Pages of Pondicherry

After joining job, I had been quite busy for the first few months adjusting in the new place and in a new daily schedule which was very different from the student life. There are bosses and their bosses, meetings, deadlines, some more meetings and discussions and then work in the left over time.

So after getting really bored with this routine, I decided to get back to travelling which I love to do but haven't been able to do much as a student due to time and budget constraints. However one of the advantages of doing a job esp in software field is we get weekends free so around a month back, I finally decided to go visit Pondicherry as I had been craving to visit beaches for quite sometime and I must say I did not regret a minute of that experience.

Pic: Near Le Cafe

As this was the first visit to Pondicherry, we ddin't want to get into arranging for stay and stuffs so we spent exactly 12 hrs at Pondi and utilized every minute at the fullest. We took an overnight train from Bangalore on Friday night and were at Pondicherry sat around 8:30 am.

Me being a travel enthusiast, I had already made a list of places to visit, good eateries, what to eat where and most importantly, where to book a 2-wheeler so that we can travel the city at our own pace. So the Here maps came handy (Yes! I am a windows phone user) and we went tracing Vijay Arya rental which was one of the most recommended place by people who visited Pondicherry.

The shop opened at 9 and we were already at the door ready to collect the keys for an activa. The owner was a nice friendly guy and he also gave us some tips about the surrounding areas and at what time to visit what place. Once we got our 2-wheeler, the fun started.

Pic: Seaside view from Le Cafe

We marked Le Cafe on our maps and followed the directions to have breakfast at a restaurant looking the sea beach. Although the food wasn't out of the world but the view was to die for.

However as this restaurant was situated on the side of Rocky beach, there wasn't much to do on that beach as there was no way to get into the water. So after appreciating the view there for sometime, we headed towards the serenity beach and the Auroville beach which are more crowded as we can actually get into the water and take a bath if we want.

While on way from one beach to other, there were places with quite a few nice views where we could see a small stretch of water and sand so sometimes I would just get down and take a few clicks. After I finally reached Auroville beach, I could see there were already quite a lot of people bathing and jumping around in the water and some kinds playing with the sand or screaming on seeing the big waves coming towards them. On seeing the gushing blue water, I too left my bag and shoes on the beach and jumped into the water playing around for an hour and got completely drenched.

Now the problem with getting drenched in sea/ocean is that as soon as u get out of ware, u can feel sand particles all over yourself including in the fold of jeans, your pockets and even in the hairs. Now as we hadn't made any arrangements for stay, we didn't have any place where we could go change our clothes so we decided to let our clothes just air dry and continued roaming rest of the city with sand all over.

By then it was time for lunch so we decided to Hidesign for lunch. I know what most of you are thinking, that hidesign makes wallets and purses, not food but to our surprise, they had leather stuffs in 3 floors and served French food on the top floor. I love to try different food items as well and decided to try a baguette. The best part here was that I never had french bread before and never knew that the breads are supposed to be hard. When I took first bite of the yummy looking baguette that was served, I was in for a surprise when I couldn't take an easy bit off of it. Luckily my friend had had a baguette before and knew that's how the bread was supposed to be. The fillings were actually good but I decided that I like Indian breads better.

Once done with the lunch, we visited Richie Rich which was recommended by the rental place owner for ice creams. So we went in for some ice creams and also got assorted chocolates packed to later eat on the beach. After that, we decided to roam around a bit and then took a tour of the French colony on our activa. The place was serene and there were hardly any people on the streets and the old French architecture gave a very pleasant look to the whole place. After looking around there for some time, we headed back to Auroville beach but this time I didn't go into the water much as I knew air drying the clothes would be an issue once the sun goes down. So we just walked on the shores bare foot feeling the grains of sand pressed against our feet leaving our foot prints which would get washed up in a few minutes just so that someone else could leave his/her marks on the sand again.

After spending quite sometime on the beach, we decided to head back to the city and explore the mission street. There we found the famous Baker street but didn't try anything as we were full and I was in no mood for French breads again. Our next stop was Zuka choco la where we tried chocolate cupcake and some other dark chocolate dessert (forgot the name) which looked so yummy I couldn't wait enough to even click it's pics. By the time we had our chocolate treats and left, it was almost 7:45 pm so we decided to give back the activa and head back to railway station.

On the way back to the 2-wheeler rental, we found some small roadside shops which were selling clay items so as a souvenir, I got a small clay cup to drink tea in and a small clay aromizer inside which I can burn dhoop or aroma tealight candles. By then, it was almost 8 pm so we went back to the rentals, returned te activa and got an auto to head back to the railway station. So from my 'to-visit' list of Pondicherry, I visited almost everything  apart from the Paradise Beach which I will try to cover the next time I visit there. So as a whole, I made the best out of every minute I spent there and it was all worth it.

Ps: All the pics in this post are my clicks.