Hola! Long time, right? :D
Well, after being trapped indoors for a good 10-11 months, this was my first trip out of Bangalore, and trust me it was as impromptu as it can get, but then again 'Impromptu plans are the best'. So, this time we decided to go to Pondicherry, which is about 360-ish kms from Bangalore. The trip lasted for a good 2 days, and I would say that's about enough time in Pondicherry if one wants to go there for a weekend retreat.
The trip started by me and 4 other friends of mine taking a sleeper overnight bus from Bangalore to Pondicherry. The bus can be boarded from multiple points in Bangalore; we took the bus from Madiwala. The trip finally started by us boarding the bus at 2300 hrs on 4th of March.
The next morning we woke up to the hue-y skies of Pondicherry, with the ocean smell and the sight of coconut trees overwhelming us. We reached Pondicherry at about 0600 hrs on 5th of March, and took an auto to the hostel we had booked.
One of the best stays in Pondicherry has to be Micasa Hostels; located in the prime part of the city-MG Road; surrounded by everything one's gonna need in Pondicherry to have a good time - from cafes, to liquor stores, to Rock Beach. We reached the Hostel, left our luggage and went out for some light breakfast and some sightseeing. We started walking towards the nearest French Church, after which we had some delicious south-Indian breakfast, then walked to Rock Beach.
After taking in enough of the ocean breeze, we walked to rent 3 two-wheelers, for moving around Pondicherry, and visiting places. The two-wheeler can either be a local one, or can be booked via Royal Brothers(a chain of rental two-wheelers, spread across various cities). We picked up our scooties, and headed back to our hostel for checking-in and freshening up.
PS : The best thing about two-wheelers in Pondicherry, is that you don't need to wear a helmet, and can feel the air in your hair :P
We checked into our room, which was a dormitory with 3 bunk beds, and was one of the best hostel-rooms I've ever seen.
We took a bath, got freshened up, paid for our room, and went out to have brunch at around 1200 hrs. We went to this beautiful French cafe, Cafe du Arts. We had a hearty brunch, hydrated ourselves with awesome drinks at the cafe, boarded our scooties, and went to visit a few more places. The first place we visited was the British Church, followed by a local market located near Rock Beach, the Museum, and the Portuguese Church. We had covered all these places by 1500 hrs, when we went to Taka Pizza to have the biggest pizza I'd ever seen. This Monster 17-inch pizza is worth the hype it has gained.
We had our bellies full by the time we finished the pizza, and decided to walk a bit. It was already 1430 hrs, and the sun was gonna set soon, so we decided to enjoy the sunset on a beach. We rode our scooties to the White Sand Beach.
After having a full 2 hrs photoshoot at the beach, absorbing the beautiful sunset, we rode back to our hostel to freshen up, change our clothes, and makes plans for the night. After changing into comfortable beach shirts and shorts, we decided to go for a long ride to enjoy the pondi skies a bit more, rather than going to a pub. We finally came back to our hostel at 2000 hrs, dropped our scooties, and strolled around MG Road, finding something to eat. We picked up some good food, some light beers, and went to Rock Beach, to have a economic-beachside snacks.
After having snacks and getting a good buzz, we cleaned up our stuff, and went back to Hostel at around 2200 hrs. We still had to have dinner, so we went to the terrace of the Hostel, put on some songs, and had a proper "college-student" dinner, had a few drinks, danced a lil bit, and finally went to our room at 2300 hrs. We played some cards, then retired to gain some energy for the next day.
The next day, 6th of March, we left early at 0700 hrs in our beach clothes to go to Paradise Beach, which is some 8km from our hostel. We had a light breakfast en-route and reached the beach at 0800 hrs. We went dipping into the water, clicked some 1000 photos, played for some 3 hrs, enacted some of the famous Movie scenes.
We left around 1100 hrs, as we had to check out of our rooms, and also had to carry our day forward, even when we didn't wanna leave :)
We checked-out, took a bath, left our luggage at the hostel, and took our scooties to this North Indian Restaurant, Villa Shanti, for a proper meal, before we continued the rest of our day.
We started our ride to Auroville, which is a town located 15 km from Pondicherry, at around 1500 hrs. The road to Auroville is full of trees with massive canopies, the most attractive cafes, making it a picturesque ride from Pondicherry to Auroville. We went to the Auroville Visitors' Center and the Matri Mandir, had some snacks and cookies in the cafes inside the Visitors' center.
We decided to end our trip by watching the sunset at Serenity Beach, which has dedicated sunset watching points, and is situated just next to Auroville Beach.
We rode our scooties back to Pondicherry, and reached our hostel by 1900 hrs, dropped off our scooties, got freshened up, and went to get some roadside food from MG Road. We had a few snacks, and went back to our hostels for the last minute packing.
Our bus back to Bangalore was at 2300 hrs, from the front gate of Jipmer Hospital.
We bid our goodbyes to the gem of a place that Pondicherry is, made a promise to come back and stay for just a lil bit longer, to savour this place a bit more.
And with smiles on our face, a beautiful tan, and a bucket-load of memories, we boarded our bus.
~Tathastu~
