The French Dream called Pondicherry

The minute somebody utter the word Pondy (as its fondly called) memories of my first trip to Pondicherry get refreshed or rather from the days when I first thought of visiting Pondicherry. Its also the ending point of my planned bike ride from Rameshwaram on the east coast of India!

It was way back in 1995 (gosh its a good decade and a half back!!!) while doing my graduation that me and my friends planned to visit Pondy. Well studying in Madurai for us Pondy was Goa of South India! But then it was not until 1998 during my MBA days and as a part of a team representing my institute for a management meet did I finally land in Pondy. Before leaving I did manage to do some basic research of places to visit etc but given our schedule and the fact that we were going to spend most of our time at the Pondicherry University (http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/) which is slightly away from the centre of Pondy. We did spend a li'l while the next day visiting the Aurobindo Ashram (www.sriaurobindoashram.org/) at the Beach Road (http://wikitravel.org/en/Pondicherry). Left in the evening wondering when I'll be back next.

It was early 2000...I was working in Bangalore. Got an opportunity to meet up with my friends and travel to Pondicherry! This time I didn't miss the opportunity to see other important parts of the French colony, was absolutely amazed at the symmetry of the architecture, the overall layout, straight roads...

Over the last decade or so work took me from Bangalore to Mumbai and it was not until I moved to Chennai that Pondicherry came on my travel radar. Over the past year or so I have managed to travel 2-3 times. And every time I went I felt recharged. Especially the last time round I did get some time to travel to the market, Aurobindo Ashram and Beach Road where in I got to see the WW I Memorial, Gandhi Statue, sipped a coffee @ Le Cafe in the Goubert Avenue. Regretted that I didn't carry my camera along but did manage to capture some pictures with my Nokia E 75 (http://www.nokia.co.in/)...

With really affordable places to stay like Ginger (http://www.gingerhotels.com/), great cuisine to chose from and some amazing places to spend time in Pondicherry is a place to be. With my marriage anniversary round the corner am cajoling my wife to make a trip back to Pondicherry!!!