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Pondicherry, India
Trip to Pondicherry
I was accompanied by my wife Debannita, our 16months old daughter (my puchku) and my parents-in-law in our reliable Maruti Swift Vxi with ABS
Day 1: Drive to Pondicherry (Friday)
We had hit the road at 9 am. From HSR Layout we took Hosur main road. There are three routes to Pondicherry and we decided to take the shortest route to Pondicherry. After Krishnagiri, we had to take a right turn and that road went through Tiruvannamalai to Thindivam to Pondicherry. The road from Krishnagiri till Tiruvannamalai had less traffic, but there were many potholes. However, it took us less than 6 hours too reach Pondicherry and the total distance was around 300km. The other routes are much longer, though the roads are better.
We didn't have booking and we took our chance and landed up at Park Guest house, the most sought-after guest house from Aurobindo Ashram. We were lucky to get two rooms, one 3 bed AC room on the ground floor and the other one was a double bed non AC on the second floor. The room on the top-floor was simple with no-frills attached, but it was sea-facing and had spectacular views. You can spend the entire day sitting on the balcony watching the Bay Of Bengal. So we never got bored when we were stranded in the guest house because of heavy rains. The guest houses are good for families, who do not want to do a lot of 'alcoholic' masti and stay peacefully. We reached Ashram at around 3PM. We had omelets, toasts etc at pantry itself. The food was simple, but healthy and the pantry room had a good view of the Bay Of Bengal. Overall, it was pleasant. In the evening, we took a stroll on the beach and also drove around the French colony. French colony has nice paved roads and forms part of the Heritage walk. Fortunately, our guest house is just next to this colony. The stroll along the Bay of Bengal is very nice and you can have a relaxing walk, with the crowd being not so heavy on a Friday evening. Overlooking the sea, there are heritage buildings and some hotels.Alliance Française was also there overlooking the sea. The organization were celebrating Indo-French festival and we could hear hindi songs till late in the night. We had dinner at Rendez-vous. The restaurant had got good reviews, but our experience was disappointing. The service was bad. We ordered lasagna and chicken (in white wine), based on reviews from the web. Lasagna was watery, with the layers being converted to a liquid and the chicken preparation was extremely ordinary.Somehow, the restaurants in Pondicherry seem to not care about having cats and dogs inside the restaurant. We saw a cat at Rendez-vous and dogs at Le Tarisse, the next day.Whenever, we go out or travel to a new place, trying out different dishes is always our favorite thing to do. At Pondicherry, we explored different eat-outs. We felt that many of the joints had French names, but the ambience never looked to be authentic. I went to a bakery shop overlooking the sea. The shop was well-lit, but inside it was stinking and the bakery items did not look palatable.
Day 2: Trip to Auroville and around (Saturday)
Right from the morning, it was raining heavily and we could not go out. We went to the pantry room of the Ashram Guest house and then waited, till the rains stopped. There were also other tourists in the pantry room, having breakfast and waiting for the skies to clear. In Pondicherry at Aurobindo Ashram, majority of the visitors are Bengalis and foreigners. When the rains stopped, we left for Auroville. The trip to Auroville is a short trip along the ECR (Route/beachway along the east coast). On ECR, shortly after leaving Pondicherry town, we had to take a left turn. On the way, there was a famous German bakery (La Boulangerie). However, since we were running late, we decided to pick up items on way back. By the time we reached the parking lots of Auroville, it started pouring again and also the roads were extremely muddy and slippery. With "puchku" it was difficult to walk to the main reception. When rains became lighter, we stepped out of the car and went to the reception. While at the reception, it started pouring again and it was extremely difficult to make the 1 km walking trip along muddy road to Matrimandir. We did a bit of shopping (though the prices were exorbitant) and opted items of more reasonable prices. We decided to have the lunch and see Matrimandir later. The lunch was surely a plus point in this trip. We had grilled fish and tuna salad along with roasted chicken salad. Each dish comes with mashed potatoes and boiled vegetables and all tasted very good (one of the best continental preparations with a moderate price, I had in India).
After the lunch, we went to Matrimandir. Matrimandir is the place of meditation and you cannot get entry to the temple unless sincerity of the visitor is proved and that would take at least two days. Given the length of this trip and age of our daughter, that was not an option for this trip. Therefore, we had to remain satisfied by seeing Matrimandir from quite a distance. After the heavy rainfall, roads were very slushy and it was extremely difficult to walk. My sandal got stuck in the mud and got torn. For the later part of the walk, we had to carry the sandals. While going to Matrimandir, we could avail the services of a battery-operated vehicle, but on the way back, they were not available. While we were contemplating how we can ever go back, an auto-rickshaw came to our rescue. On the way back from Auroville, we stopped at German Bakery. Unfortunately, all the bakery items were sold and we were left with few lemon cakes. Reluctantly, we bought few because we went by the looks of those cakes. Later, we realized that that was a great mistake. Those lemon cakes were among the best that I had ever eaten in my life. In the evening, we went to Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The main objective of the Ashram visit is to meditate near Sri Aurobindo's Samadhi. We saw people seated around the Samadhi and some were meditating. However, we were very disappointed as our daughter was not allowed inside the ashram. Any kid had to be at least four years old to enter the premises.
We were totally exhausted and thought of an early dinner. We had our dinner at Le Tarisse. It was run by Indians only, but the crowd was very heavy and mostly the Europeans were there. The food was definitely better than Rendezvous. We had pizza prepared in wooden oven and it was pretty good. However, we asked for a prawn preparation which was extremely bad. Since the place was very congested, we had tough time with our puchku and though we ordered pancakes for her, she ended up eating nothing. We rushed back to the guest house to feed her.
Day3: Back to Bangalore through Mahabalipuram
Again the day started with heavy rains and rains turned lighter only at around 9-10AM. We left Pondicherry for Mahabalipuram. We decided to visit Mahabalipuram and then drive through Chengalpatti, Kancheeperam, Vellore towards Bangalore. We took ECR. It was supposed to be a scenic beach way, though, except for a few times, when we came across water parts extended from the sea, there was nothing extraordinary. On the road, we saw people, wearing curious saffron dresses walking towards Pondicherry. They were sometimes carrying picture of Mother Mary and we could see them till about 60-70km away from Pondicherry. That was a quite a distance to cover by walking. Probably, that was their pilgrimage. Watching those pilgrims during our journey to Mahabalipuram was the most interesting apart and we were wondering how long they had to walk and why were they walking. When we reached Mahabalipuram, it again started raining. When we left the toll road towards the town, the municipality charged us Rs 20. That was little strange, and in our experience, we had never see a town municipality charging visitors. At 5 Rathas, it started pouring heavily and it became heavier when we reached the shore temple. Interestingly, the crowd was no less and, so we decided to cancel this trip and head immediately back to Bangalore. Unfortunately, we did not have lunch and we decided that we would have lunch on the way at any place by the highway. From Mahabalipuram, we took the toll-road towards Pondicherry, drove towards Chengalpati for Kancheepuram and finally. Bangalore.
The roads all the way to Bangalore were pretty nice (except for the points when we had cross cities). Till Krishnagiri, we never got a nice road-side restaurant for stop over. By the time we reached Krishnagiri, it was already 7PM and we decided to have dinner at Bangalore. The traffic was extremely light till Krishnagiri, but after that, all vehicles from Salem/Dharmapuri region merged with us and made our driving difficult. On top of that, we were all hungry. The road and the scenic beauty had all been very nice and this was the first time, we had hit so many significant towns of Tamil Nadu (Kancheepuram, Vellore, Chengalpati) on the way. In Bangalore, we ate at Punjabi Rasoi and ended our Pondicherry trip with Afghani Murgh.
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