Pondycherry - two day trip from Bangalore

Planned to visit Pondicherry for a two day weekend outing with hubby. I booked the KSRTC volvo club class multi axle bus on Thursday and we left on Friday night. Our bus was from St.John's and we had a tough time searching for the KSRTC pick up point. We had a nice plate of chitranna and curd in the bus stop and boarded the bus for a short peaceful journey to Pondy. What I had thought was a short journey took almost 10 hrs.

After landing, we were told that there is good accommodation near the bus stand area. My husband is the kind of person who searches for Udupi bhavan/ hotel everywhere he goes. We searched for a good number of hotels and resorts before we got one next to the Udupi bhavan on the main streets of Pondicherry and we checked in for a cozy twin AC suite.

It has become a hobby that when we land on a new land in the mornings of the journey, we roam on the streets of the city after a cup of hot tea. So once we checked in we dumped the luggage in the hotel room, we had hot watery tea in the Udupi bhavan. The tea was sick. The search for other tea shops which sell good tea was not very fruitful.

I noticed that the whole of city was dirty on that sun risen morning. There were bars across every second building and people were happily littering, loitering, puking in front of the bars. There were tea stalls on the gutters. Some kerala parota stalls were lined up the road where white dough is knead near garbage junks. One scene took me by shock. A man was peeing to the high lamp post that stood at the center of a large bus stand. In the midst of 2000 people, 200 buses, 50 tea shops, how one could take out to pee without any embarrassment is what I wonder about.

The day was too sunny. The breakfast was a little better than the morning tea from Udupi bhavan. We took a share auto to go to the rock beach. The idea of going in the share auto was to know people and their life styles. At the end of the caravan, all we got to know was that, the people are too rude and no body understands a single syllable if its not Tamil.

The rock beach is a sweet place to be. We imagined that the place will have tides where we can touch waters and take a dip. But it turned out that they have cut short the shore area by throwing stones at the sea. Its breezy and lots and lots of shopping options are available for sea made items. Plenty of eateries are also present which sell french pasta, Chinese momos, manchurian, Modhak(they call with tamil equivalent), peanuts, sweet candy, bhel puri, vada, bajji etc etc..

Out of heat and humid weather, we were exhausted. We had fish for the dinner at Annaporna hotel. The specialty of Pondy hotels is that they don't serve any dish with spoon. You insist on getting a pair of spoons and it comes to you probably after you complete eating the dish.

Next day was very eventful. We took a early rise to catch the sun rise at the beach. The rock beach was not all that peaceful. There were people jogging, hogging here and there. After a long time the sun rose and it was a stunning scene. Some pics follow below.

We booked a taxi and visited Aurbindo ashram, Ganabadi temple(yes, its pronounced as Ganabadi and not as Ganapathi), Narasimha temple, Govt Museum, Auroville, a beautiful and handsome church near the railway station. All this took around 4 hours. For the afternoon we settled for the Auro beach. The water was too good for anybody to refuse it. We got wet and played all the possible sport on the beach. There were French men and bikini clad women. The bikini women, as usual had a great bunch of followers, fans and admirers. They term them all as stalkers.

We made some shopping in the Auroville and had good food to eat at the Adiyar Anand Bhavan. The evening tea was held at beach. We returned to catch the bus back to Bangalore.

How to reach from Bangalore:
By Bus: From Majestic, there are many buses that go to Pondicherry. Buses that go to Thiruvannamalai also go to Pondicherry. It takes around 7 to 9 hrs.
By Car: The route is via Hosur, Krishnagiri. Takes 6 hrs.
By Train: There is a railway station at Pondy.
By air: Airport is in Chennai and from Chennai it takes 3 hrs to Pondy.

Places to see: Aurobindo ashram, Auroviile, Thiruvannamalai temple, Ganabadi temple, Narasimha tempel, Church, Rock Beach, botanical garden, Auro beach.

Best time to visit: Oct to Dec