Tales of pondicherry

So, how many of you love to gossip about ghost stories with your friends?

NO?

Common, don’t lie. I m sure everyone has done this even if you scare the shit out of yourself.

Experienced something spooky?

That night, after picking up one’s ears to one of our friend(you will know soon) who was narrating a spooky story.

Suddenly,the hotel room appeared as conjuring(horror movie)with the windows banging and the curtains blowing in the wind, taking the shape of an apparition and none of us had the courage to go and close them, instead we satisfied ourselves by looking under the beds every 10 minutes to find no one was there.

It was a spooky experience. but now when I think of this… I laugh.

Wait did I tell you where was I and whom I was cooking up these stories with?NO? Let’s find out..!!

Hey guys… I m Digdarshinee and in this blog, I am going to share my experience to Pondicherry, which I went a few months back with some savage girls.

But first, let me introduce you guys to my three Powerpuff girls in brief.

Mridula-light-hearted but bold, Jyoti– witty, silly yet insightful, Hena-supple, laughs on all my lame jokes and my partner in crime since ages.

I live in Hyderabad but my best friend Hena lives in Bangalore.i was bored at home.  one, while talking to her on phone, she asked me “shall we(our girl gang) plan some fun scenes in Goa?

Goa or Pondicherry?

Offcourse!-with bells on!”- I said, smacking my lips but Goa being out of our budget that time (as we are students)we chucked the plan to Pondicherry.!

France in India?

Being the largest French Colonial in India, Pondicherry is a small city and lies in the Southern part of Indian peninsula(near Tamil Nadu) there is a strong influence of French in the city.

I want to act like super cool here by saying that our trip was an impromptu trip, but I wish it was, we planned all this a month prior because we had to look for hotel and transport bookings.

I was all pumped up for the trip and of course to meet my sister from another mother after ages.

Finally, the day has come! I flew to Bangalore, reached Kempegowda international airport.it was 6am.the weather was pleasant as usual.

Ok does this happen to you too or is it just me ?…

Whenever you have that travel backpack on your back, you feel you own the world?

She(Hena)received me at the airport ..we literally jumped on each other and that’s what I call happiness..you agree right?

We headed to her room, I met other two weirdos Jyoti and Mridula, got freshen up and had a meal.we had our train scheduled at 4 pm to Pondicherry that day.

At 3 pm, we globetrotters started our journey from the room. We reached Yashwantpur railway station, Bangalore.

Here’s an interesting thing..we were waiting for our train in the waiting hall…

Was someone planning to kidnap us?

We saw a lady of about 40-45 years old talking in ear-splitting voice by keeping her hands on her ears.we thought she was talking on her phone.she was talking so loud that all the people in the waiting hall gazed at her and to top it up.

She was addressing to us (as if she was planning to kidnap us)on her phone and talking about some 100 crores…we ignored, I opened chips and as we concentrated in snacking up, we found a crinkled and wrinkled hand trying to get some chips from our packet.yes! that lady came, sat with us, ate our chips without saying anything to us. .that was bizarre.

She started talking on her phone again about her millions.then we suddenly realized there was no phone in her hands.  so we assumed that she may be a disturbed person.

Tales of Pondicherry

Anyway, our train arrived, we took our respective seats.

And the voyage begins…

Tim Cahill once said”A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles”

We played Ludo, King, Minister, Thief, Police(Raja Mantri Chor Spahi) and gossiped and laughed like a drain all night long reviving all the memories of our college.

Next day, we reached Puducherry railway station at 6 am. We turned the GPS who was supposed to guide us to our hotel room.

EARLY MORNING IN PONDY.

Our hotel RAJ CLASSIC INN was just 10 mins away from the station. did some formalities at the reception and as hotel rooms always fascinated me for some reason…

I hastened in the speed of light to our room which to my surprise was immensely huge with two king size cozy beds, huge mirrors all over, a table, a refrigerator, a wardrobe and a huge massive bathroom.

ALl to ourselves!

We got freshen up, had our breakfast. I must say this hotel offers good food along with good hospitality. Totally recommendable if you are looking for an exquisite hotel in a budget.

After that we did some study about the town and its attractions, we wanderers got out of the hotel to inquire about the transport facility in the town.

We found out, there were so many bike rental services and also hundreds of shops selling all types of clothes in abundance.

Note-if you want a hassle-free trip and want to explore on your own.then you should rent a bike or Scooty. There are numerous bike rental services there offering you the bike with fair prices(200-300 bucks/day).

But we decided to take public transport and headed to Rock beach which was approx. 6 minutes from our hotel.

Tales of Pondicherry: Places to explore 

Rock beach or promande beach is situated in the white town of Pondicherry. It is a very popular beach along the Bay of Bengal.

As soon as we reached the location. We saw the area was highly crowded as there was a food festival going on, in the nearby place.

The beach was rocky and sandy so it does not offer tourists to take a bath.

Its best to see the sunrise and sunset from there .and you will love when a wave smashes with the rocks in the shore and its salty water sprinkles on your face.

There is Kargil war memorial just 0.4 km from Rock beach which was build to pay tribute to our brave Soldiers who lost their lives in Indo-Pakistan war which took place in the Kargil state of Kashmir.

EMBRACE THE SKY AND THE SEA!

The feeling was magical, also we took a walk across the beach..the beach is pretty clean but awfully populous. We took millions of pictures there, it was crazy.

When you walk ahead, you will find colorful and Vintagy buildings all the lane long. Every building you pass by will make you capture yourself to bomb your social media and you could actually feel the french vibes there.

There is Kargil war memorial just 0.4 km from Rock beach which was build to pay tribute to our brave Soldiers who lost their lives in Indo-Pakistan war which took place in the Kargil state of Kashmir.

And there are so many French dedicated cafes presenting you scrumptious seafood and snacks. So we went to one of the cafes there.

And I don’t know why but I have this weird habit of eating prawns when I am out.so we ordered some prawns and a special kind of rock beach fish.

It was literally mouth watering. I was very super happy and the happiness always gets four moon passion when you know you are with your best of friends.

Then after having a bite session and all the calories we put on, we decided to burn them by going to a Disco theque.

Nightlife full of Vim and Vigour

You can add glitters to your trip to the next level by exploring and enjoying the nightlife in pondy.

You can camp on the beaches, have bonfires, listen to slow romantic meuseum,do stargazing and enjoy the majestic waves, grab a beer and a cocktail and have the time of your life with your loved ones.

Or even you can party your heart out at pubs and dance till you drop just like us.

The interiors of the pubs and bars here are so uber and vintagy that you cannot miss out taking pictures.there are also many open-air exotic pubs aside the tranquil sea to make you feel best of both worlds.

let me tell you that the bars and pubs in Pondicherry are open till midnight 12 am.

We danced like insanes for about 2 hours.

And then we headed to la Terrasse for dinner, and I being a glutton guess what I ordered again? yes, prawns..haha and my much overly fitness conscious friends ordered Salad(like seriously?). We ate and asked them for the bill.

Then what happened is something you should definitely read out next…

Disclaimer-don’t judge us guys…

La Terressa’s lack of elighment towards us?

I must say that the restaurant was very crowded and there were very few staffs to attend to us. we waited for good 1.5 hours for the bill which actually annoyed us.

We kept insisting on them to bring the bill, which we must pay and leave.but they took no notice of us.

I and Mridula came out to take some selfies with the glitsy lights in front of the restaurants while the other two (Hena and  Jyoti)were sorting the bill issue inside .after 5 mins, I heard a nervous laughter whispering RUN!

I was perplexed and frozen for some seconds before I could understand and ask whats going on…Hena grabbed my hand and ran in the speed of light towards the auto stand asking me not to turn back.

By the time we reached the auto stand, I totally understood that we had a free meal tonight. HAHA..we laughed like crazy.., took an auto to our hotel.it was hilarious.

we do not encourage this act at all guys but we were helpless. we had more things to do instead of waiting for them more than 1.5 hours to bill our food.

But the whole night we couldn’t sleep thinking that police would be standing if we open the door.

WANTED?

Or maybe when we go out in the streets the next day, the street walls would be filled with banners of WANTED! we were panicked.

Experienced something spooky ?

And to put a cherry on the cake, our uncanny girl Jyoti thought talking something spooky could lighten up our mood.

Everyone said NO! but could not spare ourselves from lending all our ears to such topics.

So it started like this as mentioned above. Jyoti narrated one of the stories she heard in some Kolkata radio station.

It was a story of a man who came on honeymoon with his wife and stays in some hotel room.

Then he started experiencing some paranormal activities only when his wife would be sleepy. In course of time, the acts became so dreadful that he got paralyzed and blah blah blah blah…

The story continued for a good 1 hour and all of our ears were pricked up to Jyoti.

Suddenly our room appeared as conjuring(horror movie)with the windows banging and the curtains blowing in the wind, taking the shape of an apparition and none of us had the courage to go and close them, instead we satisfied ourselves by looking under the beds every 10 minutes to find no one was there.

We didn’t realize but we were more terrified now. anyway, that was a night to remember… fun it was..:)

The next day we all rolled out at 6 am, got freshen up one by one and all dolled up in pretty dresses, got out of the hotel to witness the spectacular Sunrise of theParadise beach also known as Plage Paradiso.

Confidential and Exclusive beach in pondicherry?

SOPHISTICATED GOA!

It is a hidden cum private beach with golden and sparkling soft sand situated in Chunnambar, Pondicherry.

This coastline is only 5 km’s from Puducherry railway station.

To reach there you have two options.

One–you can take a Ferry ride from the boathouse, across the breathtaking clean and picturesque Backwaters.

The fare of the Speedboat or ferry is 200 rupees for an adult which is very reasonable.

If you are a Nemophilist or a green panther, this ride will be a good relishment for you.

And also not to forget the ferry starts from9 am. But as we girls wanted to spot the sunrise.

We took an auto directly to the paradise beach which is the second way to reach there. As we walked along the beach, we could feel how refreshing the sand and the vibe of this hidden gem is.

The sunrise from there being truly majestic and inspiring, fills the soul with harmony and empathy.

You can play pool games there,do scavenger hunt or collect shells ,draw your loved ones names on the shore,click surreal pictures,make sand castles,enjoy your picnic time and whats better than getting into the water,splashing each other,running,playing and waiting for the waves to wash over you.

We took many pictures there and had lip smacking fried crabs, sea fish andyesprawns offcourse near the beach.

Then we wayfarers went back to your hotel at 12 pm.

Cleared the amount and checked out of the hotel with our luggage.  Then we headed to Puducherry railway station.

NO NO! This wasn’t it. I ain’t finishing the blog here…

We accumulated our luggage there for 3 hours because we had train slotted at 7 pm, also we wanted to  act smart by making our trip a budget-friendly(if we wouldn’t have checked out, they would have charged a day’s outlay) for ourselves and also utilise our time till 7 pm in the evening so we protruded to Auroville golden globe.

A mammoth golden ball?

The purpose of Auroville is to make Human realize that humanity or human unity is above all in this world.

It aims to be a universal town where no one is discriminated against any caste or creed and everyone lives in peace and harmony.

Inside the Auroville, you will have to take a long walk of 2 km’s across shaded pedestrian to Matrimandir (the golden globe).

It was so much fun walking and gossiping with my girl gang.

We would pick up any random topic to scuttlebutt and laugh horendously.

Anyway, Matrimandir is situated at the center of Auroville and commenced by the mother of Shri. Aurobindo. The premises is the significance for internal yoga.

Fun fact-It took 37 years to build Matrimandir.

When you enter the peace garden you can spot a gigantic larger than life globe shaped gold plated structure which is immensly magnificient and looks glorious.

You can only see the globe away from 300 meters.

We clicked some illusional pictures of eating the globe or holding it.

Or you can just stare at the globe and impart yourself with tranquilness and solidarity.

Inside the globe is a peace room which is not open for regular visitors, you need to book the tickets in advance by the agents.

The globe is held by four pillars that epitomize the four aspects of the mother of Shri Aurobindo.

Those are- Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahasaraswati, Mahalaxmi.

While returning, we were very tired but we didn’t have any option than to walk because the minibus would only carry oldies.

So we walked in tortoise’s pace with all huffing and puffing. We were lifeless.

Anyhow, we reached till the gate reclining on each other. But it was an amazing and worth it experience.

Then we took an auto to the station..more 1 hour was left for our train to arrive so we went to this 100 years old massive church(the sacred heart basilica).

It was exceptionally gorgeous. The church is only 200 meters away from the station.

As soon as you enter the church you can see a huge statue of crucified Jesus..:(

The church has some rare and unique Gothic architecture.

And also there were stained glasses all around the church depicting the life of Jesus Christ and the saints.

There was a prayer going on as we entered .we took a seat, folded our hands and closed our eyes.

Trust me I could only see Jesus with my closed eyes. The interiors and the ambiance of the church will definitely fill your heart with holiness and divinity.

After enjoying the virtuousness of this pious place, we headed to the station as it ticked 6;30 pm in our clocks.

Boarded our train and got back to our respective origins…

Took back home so many memories and laughs that nothing can replace and would cherish all my life..though it was a small trip of 2 days but friends just make everything substantial and better.

Will be back super soon with another interesting blog, So stay tuned for that…

until then

#love

#keeptravelling

#wanderuffles