A trip to Pondicherry

 When I thought of a quick get away from Chennai the only thing that popped into my head was Pondicherry. I wanted to give my kids a taste of road trip and also wanted to prepare them for a longer one. So Pondicherry easily fit into my plans. 

I booked my hotel one month ago through Agoda. I find Agoda easy way to book hotels but I am still not sure if I got the best deal around. I had booked Shenbaga Hotel from 22nd Apr to 24th Apr.

We started from Chennai around 10:00 AM. The check in time was 1400 Hrs and I didn't want to be too early. I estimated 3 to 3.5 hours including a stop over for lunch.

The traffic was relatively less and I could also see GST road has been broadened and the drive was pleasant. Made a quick halt for fuel and realized petrol was 111 Rs/litre. From then on it was a great drive and took left at Tindivanam for Pondicherry. It was my first time in this road. The road was great.

There are three tolls in this route which costs 60, 65 and 45.

Had lunch at KFC, Jipmer and then headed into Kamaraj Salai, Anna Salai and turned into MG road and reached the hotel. As usual Google Maps helped here.

My room was in 6th floor and view was great from there.

Since I had learnt Paradise Beach can get crowded during  weekend and closes by 1800 Hrs, we freshed up and immediately headed out to Paradise Beach. To avoid any traffic issue I decided to take Ola cab and the cost for 7 to 8 KM travel to Chunnambar Boat house was 400 Rs. There is an entry fee to get into the boat house and we had to purchase ticket for the boat ride to the beach inside the boat house. There are couple of shops inside the boat house.

It was a hot day and we took the boat to the beach. The beach was not that crowded. The sand is softer compared to other beaches. After playing in the waves we took return ride and reach the boat house by 1700. We walked few meters to take an auto back to the hotel. It costed 300 Rs. I regretted not taking my car.

We freshened up again at the room and went out looking for a restaurant and took all wrong routes and couldn't find one. Finally we had chat items in a near by shop. That completed day 1.

Day 2 I wanted to start early so I could take my kids for swimming in the hotels swimming pool. I wanted to avoid the crowd as it was weekend. Also breakfast at hotel can also get crowded. So we decided to have breakfast around 8 and then we headed to the swimming pool. The breakfast spread was good.

We had the swimming pool to ourselves and the kids enjoyed it. Then we headed to Botanical garden as per plan but this time I decided to use personal transport. Botanical garden is a great place to spend some time if you are there in Pondy. We noticed it was already 1200 and Aurobindo ashram closes by 12 and reopens at only 1400. So we headed to the Providence mall for lunch and shopping. We decided to skip aurobindo ashram and headed back to hotel. We refreshed and then took a stroll to rock beach. It is 1 KM from the hotel but then you have to again walk from one end of rock beach to the other. So altogether it was a long walk.

For dinner I was looking for a french restaurant and went to one and they told the waiting time was 40 mins. We roamed around and found a restaurant named Hope and we just went in. I found out it was a vegetarian restaurant. The food was extremely good though.

Then we walked back to the hotel through the white town. It wore a deserted look but never felt unsafe. I also found Manakula Vinayagar street on the way. Finally we reached the hotel. That was end of day 2.

Day 3, the day we should start back to Chennai. This day we first went for a swim and found it had more people than the previous day. I was already told that Sundays can get crowded. We finished breakfast. We wanted to do some last minute shopping so we decided it will be good to check out and head for shopping. 

Since Amit Shah a minister was travelling through the road where the hotel was, the traffic was stopped for few minutes. We checked out and headed towards the white town. We shopped around Manakula Vinayagar temple and then started towards Chennai around 1230.

With stops to buy nongu and for lunch we reached home around 1600.

Overall a memorable trip.