Pondicherry And Auroville Trip

Pondicherry and Auroville - A place that leaves indelible impression 

We drove to Pondicherry from Chennai taking metro from airport to CMBT station and thereafter a local bus which took around 2hrs to Pondicherry.  Whats your best thing while travelling by bus? To me is placing head by window side and that very moment though connecting to the outer fast-paced real world, you feel the time has stopped and is all yours with the cold gust of wind blowing you through  umpteen amount of imaginations or memories and landing to a place of magnified emotions. Flowing in old and building new memories i reached Pondicherry. We rented a bike from the place nearby, the owner of which was surely a proud lover of Pondicherry and hearing about the place all through the amazing description from him already made us fall in love with the place and a good start for sure. He also provided us with the itinerary map putting numbers all over in a line to visit the places which also included the places to eat, stay, shopping etc...

Bakers Street

The first thing hit my head entering the land of french colony was the french breakfast and we landed at the right place Bakers street. We had croissants, sandwiches and Cappuccino. The expression in my eyes then was exactly the way the poster over the wall did. It was drooling - don't forget to add this to your list when in pondi. We headed to our stay - the best first experience of staying in shack.

White Town 

You need to drop the map here and get yourselves into the streets of white town indulged in the marveling colorful architecture. You will enjoy falling in the bylanes of white town with trees forming roof at top of old french buildings mostly in pale yellow.

White town in Pondicherry

These lanes will take you seaside where yes you can find all of these - Promenade beach, Rock beach, Gandhi statue, french war memorial, old light house, french world war 1 memorial and Pondicherry beach.

A walk on this street, you shouldn't miss trying ice-cream from GMT(Gelateria Montecatini Terme) right there available at the corner of the street. They have unique flavors added to their bucket which once had, i am sure would make you crave for more and more. I tried tiramisu cup, Irish coffee, hazelnut ice-creams.  Having this in the midst of the street with harmony of beach, wind passing by your face, beautiful architecture at one corner, lights all around with trees is all that will gladden your heart. We have been then to Aurobindo ashram where you aren't allowed to talk nor do the cameras, pin drop silence and people in mediation.

GMT Icecream with unique flavors near Rock beach in Pondicherry

Le Dupleix

Time for the dinner and we have been to Le Dupleix, a place with mixture of perfect ambience, hospitality and musicians playing live. Prices were bit expensive and coming to food, it didn't stand up to the expectations. We ordered Pasta arrabiata and Confit de poulet. Pasta was good but confit de poule didn't go well with us.

After the dinner, have been back to the beach, beaches at night holds a dreamy life to seek in solace and peace from. The times when you like both silence of night and sound of waves crash, moment which adds indelible foot prints to your memories.

Rock Beach in Pondicherry

Basilica of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church

A new day at the sand with sunrise at the beach yet another ray of inspiration in umpteen ways. Starting another day with the sunrise at the beach and then heading to a local tiffin center to have coffee, dosa and wada was the best start for the day. Specially the coffee here is must-try. We have been to Basilica of Sacred Heart of Jesus, South Boulevard church known as Sacred Heart Church Pondicherry. Here you see the pictures itself describes the beauty it holds.

Paradise Beach

After church we moved to paradise beach which perfectly goes with the name. People out there were reaching the beach by boat to stay for a time and back to the another parked location. We on the other side meant to land in tragedies been directly to the beach following the map and in order to reach the boat or to find a shade we had to walk a while. The sand was smoother but then the sunny day made it difficult for us to walk either with or without shoes. What option were we left then? paced up the speed ran on fire and reached a place with few shacks to sit and rest our feet, post to which we grabbed some fish fries out there. We had to take the tickets the other way round to what other people did. We went to the parked location and came back to the beach. Boating to and fro  surrounded in the lush green is were we were flowing in paradise.

Auroville - Matree Mandir

Next after the paradise beach we started to Auroville a spiritual community derived from Sri Aurobindo. The place where no religion or caste is practiced,  people from different countries reside here. Wow doesn't this sound amazing, people from different countries with different languages bringing in variety of cultural,social,personal views and understanding living together. Well this is something that held me spellbound and pulled me to go around this place. We initially went to the information center where there were images/videos and also people who could help you in understanding the complete thing about the place. We could see people carrying the thought of residing there learning about the place from concerned people. Right there were tickets available to Matree Mandir a walk into the forest of 1 km to reach there, we had some time here and walked back to pick bike and look around the place.

Aurovile Beach

Followed by matree mandir we have been to auroville beach, grabbed fish fries at the seaside and walked there to enjoy the sunset, there's something amazing of the sunsets at beaches isnt it? It gets along peace and heavenly feel. Walking with your love on the beach with hand in hand leaving behind footprints and adding memories, with the fleeting sunrise and growing love i could not be more thankful to life awarding me with this.

Preserving these memories we moved back to the stay picked luggage dropped bike and reached rock beach yet again but this time in auto to say lets meet again. Spent the last few hours talking to beach and then took a auto to the bus stand to reach the next destination yet another beautiful place Rameshwaram. The bus was late for 3 hrs and the bus counters shops closed, we kept waiting there in the dark noticing a stall beside who were at night preparing food for the auto drivers for free. Humanity does exist and every place has its own story which brings along its own beautiful way to reach us while travelling .This is what brings in me irresistible impulse to travel. To get along with my story of trip in Rameshwaram please do read my blog Trip to Rameshwaram


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