chaturmukh Shiv temple is one such hill temple. You have a road leading right up to it. Multiple ways to reach there, but the easiest is to use the Bopdev Ghat (going out of Kondwa) and then take a diversion from the road leading to Kanifnath temple. The location of the temple is https://maps.app.goo.gl/ySCX7pqZw3D2YKA99. If you start early in the morning (we started at 630 am on a saturday), it should take you around 40 mins to reach there (from Magarpatta).

I don’t think this is a very old temple. Maybe, they built on top of the old garbagraha. The temple has a big hall and lot of open space outside. It is right at the edge of a hill with ample parking. There is also a chai/vada pav shop outside 🙂 The view from the temple all around is very good. There are lot of small hills nearby. In fact, we went and climbed one of them. It was fun. The weather was very good with a chill in the air.

The hill you see in the distance in the picture above is called “Gol Tekdi”, almost like a perfect cone when seen in satellite view on the map. We didn’t climb that as there was a already a biker gang well settled on top and the space on top was limited.

I also saw another temple in the distance. There was a kuchcha road going towards it. Found out that it was called Kalubai mandir (visible on maps). You should do the small diversion to this temple also. We have saved it for the next time! You can see this temple on the top right in the image below.

After spending some time taking in the cool air, our next stop was Siddheshwar Shiv Mandir (https://maps.app.goo.gl/bSFhxMXPyDyGCtqV7). This is just 2 kms away from the saswad pune highway, yet pretty remote. You have to cross a bridge over a stream to reach this temple.

The route to this mandir from Chaturmukh takes you through Khed Shivapur Saswad Link road and then branches off to small village lanes. When you take the turn from the main highway, the view is awesome.

The best part of the temple (apart from the scenic location) was the acoustics inside the temple. We tried chanting OM and the echo was awesome!

Ok, all the temple visits done. Time for breakfast. We came over to the Saswad highway and then went to Shakuntala Misal. It was our first time based on a recommendation. They have only Misal, Bhel and Onion Bhaji. The waiter heard i and my talking when we ordered 2 Bhels (one for each of us). He politely said that the portion is big and hence he will order one (and we can order another one if needed). Good customer experience. When the Bhel came, wow …huge and also very very tasty and it was just 60 Rs. The “Misal Thali” with the lassi, sweet and also the paan (wonderful idea) was amazing.

Even though we were full, we won’t lose an opportunity to visit Kiga Ice Creams as it is was just a few hundred ms away from Shakuntala Misal. Kiga is famous for its ice cream thali, a combination of many scoops of ice creams of exotic flavours.

It was a wonderful weekend morning trip. We were back home by 12 (5.5. hrs trip) with so many stops, photos and good food. We also saw a mongoose by the side patiently giving poses for our photos. Always seen one run across the road, never sitting quietly by the side 🙂