So here we are at Pondicherry, also known Puducherry. However the locals call it as Pondy. It is a Union Territory of India formed out of four enclaves of former French India and named after the largest, Pondicherry.The French acquired Puducherry in 1674 and held control, with occasional interruption from the British and Dutch, until 1954 (de jure in 1956), when it was incorporated into the Indian Union along with the rest of French India.On November 1, 1954 Pondicherry got its independence from French rule. There is a community of French people in Pondicherry and a number of French institutions such as a consulate, the French Institute, and L'Alliance Française.
Pondicherry is a popular tourist destination in South India. The city has many colonial buildings, churches, temples, and statues which, combined with the systematic town planning and planned French style avenues, still preserve much of the colonial ambiance.It is a city, an urban agglomeration and a municipality in Pondicherry district in the Indian union territory of Puducherry. Pondy is famous across the country for its education, and it has some of the best educational institutes and universities.
Around evening we reached at Pondy and after a little searching we found our hotel. It was on Nehru St.
This was the hotel, where we staying for the night. This was a b&b hotel (as on various internet sites), but sadly, there was no breakfast offered. However, they had free WiFi. This hotel is good, and they do have a restaurant of their own, which serves veg and non veg delicacies. The owner of the hotel is an Italian man, and the hotel has its own brewery.
The road in front of the hotel.
After checking in to the hotel, took some rest and got freshened up and went out to explore the place. Since it was long that I had my lunch, so i was feeling a bit hungry. So looked around, and sighted a Domino's just few blocks away, so took a walk till Domino's and ordered for a personal cheese burst pizza. Soon it was served and sooner the pizza was gulped down. As the hotel was in walking distance from the heritage part of the city, so thought of exploring the town on foot.
As it is a tourist place, and a large amount of foreign tourist do visit this place. One can hire bikes in Pondy, mostly Dio and Bullet 350 is what they offer. The Downtown area is very well maintained, and the locals are always looking for trapping. Yes, there are tourist traps, and one might even unknowingly fall into it.
Anyways, lets continue with the walk, and here is a view of the areas around the downtown area.
The areas around the hotel.
The main shopping street of Pondy is MG Road, where one can find almost all the brands.
Pondy is where the designer brand Hidesign started its business from,
and so here they have their largest outlet, and also very niche.
By now it was evening, and the heritage evening walk which I was taking made me explore few attractions of the town. Now this is not CCU, where you can find a pan wala, giving directions instead of Gmaps/GPS. So here my only way out was the GPS of my phone, and Gmaps at times do give wrong directions.The best part about these small towns are that, here you don't have to listen to the cacophony, which keep on annoying in big cities. "Ek alag si sukoon milti hai doston, jo likhke batayi nahi ja sakti", one needs to feel it. Moving ahead enjoying the walk, and embracing the silence and melancholy of the evening, I landed up in the French Quarters. And the first thing that caught my attention was a temple named Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple. Here's a pic of the temple, however clicking inside the temple is strictly prohibited.
The elephant seen in the pic is actually worshiped. It's name is Laxmi. The Temple was in existence before the French came. It has a golden spire and walls portraying forty different forms of Ganesha. The next was "Mahanavami" of Navratri festival. Was feeling a bit left out, as back home it means everyone is out on roads, to darshan various Durga pandals and idols. Honestly I was missing it. Though there is a sizable number of Bengali population in Pondy, but no one seemed to be celebrating their biggest festival.
Continuing with the walk, came on the french colony. Now something about the french colonies. All the quarters in the french colony are uniformly painted in grey and white shades. Also the streets out here are written as Rue (that's street in French). Since, it was well past 8pm, so the roads were deserted, rather the french colony looked like a sleepy town. Still did some photo-shoots, however, i was not satisfied, and also had to visit the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, which was closed by that time. Here are the evening trip pics.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram during night time. By the time I reached the spot it was closed. So decided to check it out the next morning.
After this, went back to the hotel, as for the onward journey to our next destination, we needed to book a car. As I had told you earlier, that there are tourist traps, in the city. So, first I approached the hotel staff, who did quote a price, but it seemed a little high for me, so went out and thought of trying. Now here comes the tourist trap. Most of the shops were closed by now, except this one, which was also planning to pull down it's shutter. Seeing a tourist, a tout from out of the blue came out to deal with. Here is how the convo took place. This guy was multi lingual though toota foota.
Tout: Yes sir...
Me: Hindi aata?
Tout: Haan aati (with lots of Tamil accent off-course)
Me: Mujhe gari chahiye, Madurai jayega, milegi?
The tout nodded in affirmation and took me to another shop, a bit far from that spot. This was the tourist trap, and yes I even got into it.
Me:Kahan le ja rahe ho?
Tout:Kahin nahin, yeh mera dukan hai!!
Me: (in mind) WTF!!!
He took me inside a shop, where there was another man. This guy pretended to be knowing only Tamil. So, whatever convos took place was between the owner and the tout in Tamil, and then the tout would translate it to me in Hindi. So here's what he had to say.
Tout: Gari milega, per km 20rs plus petrol plus toll plus return plus driver bata and one time meal.
Me: (in mind) Beta tu toh ban gaya c*****a! As I had already a quote from the hotel guy, which was 15rs per km plus toll plus return!
The tout was insisting in confirming then and there, with a token deposit. But I avoided him telling that I would be confirming the next morning. He told me to give my mobile number, name and hotel's name. I gave wrong mobile number and hotel's name. Ab naam se ghanta dhund payega!!
Went back to the hotel and told the hotel guy to confirm the car. Once done, we went for dinner at the attached restaurant. The food was good out there. While having dinner, whatsapp'd back home only to know
that cyclone Phailin has struck, and it was raining cats and dogs. So, night pandal hopping pe pani fir gaya!! Chatted on whatsapp for some more time, and then called it a night. As i was tired by the traveling and visiting various sites, I was dog tired, so quickly I went into deep slumber.
What happens next? To know about that, just have an eye on this blog for my next post. Till then keep reading!
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Banjara_the nomadic
