We started around 9 am and reached Morachi Chincholi village by 11. To get there, you need to take the Pune-Ahmednagar highway and take the second left after the toll booth, at Shikrapur. It's best to check with villagers if you are not sure – there is just one sign board which is easy to miss. The total distance from Pune is about 50 kms. Chincholi comes from the Marathi word "chinch" meaning tamarind. And true enough the village is full of tall tamarind trees that canopy the main village road. The word "Morachi" (Mor means peacock) comes from around 2500 peacocks that reside in their natural habitat in the village, and that are the attraction there.
The village is reasonably clean and the villagers seemed friendly. We traversed the length of it stopping to ask for best spots to see the birds and learnt that we'd arrived at the wrong time! As is the case with other birds, there are higher chances of sighting peacocks early morning and early evening, when they step out of their hiding places to find food. This was disappointing! The villagers suggested a newly opened tourist center (http://www.chincholimorachi.com/), where peacocks are fed in the morning and afternoon so you are guaranteed sightings. The tourist center offers a package (Rs.250 per adult) for the entire day where they offer you the holistic rustic experience, complete with typical rural Maharashtrian food, bullock cart ride, the experience of threshing grain, et al. It sounded like a 'must-do' in our list for the future, but we didn't want to spend the whole day there when we went this time.
We decided to take a chance and continue along the road. I'm glad we did. At the far end of the village, we stopped again to ask a villager on what are the likely spots where we may get to see the birds. The guy turned out to be extra helpful and volunteered to come with us in the car to show us. At first we were as wary as any intrinsically distrustful city dweller would be. However, he seemed genuinely willing to help. It was later that we realized that his purpose in going out of the way to help us out was that he was planning to buy a car of the same make that we owned and wanted to take a 'test'-drive!! We also got a full discourse of the pros and cons of living in a village and how urban children miss out on simple pleasures in life, interspersed with stories about his own history and livelihood.
Thankfully for us, the monologue ended :) as we saw two birds, but they quickly disappeared into the sugarcane fields around. Peacocks are shy birds and won't let you get too close. We dropped him back and strangely, once we had stopped looking, we saw another two peacocks in the fields. This time they also gave us adequate time to take photographs. 4 out of 2500 was a small number, but good enough to please us urban folks!
My verdict: A full 5 out of 5 – the proximity of the village to Pune is the best part. People of all ages can enjoy this experience. If you are not planning to take the package with the tourist center, do carry food and water. Make sure you reach either early morning or late afternoon so as not to miss the birds. This trip can be combined with Nighoj / Ranjangaon (see my next post for our onward experience at Nighoj).
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