It was 4 day off and thus ideal time for a short weekend trip .After lots of brainstorming and we finally zeroed on Pondicherry, although the first choice was Goa .Considering Goa is 600+ Km from Bangalore and I have two small kids Goa was dropped and Pondicherry came into picture as idea was visit beaches this time as the last 4-5 trips of mine were all hill stations.
We started at 5.30 AM from my house a delay of 30 min from the plan but still it was good enough .I took my Alto and started the trip with Lets Go…..the Alto punch line .Just like my usual experiences I just hardly took 2-3 hrs sleep at night .
At around 7:00 AM I was @Kirishnagiri on NH7 some 100 KMs from start point in Bangalore .The road to krishnagiri were excellent and ride was fun with car zooming up to 120KM/hr at times. before starting a did decent amount of survey about the route to pondy and as explained by some gentleman about the confusing turn to NH46 and the NH66 and did the same mistake and messed up by getting inside Krishnagiri town. Although it was not such a blunder but it cost me 15-20 Min and 2-3 extra miles .
On NH66 I was expecting lots of potholes and bad roads in all ,but the reality was far sweeter ,with road decent enough and almost no other vehicles on road .I made a good use of pleasant morning whether and took my first tea break at around 9 AM. Started at 9:20 and then took a break at a petrol pump near Gingee at around 10 to fill up petrol ,there are remains of Gingee fort visible from this petrol pump which we came to know once we proceeded further and just thought of giving a look .It was a good place to visit ,I planned to reach the top of fort but dropped the idea before midway considering the time as I didn’t wanted to be late to reach pondy and waste the first day .
So was back on road with my car raring to go it was around 11 AM by this time and we were feeling the heat (Welcome to TamilNadu)…..we then moved towards pondy and on the way came Tindivalam and a gentlemen driving fabia .This gentlemen was pretty annoyed with the fact that Alto overtaking fabia and it hurt his ego which in turn forced him to matchup my speed and at times zoomed ahead of my car ,it was fun .This all continued till pondy and we both disappeared from each other vision .
It was sharp 12:40 and I was at hotel (SURGURU )lobby .I had done a booking for two days at this hotel for deluxe room but on arrival we all were so tired that I finally settled for Suite room which has bathtub .I used it to get rid of the dust collected on my body from all parts of Karnataka and TN and I was ready for pondy .Did the lunch at around 2 ,food at the hotel restaurant was pretty good.
We started towards rocky beach at White town around 5 Pm ,it was just 1 KM from the hotel and our honeymoon with pondy started .This part of city is excellent its called White town (French Colony) .Roads, crowd, traffic police all were excellent .One good thing I observed throughout the journey was people were really supportive in showing the way ,which is not at all the case in north India :).
This stretch of road along the beach is pretty good and quite lively which I came to know the next night when I was there at around 1 in night and still could find number of people roaming around some enjoying coffee at La Café (Café house on beach ) and other set of people sipping beer watching the high & vocal tides .
Just at the end of this road there was Park Guest house (managed by Sri Arvindo Ashram ) and I just thought of checking room availability over there and to my surprise it was available but there was an condition that I have to checkin right at that time which I was unwilling to do considering I have already paid for the night at Hotel Surguru,but the manager over there asked me to come and check in the morning .
We were back to hotel around 8 PM and then I planned to took a bike on rent for 1 day to roam around in pondy .The rental were Rs .200-350 , we took an active so that my wife can also drive it otherwise plan was Bullet .We then headed towards Hotel athithi and enjoyed the buffet dinner just for Rs. 250 each ,it was excellent .We also visited some temple in proximity of hotel .
While sleeping I planned for a early wakeup to checkout sunrise but was not successful ,so we started the day by visiting Sri Arvindo Ashram around 9 Am .It opens at 8 :30 Am .It was quite peacefull and some people doing meditation around the Samadhi of Sri Aravindo and mataji.
The ashram also houses a library from were my wife got three books and she was really impressed with the fact that everything managed by Ashram by pretty good and it was not money oriented which is the case in many such places .We spent some 20-30 Min over there .
Kids below 3 are not allowed in the ashram .When I stared in the morning at that time I checked out from hotel to shift to Park Guest House ,but it was really disgusting to know that it was full . I then searched for some other hotel and finally settled for Ajantha Beach guest house ,its on the beach road and has decent rooms with sea view .
Now since the hotel was finalized it was time to move on and I took the road to Aurovillle(For MatriMandir ,Auro beach).Went on and visited the Matrimandir .One has to walk for more than a KM to see the MatriMandir ….dont expect any temple over there as the name suggests. Now time was for Auro beach and finally I went on to see some beach on the ECR road next to surya beach resort ,still not very sure if it was Auro beach or some other beach but I will give a definite miss to it in future but I still tried hard to enjoy over there and took couple of dips inside and it was time to move back to hotel as it was 1 PM .Our condition at time we reached hotel was so bad (wet and sand all over the body ) that I thought they might stop us at gate but to our luck and hospitality industry we went inside freely :).Enjoyed the lunch at sea side restaurant along with bottle of beer ,all the money paid was for the view food was just average .
Evening was for visit to a garden nearby followed by Ganesh temple and the some shopping at JawarLal Neheru street. Then started the struggle for dinner and I landed up spending 1000 bucks and still was not satisfied with what I got in return ,it’s a long story :).It was 12 in night ,time to go to bed but I preferred to have a walk along the beach side with my wife and we did that with couple of coffee and ice creams.
Moring I waked up at 5:30 to try and catch a glimpse of dawn and take some pics of sun at sea side but was unable to do the same .we then started for our final destination in pondy the chunnambar back waters .Booked boat to paradise beach and was really disappointed with the steamer that took us to beach but I forgot all that once a reached the beach it was awesome and I was really excited and started taking some pics at the beach and it was Murphy Law with my battery saying goodbye even without taking a single picture .I then started hunting for battery from people around and succeeded in borrowing it for 3-4 clicks .It was all fun over there .
I then started back for Bangalore at 1 PM and was at home at 8:30 PM. :) Overall a fabulous trip and some lows and lots of high .Roads were excellent ,pondy exciting .
No comments:
Post a Comment