Chennai To Pondy - Things To Do In Chennai #3

Hi, Makkale,

This is an overdue travelogue that we wanted to share with you all as soon as we started this blog. However, I have been procrastinating this until now. We took a 2D/1N trip to Pondicherry/Puducherry, and here is what our experience was like.

Pondicherry!

Disclaimer: Pondicherry is a place that pretty much every Chennaite would have visited. This post is no itinerary or must-do kind of post for this city. This post is more like a travelogue of our personal experience.

It was my first time to Pondy. Yes, being a Chennaite and a traveler, I am kind of ashamed to say that I have never been to Pondicherry. We were a gang of 6 people who took our car and bike to Pondy for a road trip on a sunny Saturday morning. We started at around 6:30 AM from Thiruvanmiyur.

Mandatory Trip Starting Selfie

After driving for some 80 Kms, we stopped at a local tea shop to have some coffee and tea. I was pillion riding all through the road trip to Pondy from Chennai. It was an amazing experience to be on the bike in the morning when the sun was softly kissing my skin. What's more I had an amazing friend on the wheel, who was pro in riding bikes. Well, Nachos was driving the car. Needless to say, he is a pro too, and he was having a nice time with our other friends in the car.

Coffee Shop Clicks - We befriended that dog, btw!

As soon as we reached Pondy, we checked into Ginger Hotels, which we already booked via Make My Trip App. The MMT App had amazing discounts and cash backs on the hotel that we got 3 rooms, twin-sharing, at a price as less as 600 INR per night. At this cost, Ginger Hotel stay was quite a steal deal. You can check MMT App for more such deals that they have almost every day.

While the people on the car headed directly to hotel, me and my friend took our bike to one of the beaches and watched the waves for sometime. After we checked in to the hotel, we quickly refreshed and went to have breakfast by the beach in a restaurant, the name of which I don't even remember as it was pretty pathetic one. We were hungry, so we stormed in there. After a lousy breakfast, we were all set to visit the Sri Aurobindo Ashram - This was one of the places in my bucket list to visit. However, by the time we reached there it was closed for two hours. Yes, they close for around two hours in the afternoon. So, we went to a Botanical Garden nearby and whiled around sometime. After this, we had an amazing lunch at Cafe 'Xtasi, where we had wood burnt pizzas! Yum!

Yummiest and Largest Pizza that I ever had!

Oh, wait, did I say that we met this amazing lady in this picture, Tuva, over lunch? Well, my friend found her through couch surfing, and she wanted to join us in visiting the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

After a hearty lunch, we went to the Ashram finally, spent some time there. It is a very lovely place, just that it seems crowded :( Post that, we resumed clicking crazy photos and selfies for a while. Duh, when you see an amazing, picturesque background, you click photos. 

That's a very lovely picture of us!

The guy next to me is Nachos, for those of you who don't know him! Oh wait, some of you don't know me (Kulfi) too, right? Well, this is me!

Trust me, the thing I am sitting on is not an auto and the thing I am drinking is indeed unadulterated Tender Coconut.

Well, after some of this kind of pictures, we headed to our rooms to refresh again and go to the beach.

We are crazy like that!

While there are a plenty of beaches in Pondicherry, we went to Serenity Beach as it was near and not much crowded.

Well, that's my brother!

After playing in the beach, we went back to do what people do in Pondy. After a lovely night, we slept peacefully that we missed our plan to watch the sunrise by the Rock Beach :( something that I badly wanted to do. The Sunday morning was lazy day where we had breakfast in the hotel and just gossiped around in our rooms. By mid-morning, we checked-out and went to Sunday Market. It was a pretty normal thrift/flea market like the ones we have in Chennai. Post that, we headed to Chennai, and we had our lunch on the highway in some random vegetarian hotel, which by the way serves awesome Ghee Podi Dosa.

The overall cost per person for this trip was:

1. Overall Apprx Expenditure (Travel+Stay+Food+Booze) = 2600 INR

2. Expenditure without Booze = 1900 INR

3. Expenditure for Travel & Stay Only = 1000 INR

The costs are bound to vary based on number of people, change in price of fuel, hotel charges, food items, and booze.

If you are visiting Chennai or if you are in Chennai, this is one of the top few things to do - Go To Pondy! Share your Pondy experiences in the comments.

~With Lots Of Memories,
Kulfi

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