Weekend getaway to Pondicherry
Being bought up in a town near the border of 2 states, with subtle mix of cultures, I always find myself at home in places which are high on diversity. Having said that, when I want to visit a place, I used to prefer those which focus on retaining and reflecting local cultures i.e., until I went to Indo-portugese part of Cochin and realized the beauty in blending.
Recently, I got invited to a teammate's wedding reception in Pondicherry (well arranged on Saturday evening😘) and my two co-travelers immediately came on board.
We started on Friday evening and reached early Saturday morning. We easily got to the hotel in an auto rickshaw - they are were easily available and the drivers are well aware of hotel locations. We found the hotel prices to be higher compared to our recent travels (where we got resorts with pools for same price as regular hotel room in Pondicherry) and early check-in was charged extra.
After resting till noon, we went out to explore the place. The plan was to eat in a popular restaurant and go to Paradise beach. After checking Zomato, we decided on the lunch place (couldn't recollect the name) - the food was okay, not super impressive. Then we booked a cab to go to Paradise beach. Paradise beach is sort of an island and we have to go there in a ferry. It was past 4 p.m and we are quite sure we went to wrong place - we searched for the ferry place and gave it in destination, should have confirmed with the driver when we started 😑. He told us the last ferry to the beach would have left by then and we went to serenity beach instead.
After spending close to 2 hrs at the beach, we went back to the hotel to get ready and attend our friend's reception. From the venue, we went to the rock beach. It was about 10 p.m and the beach was very much crowded, not so much with tourists but with locals, mostly families with kids and grandparents - it seemed like a regular post dinner hangout place.
This is the part of the city, I found French architecture prominent and the streets are named with mix of French and Tamil.
There is a 24 hr French Cafe and I badly wanted a croissant, but I was full from dinner and they don't have takeaway option 😓. Pretty tired to stay awake, we retired for the day and returned to hotel.
Next morning, we started a bit early and first went to Auroville. It was a bit of hike to the place (there's free shuttle bus option which we availed on our way back) and we didn't get to go inside, maybe there's different process. On Sunday the last entry is at 1:30 p.m. we managed to reach just over an hour before.
Interesting thing about transportation is from our hotel we were able to easily book the cabs, however from other places, we rarely get a cab. It wasn't an issue till then as we could get an auto rickshaw almost for the same price, but from Auroville to Paradise beach, the distance was too big for an auto. After struggling for a while, we managed to book a cab. In a whim, we booked four hour package which is a bad idea as we would be spending most of the time in the beach.
Being Sunday, the queue for ferry was quite big and we had to wait for more than half hour to get into one.
There are not many options to eat in the beach and swimming was prohibited since 2014, still we had lot of fun playing in water. There are shower rooms (with people waiting we didn't have much time to shower) and changing area (not much privacy there) - better to carry dresses which will be easy to change into (shirt dress or capris would be better than fitted jeans).
We got into the return ferry around 6 p.m. and we started getting calls from our cab driver. From there we went to a cafe Baker street and had quiche and few confectioneries. Later we went to the Sunday market which spread across the main street and a variety of goods were being sold.
We had dinner back at the hotel and left to the bus station which was conveniently located in the next street.
It might not sound like a good trip, but mostly everything fell in place despite the mishaps and we actually had a good time 😀.
Recently, I got invited to a teammate's wedding reception in Pondicherry (well arranged on Saturday evening😘) and my two co-travelers immediately came on board.
We started on Friday evening and reached early Saturday morning. We easily got to the hotel in an auto rickshaw - they are were easily available and the drivers are well aware of hotel locations. We found the hotel prices to be higher compared to our recent travels (where we got resorts with pools for same price as regular hotel room in Pondicherry) and early check-in was charged extra.
After resting till noon, we went out to explore the place. The plan was to eat in a popular restaurant and go to Paradise beach. After checking Zomato, we decided on the lunch place (couldn't recollect the name) - the food was okay, not super impressive. Then we booked a cab to go to Paradise beach. Paradise beach is sort of an island and we have to go there in a ferry. It was past 4 p.m and we are quite sure we went to wrong place - we searched for the ferry place and gave it in destination, should have confirmed with the driver when we started 😑. He told us the last ferry to the beach would have left by then and we went to serenity beach instead.
After spending close to 2 hrs at the beach, we went back to the hotel to get ready and attend our friend's reception. From the venue, we went to the rock beach. It was about 10 p.m and the beach was very much crowded, not so much with tourists but with locals, mostly families with kids and grandparents - it seemed like a regular post dinner hangout place.
This is the part of the city, I found French architecture prominent and the streets are named with mix of French and Tamil.
There is a 24 hr French Cafe and I badly wanted a croissant, but I was full from dinner and they don't have takeaway option 😓. Pretty tired to stay awake, we retired for the day and returned to hotel.
Next morning, we started a bit early and first went to Auroville. It was a bit of hike to the place (there's free shuttle bus option which we availed on our way back) and we didn't get to go inside, maybe there's different process. On Sunday the last entry is at 1:30 p.m. we managed to reach just over an hour before.
Interesting thing about transportation is from our hotel we were able to easily book the cabs, however from other places, we rarely get a cab. It wasn't an issue till then as we could get an auto rickshaw almost for the same price, but from Auroville to Paradise beach, the distance was too big for an auto. After struggling for a while, we managed to book a cab. In a whim, we booked four hour package which is a bad idea as we would be spending most of the time in the beach.
Being Sunday, the queue for ferry was quite big and we had to wait for more than half hour to get into one.
There are not many options to eat in the beach and swimming was prohibited since 2014, still we had lot of fun playing in water. There are shower rooms (with people waiting we didn't have much time to shower) and changing area (not much privacy there) - better to carry dresses which will be easy to change into (shirt dress or capris would be better than fitted jeans).
We got into the return ferry around 6 p.m. and we started getting calls from our cab driver. From there we went to a cafe Baker street and had quiche and few confectioneries. Later we went to the Sunday market which spread across the main street and a variety of goods were being sold.
We had dinner back at the hotel and left to the bus station which was conveniently located in the next street.
It might not sound like a good trip, but mostly everything fell in place despite the mishaps and we actually had a good time 😀.
Comments
Post a Comment