Christmas @ Pondicherry!!

24-26 Dec

This is probably the longest I ve stayed away from this page since I started blogging – too bad that I don’t update it often enough. Trying to get this page up-to-date but my memory seems to be failing me. Lemme test my memory and give my best attempt at re-production!!

Did a half a day Pichavaram trip once again mid Dec – this time with parents & hubby dear. But this post is dedicated to the French colony - Pondicherry...

Christmas beckoned tourists all over and so few of my friends from Hyderabad came over along with their friends to Pondicherry! I never understood the hype around this place – my aunt used to live at Pondicherry and I used to frequent as a kid for shopping & time-pass. Never really explored the French settlement areas n heard rave reviews from few friends earlier. Due to last minute confirmations couldn’t find a good place to stay and had to settle for a hotel that was just enough for sleeping over.

So finally took off from work early - Karthik, Shiv, Seetha, Navya & I drove down to join the rest of the gang on 24th evening. We dined at Rendevous which sounded like a French restaurant but had better Indian food than continental. Our best moments were spent chilling out on the beach post dinner. Pondy doesn’t really have a beach but has lots of rocks to sit over and enjoy the sight / sound of the ruffian sea waves. The lovely breeze and the buzzing place was heavenly post sunset. We would hang out on the beach until the cops would drive us away at midnight. I dozed off – but a bunch of guys revisited the cops-free beach at 3 am and vouched that it was even better!

25th Dec

The gang was 24 member strong and one can imagine the efforts that would go into getting all of them up & ready for any outing. So it wasn’t surprising that by the time we shook off our beauty sleep, got ready and left for breakfast it was 11.30 am. We finally settled for lunch at a café and set out to Chunnabar beach which was about 7 kms from Pondicherry. Chunnabar was a popular boating spot and was flooded with people on 25th! When we had to choose between waiting for 2 hours to ride on the boat and ditching the place, we chose the latter.

I never knew Pondicherry actually had beaches. Thanks to someone who had visited earlier, we headed to the beach on ECR near Auroville. Apparently the Auroville beach is much better but since it’s a private beach, only guests of Auroville guest house could enjoy the beauty J The beach on ECR behind Surya Resorts was not bad at all – decent crowd, good weather & enthusiastic company had us dancing to the tunes of the ocean. For the night, we headed to Asian House to party & dine. The men were very excited knowing that there was a female DJ from Netherlands playing that night. The DJ + songs were quite a let down but it was good to shake some legs and catch up with friends. We repeated the post-dinner beach walk ritual and it was splendid again.

26th Dec

We left Pondicherry early in the afternoon after a good south Indian breakfast at Hotel Surguru. Yet to explore Auroville – Matri Mandir – good French restaurants/places – shopping at Pondicherry.. need to wait for the next time! Though not crazy about Pondicherry yet, overjoyed to have seen a new face of the place and looking forward to more trips.

I am skipping the rating part since it was too short a trip to comment on. Overall, it’s a good weekend getaway for visitors from Chennai / Bangalore.