Pondicherry - Give Time a Break

On Kannada Rajoystava 2019, running to catch the train to Pondicherry. The train had almost left the station and  my friends pulled me in to the train. Having fun and sight seeing through the windows of trains which give immense pleasure as all we do at the window seat. Watching through the windows, we all fall asleep and wokeup in Pondicherry Railway Station.

When we came out of train, the city ambience was so good. Making our expectations high and we went in search of rental bike and room for stay. Lucky enough, we found a Rental Bike Dealer near the Railway stations within 1km, and took three bikes. In search of room, we found a room to stay at Anna Salai (Road).

Refreshing ourselves with hot water and we had breakfast served with served three types of chutney, making our taste buds ask for more. I was all packed with my Camera to take some beautiful shots around the city. We were all ready to get on the road with our bikes roaring.

We first set our plan to visit the Auroville, which is a universal town. Auroville has its origins in the French language, "Aurore" meaning dawn and "Ville" meaning city. Riding through the streets, we finally reached Auroville. The place  had people from different countries and i was stunned to see them all  at one place. We made our entry through the park of Auroville and it was so silent being a good place for source of positivity.

 Auroville

 

Matri Mandir

In the middle of the town is the Matrimandir, which was conceived by Alfassa as "a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's aspiration for perfection". Silence is maintained inside the Matrimandir to ensure the tranquility of the space and the entire area surrounding the Matrimandir is called the Peace area. Inside the Matrimandir, a spiraling ramp leads upwards to an air-conditioned chamber of polished white marble referred to as "a place to find one's consciousness". 

Around the Matrimadir, lies a green belt with herbal plants, a botanical garden and medicinal plants. So when you leave Matrimadir, your body is recharged full of positive thoughts. It is also a place for habitants.

After recharging ourselves with lot of positive thoughts in our minds, it was time to recharge ourselves with food for our body.

Later in the evening, we went to Paradise Beach, to enjoy in the waves of sea. Me and my friends diving in to the water and relaxing on the shores of the Paradise Beach. After playing in beach, we have mouths dipped with  the sea foods like Squid and Crab. The funny part was none of us knew how to have a crab, later the chef who cooked us came in rescue and gave a demo on how to eat it. The street food vendor was so social, that she fed our friend  and finally we made all plates empty with a nearly an hour of  competition of having crabs between us. Later the street food vendor told us on our next visit, she will make crab rasam for us which is good for health. It was all for the day and went to rooms to take some rest for tomorrow. 

Paradise Beach

The next day morning, on the verge to see sunrise in Promenade Beach, we all woke up early and took our bikes to the reach the destination. We almost waited for an hour to see the sunrise and we were unlucky to see the sunrise, as the clouds closed the sun with rains. Having a long walk across the beach and taking photos we move to French Colony. 

Promenade Beach

Roaming across the streets of French Colony, felt we are in France for a moment. All the streets and houses were built in ancient french style and it was location for many movies. Taking some photos and  enjoying across the streets with some good italian delicacies. Later, one of our friend was caught by Traffic Police for signal jump, as he missed to watch the signal. The Police Officer was so cool and he asked to pay us a penalty of  Rs.200. After sometime, we went to the oldest temple in Pondicherry called as Arulmigu Manakula Vinayagar Temple. Purchasing some gifts on outside of temple shops. Later,  we went to Pondicherry Museum to get a glimpse of the items used by the Britishers and foreign people. Walking through the cultures of Britishers and Indian People fight against the independence, the museum made us take a time travel to the olden days. With lot of energy left, we had planned to visit Arikamedu an archaeological site in Pondicherry.

 Entrance at Arikamedu

Finding Arikamedu, the google maps led us to some different location and we found the correct place through local people over there. Arikamedu was a kind of excavated building, it was surrounded with full of trees and other side had the river bank, where the Britishers used to dock their vessels.  Taking lot of photos with different poses, this place had no people surrounded. After a good photoshoot, we left for lunch to the nearby Hotel to have Biriyani. 

With all our stoamch filled with Biriyani and the hot sun, we wanted to explore a few more places. We  rode towards Fort St David, now in ruins, was a British fort near the town of Cuddalore, a hundred miles south of Chennai on the Coromandel Coast of India. It is located near silver beach without any maintenance. The building was so strange, few of people who entered before us, was so afraid to go inside. It was almost like a devil in real. One of our friend, stayed with bike and refused to enter as he felt, he might end up catching the evil spirits. 

Fort St David

I was excited and adventurous, went inside the building and foud a strange person I was in shock for a moment, until the person said Hi, to me. Being haunted, i asked my friends to come inside and after a few minutes, i came back to life. Still a friend, who stayed with the bike had no ideas of entering the haunted place. Later, we called him to see why this place is so much haunted. It was thrilling and adventurous with this place. Later we went to Silver Beach after taking photos like Devils in the fort.

Silver Beach, was a nice place to get some cool waves on our faces after the sun burn. Capturing slow-mo videos and cinematic footages of the beautiful sea. We had all drained out of energy. We just sat for few hours watching the boating, people playing across the beach. Later in the evening, we reached Pondicherry to visit a church near to the railway station. 

Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the church is an oriental specimen of Gothic architecture. It contains rare stained glass panels depicting events from the life of Christ and saints of the Catholic Church. We didn't enter the church as it was crowded and some prayer was going on the eve of Sunday. 

Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Ending our trip at the church, we returned our bike to the Rental Bike Dealer and had spent time roaming across the city. Since we had our train at 8pm, we went to the French colony streets and beach to see the night view. It was full of people having parties and enjoying the street food. We also completed our dinner with the famous Fried Rice and sea foods. Opposite to the Railways station, a vendor sells Paya soup, the best one i have tasted so far. We headed to the Railway station to catch our train to return to Bangalore. 

"Thank you for Reading and give time a break to visit Pondicherry"