Little background here .. As some of you might know and for others this trip started from Mahabalipuram as mentioned in my last post and now here I am on highway 49 driving towards Puducherry, its a two way well maintained lane running along the east coast of bay of bengal and thought to be one of the most cherished road trips in India. It hardly took us 1.5 hr to reach Pondi from Mahabalipuram, too hungry dumped our luggage and head to Shenbaga hotel for an early lunch as it near from our stay, but outreaching our expectation the food was just too finger licking good their menu has a vast list of dishes my recommendation is to try their grilled fish and mutton curry :) Now after lunch it was time to explore the city and have a look at the colonial style leaving that this place offers, the best way to travel across and within the city is on a two wheeler, the thing I want to recommend here is if you guys are going on a weekend or an extended holiday please try and book your scooty in advance you can ask your hotel to pre book something as on these times the demand is too much and the prices rise and the high changes is that you might not get one, this happened to me so on the first day I travelled in the city via autos and mostly on foot and could get a scooty for next two days by paying 500 per day instead of a regular price of 350.
The best way to explore Pondi in and all is to cover the city on the first day with war memorials/ french colony/ city markets/aurobindo ashram/ auroville/ city churches at day time and by evening sit on the amazing black rock beach Promenade & Karaikal and spent your windy evenings there with some food stalls around. And the nights of Pondi will be well spent by having your dinner on some of the well shaped cafes and makes your food cravings and your stay authentic. One of the must try place is Baker Street on MG Road try and have your stay at MG Road if you wanna reach every place fast within the city, dont choose your stay too far of the main city as the beauty of Pondi lies in its city, the more you drive through its roads at day and night time on your two wheeler the more you will fall for this place. Try Richy Rich too this place has the best ice creams ever. Pondi filled me all the emotions, its a place of all when I am searching for solace peace I went to Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville, when I lookind for some fun I explored the night life by driving through the roads heading to some cafes lined up in the french colony, when asking for some sand and sun so went to the city beaches, I had it all and after a tiry day I slept off just excited for the next day as I was going to Paradise Island the next day. The key to not stand in long queues for tickets and waiting for ferry on a weekend for Paradise Island is to go little early in the day, the later you reach more the crowd. So again after reaching late and waiting in queues we are finally on Paradise Island and it was worth the wait, it was beautiful on one end you can find steep areas where you can try and swim, on other you can find pretty flat water where you can just sit and explore the sea, I almost spent 4-5 hours in water and got tanned like never before, if you dont want to get tanned dont step into water but I guess beaches are not the places for that :)After having a good time there we head back toward our hotel to bath and change and apply some detan mask as the burns were bad :P and as it was our last day in Pondi we again took our scooties and explored the city more for some ausome food and meet some nice people. Last recommendation try Shenbaga's dinner buffet too, the food is again ausomeeee with some authentic dishes :)
So here we are next morning tanned tired and most importantly soo much in love with the ausomeness of this place we head back to Chennai for catching our flights. Pondi is just a small city that you can cover on a weekend for nearby people and people from north on an extended weekend, just come to relax and have a good time here.
