Our trip to Pondicherry

This was a trip, hastily conceived and executed :). We made the plans on Friday evening to leave on Monday morning. Luckily, reservations were available in Ginger, Pondicherry. We packed our bags and left in our car after doing some research over the internet for the best driving routes. We managed to leave by 7.30 am and the roads were relatively traffic free, it being a holiday on account of Id. After taking the NICE road to Hosur, we went ahead on the Expressway to Chennai till Krishnagiri. It is a 4-lane highway with a beautiful median ( extraordinary flowers blooming all along). There were so many butterflies that they were spluttering against the windshield. It was a dream ride. From Krishnagiri, one has to move left and then right for the road to Pondicherry. This was single lane right upto Pondicherry. It had stray potholes but the traffic was very less. I had packed pooris and sabzi so we took very short breaks to eat along the way. Till Uthangiri, the road was a little bad but became much better later. We went through Thiruvanmalai and then to Pondicherry via Tindivanam. Tindivanam was chaotic with very narrow bylanes and transit through a vegetable market.

We entered Pondicherry around 1ish which was excellent driving by Gurdev considering we covered a distance over 300 kms. At Pondicherry, we had to ask for directions to the hotel. Tamil is the most prevalent language there and it was difficult conversing. People seemed friendly and helpful. Pondicherry is a Union Territory and a very small one at that. It has a quaint culture due to its French occupation in the past. Many streets are named in French. With the French I studied in school, I could pronounce all the Rues :). I really doubt if anyone could even say Bon jour there these days except for the firangs.

We checked into the Hotel, nice and comfortable and courteous staff who could speak English. The Room Service guys were Nepali so were fluent in Hindi as well. Both the days we were there, we took a stroll down the Promenade – the sea facing area which looked like a very small Marine Drive to me. We could sip coffee and eat cake at Le Cafe watching the waves or take a stroll right across. Very calming indeed. We discovered a great place for seafood – Asian House and went for dinner both the nights. The prawns and the fish were tasty, juicy and fresh, yummy :). Great ambience and reasonably priced too.

It seems like a very safe place with policemen seen at night and women also venturing out alone. The policemen have a funny red cap which looks like a squarish cap, maybe a relic of the French times :). The sight I loved the most were women clad in saris riding bicycles, amazing :). Pondicherry is the two-wheeler capital of India, everyone is out on a bicycle or a bike. The road is meant for them. They drive aggressively and the attitude is that if you have a car, that is your problem. Squeeze in and drive in the place available. They are pretty suicidal drivers. The weather was a major dampener – very humid and hot. You could not venture out between noon and evening. It was so sultry, we sweated like pigs.

We did visit the world-famous Auroville. First the museam, watched the video and then just got to see the Matrimandir from the outside. Apparently, some construction work is going on there hence the restriction. We would have loved to venture inside and see exactly how over 2000 people from 140 countries in the world lived and what they did. I frankly could not understand the philosophy of Auroville. Maybe I need to read a bit more about them. I really could not understand how these people lived there in that horrid weather all around the year.

Anyway, Pondicherry was a good experience overall. Maybe if the weather was a little better, it would have been even more fun. So we left Pondicherry after a heavy breakfast to Mahabalipuram.