There are a few places on earth which are not so glamorous and touristy. But, by chance, if you fall in love with these places right in the first place, you end up going there again and again and yet, you do not regret spending time and money on the same place. For us, Pondicherry has been one such destination which keeps us calling again and again.
We’ve been there four times in different seasons and we had different experiences (of course, mostly good ones) in all four. A short vacation in Pondicherry in the summers does not seem to be a wise decision at all. But as we already said, when it’s Pondicherry, we are always biased towards it, no matter what. All you need is some customization in the way you travel around this small French town in India.
Our first ever visit to Pondicherry was during the winter season though (December, 2016). The experience was so amazing that it literally made us miss the place for at least half a week after we came back. The White Town, the airy promenade, the colorful French quarters, the cute narrow lanes, the exotic fragrance from the lanes adjacent to the ashram, everything seemed picture-perfect.
The whole town became ours from the moment we took a rented scooter from the Chetty Street. We ran from one lane of the White Town to another taking random turns on every crossing until we got familiarized with the entire maze of crisscross lanes which eventually lead to the Rock Beach along the seafront. What a lovely promenade it was! The wintry breeze coupled with the warm soothing afternoon sun-rays made it a memorable love-at-first-sight with the Pondicherry sea.
We also visited the famous universal town of Auroville nearly 15 km north of Pondicherry. We collected free passes for the Matri Mandir viewing point from the main Visitors’ Centre. We didn’t have any plan to go inside the main temple as it required good amount of time on hands and you’d need to book well in advance if you want some meditation sessions inside. The Matri Mandir is a massive spherical temple made of golden discs and it looks stunning when the sun-rays fall on it.
We went to the Auro beach which was kind of okay, not that great. We also went to the Serenity beach which was much cleaner. We spent a couple of hours there sitting at the end point of the long boulder bridge enjoying the evening sea. Also, enjoyed watching the professional surfers riding the waves. These surfers also provide surfing lessons to learners.
To get ourselves soaked with the salty sea-water, we decided to go to Paradise beach one morning, which was some 8 km from Pondicherry. We actually didn’t go to the Paradise beach island where swimming is a bit risky. So we went to the adjacent beach on the other side of the backwater. The beach was pretty clean and swimming was fun. Spent some really good time in the water. It felt so relaxing!
(We did go to the actual Paradise beach island on our third visit to Pondicherry. Will tell you more on that on another blog.)
We also made a short visit to the Aurobindo Ashram one evening. In spite of many people visiting the ashram, the place is amazingly calm and peaceful. The samadhis of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were beautifully decorated with flowers. It’s a place ideal for deep meditation amidst some amazing scent of burning incense. There’s also a library where non-fiction and spiritual books would be available. Overall, it was a very nice and pleasing experience there.
During the trip, we spent a lot of time on the streets of White Town. The French-era villas painted in bright colors on either side of the streets can be the perfect backdrop for photography. The exotic restaurants and the quirky cafes offer a lot of French and Indo-French options for the foodies. (We will write a separate blog on the best restaurants and cafes in town).
As Christmas was about a week to go, the streets and the Rock beach promenade were beautifully decorated with bright lights and colors. Every evening we would go to the Rock beach and sit on the rocks for hours watching the waves of different sizes and intensities hitting the rocks. It felt really wonderful to see people, both tourists and locals, coming together in the evening turning the promenade into a real feel-good movie!
We spent three days in our first trip to Pondicherry. We felt really bad while coming back. But we made a promise we would come back here again. We kept our promise. We came back and we came back three more times. And you bet it’s never going to stop!
