Pondicherry - Perfect blend of French and Tamil Legacy.

Matrimandir is an edifice of spiritual significance for practioners of integral yoga. This is a place where the needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions. It teaches you to stay close to nature and promotes peace. It is situated around 10 kms from Pondicherry in Auroville. It's a 15-20 mins walk to reach to the central mandir with the dome shaped architecture. Visitors are not allowed to enter inside it, for that we have to book an appointment 5-6 days prior before visiting. It's a beautiful place and must visit if visiting Pondicherry. There are many shops outside Matrimandir which sells beautiful bohemian articles which are must to buy if visiting Auroville. There are many cafes in Auroville on the way to Matrimandir which are famous for their wood fired pizzas so lunch scenes are sorted when visiting Matrimandir.

After Matrimandir, we came back to Pondicherry and explored the much talked about - White Town. White Town is famous for its French colonial-era villas. There are many quirky cafes and upscale courtyard restaurants serving French and French-Tamil delicacies. This area is basically the French Quarter in Pondicherry and delight for eyes. The major beaches in Pondicherry includes Rock Beach, Serenity Beach, Paradise Beach and Auroville Beach. One more major attraction is ruins of Arikamedu. It is situated around 4 kms from Pondicherry and is considered to be an ancient Roman Trade Center. It is said that it was the only port where Indian traded with Romans and French. I fall in love with the french architecture and unique facades in white town that I couldn't resist myself from capturing.

The beach front Promenade is famous for evening strolls. There are many places to visit in and around White Town. The wall arts and cute cafes gives you perfect canvas for your photos. We spent our evening exploring attractions in and around White Town and had typical South Indian dinner at this place called A2B which is apparently very famous. Below are the places one can visit in White Town.

As decide we started our day by capturing fascinating architecture of White Town followed by visiting this beautiful Church named - "Our Lady of Angels Church". We had our breakfast at a very quirky cafe " " in White Town. Not many people know about this fact but about 80 KMs from Pondicherry is located one of the India's largest Mangroves Forest named Pichavaram Mangrove Forest in village Pichavaram near Chidambaram in Cuddalore district. We both were super excited to visit this place. We took our scooter and decided to drive to Pichavaram. One can hire a cab or can travel through local transport (buses or shared taxis) till Pichavaram. We reached Mangrove Forest around 12 PM, took the ticket for a row boat. Apart from row boat there is also motor boat option available. Each row boat has a boat man cum guide and tour of the forest is of 60 minutes. The forest is beautiful and takes you to a different world, mangroves are dense. I was surprised to see the beauty of this forest. We also spotted some exclusive species of birds, but there are few points that I would like to mention -

- Even though the place is so exotic, government is not paying much attention towards the development of this place. There are no sign boards available for directions, one need to ask villagers while driving for directions.

- The premises only have a single shop selling water bottle, there are no snacks or food options available.

- Almost all the boatman crabs about the share they get from the ticket we pay for the tour and so they ask for extra money to take the visitors to dense mangroves which is apparently the part of their job. Authority needs to take some strict actions to stop such illegal deeds.

After exploring mangroves we headed to our next destination of the day - Paradise Beach. One can reach Paradise Beach either by ferry (which is paid and one have to collect ticket for the same from Paradise Beach Ferry Service ticket counter) or by road. We chose the later one and drove ourselves there. There are many water sport activities that one can enjoy on the beach. After having some calm time here we went back to our hotel, refreshed ourselves and went for some french dinner at One Rue Saffron in White Town and shopped sovereign from the local market. We also visited the very famous Sunday Night Market at MG Road.

We have this thing of treating ourselves at the end of our vacation, so we decided to have a relaxed day at this beautiful property named Mango Hills By Poppy in Auroville. We had book ourselves a Thai Cottage which a tree shaped room with balcony. The view from the balcony was amazing. We checked in here in the morning, went to Auroville Beach which is at a walking distance from this resort, did swimming in the evening and had dinner at the very famous - Tanto's Pizzeria in Auroville and had a sound sleep of 10 hours.

Next morning, I woke up to a therapeutic view, there were very tall lush green coconut trees in the front of the balcony, birds were chirping around, it felt like therapy to the body. We had our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, packed our bags and left for Chennai. We had to catch our train from Chennai Central at 3 PM for Pune. So this was the wrap of our trip and we were sad since we were leaving but we enjoyed exploring Pondicherry very much and would love to visit this place again.