Pondicherry- from a Portugese colony to a french one !

In 2002 after completing my studies from MICA, I was placed with a Market Research firm in Chennai. To be frank I wasnt very excited at the prospect of staying in Chennai for two reasons-

1. Div was working in Bombay and I was hoping to be in the same city as him.
2. Chennai has the image of being the least exciting when compared with the other Indian metros.

Eitherways, it was a bad year for recruitments and I quietly took up the job and moved to Chennai/ Madras.
By luck (or plan ;), Div managed to have a lot of work related travel. And in most cases Chennai was part of the itinerary. On one such visit where he had a spare weekend, we decided to explore Pondicherry.

To be frank this wasnt the most exciting trip I have been on, simply because Div was so exhausted from all his work travel that he mostly rested/slept in the hotel room.

Again for those who dont know Pondicherry is a small Union Territory (directly goverened by the central goverment) in the South east of India. This was a French Colony for almost 300 years and was united with India as late as 1954.
We took a bus from Koyambedu bus-stand in Chennai and embarked on a 3-4 hour journey to Pondicherry. If I remember the bus ride was pretty uneventful & comfortable.

Once we reached Pondicherry, our first priority was to look for a decent hotel. We had a heard a lot about the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Guest houses, so we decided to check them out. But we were met at the reception by a Swami, who proceeded to tell us (a bit sternly) that the Ashram was meant actually for devotees and you need to follow rules like - no alcohol, no loud noise, no drugs & have to be back everyday before 10.30 pm. Rules on your vaccation !!! We decided we do not need that and headed for a regular hotel. Pondicherry being a popular tourist spot is full of hotels, so we succeded in finding somthing that fit our budget without much effort. Once settled, Div declared that he was very tired and he would like to sleep !!

Anyways, the next day we ventured out to explore the place.We started the day with breakfast at a highly recommended Le Cafe . Our friends had mentioned that it is a wonderful experience, if you get a table by the window then you have an uninterrupted view vast ocean ahead of you. But when we reached there and managed a corner table for ourselves, we were very disappointed as there was lot of construction going on and all we could see was wooden scaffoldings.
Then we strolled around the beaches - to my dismay most beaches that we saw where very rocky, infact there was no way of reaching the water. But I must admit it was beautiful. We spent most of the day looking around the town and were pretty impressed by the still heavy french feel of the place - in terms of its architecture, the street names. Infact, there is still a significant population who have french passports and speak fluent french!

We ended the day with a marvelous (and expensive) dinner at a wonderful roof-top restaurant called Rendevouz. The cuisine is french & Indian and they have an extensive menu of wines.

The next day we decided to check out Auroville- Sri Aurbindo Ashram, which is 10 km away from the main town. We rented a motorbike and drove to this place. Though the signs giving directions were not the most helpful, following foriegners definitely was. I have never understood why western travellers are so intrigued by the idea of these ashrams- be it Auroville in Pondicherry, Osho in Pune or any other. Somehow most ardent devotees you see here are travellers from the west.

Once we reached the Ashram we saw the beautiful Maitri temple.
The Ashram also had some beautiful gardens sorrounding it. The Ashram shop offerred the most exquisite array of paper products and some silver stuff too. After this we were supposed to go inside the ashram to see a slide show, but again Div's fatigue took over him and we decided to call it quits !

Our First Trip Together- Diu

This trip unfortunately originated out of a tragedy - the devastating Gujarat Earthquake in 2001.

We were in MICA then and on Jan 26th we were rudely awaken by the earthquake, which measure 7.9 on the richter scale. Thankfully there was no damage in the institute neither was anyone there harmed. So after quickly checking the well-being of our family members in other cities and letting them know that we are fine too, we were all ready to get back into our normal routines.

But wait we cannot do that as the infrastructure slowly collapsed - phone lines went down (so did the internet), none of our 'visiting' profs would visit anymore, getting in food to the campus was becoming a problem etc etc. And finally the institute was shut down for a week !!

Now, here we were with one week of windfall vaccations with nothing to do. That was when Div & I decided that we could go to Diu for a few days. One it is the closest destination and two since all sorts of communication channels are down there is no way our parents would know ;)

So thus started our first trip together. .. for those who dont know, Diu is a small island at the southernmost tip of Gujarat in West of India. It was another Portugese colony in India like Goa & Daman.

This was a long time ago, 6 years to be precise, so I dont remember a lot of details. But I remember getting onto a bus from Ahmedabad to Diu for a 10 hour journey and reaching Diu early morning. We walked around looking for a suitable and cheap place to stay but finally stayed at Hoka near Nagoa beach, the usual favourite with MICAns. Its a nice resort with no frills but provides you with clean rooms.

Now we did not own a camera then, so all pics here are from internet or friends.

Due to Diu's proximity to Gujarat most tourists here are weekend revellers from the Gujju-land. But the main reason for this place to be a favourite is that Gujarat is a dry state (selling alcohol is illegal) whereas Diu not only has lot of alcohol, it is very cheap too :) Thus most people here come to get drunk, so true to the tradition, we too started our day with some beer.

We then hired a two wheeler and ventured out exploring beaches. Since the weather was still slightly cold & the water chilly, there was no way of entering the waters. So we hopped from one beach to the other absorbing the sun, sand & sea. I dont remember the names of beaches but I remember going to NaGoa beach and to another rocky beach where we saw jelly fish. This is being my first 'proper' visit to a beach (if u exclude my trip to Marina beach with my parents when I was 10), I was stunned by the beauty of it.

Since venturing into waters was not much of an option, we turned our attention to the seafood & beer. And if I remember right we were not disappointed !

Like I said, we did not own a camera at that point in time and thus we have no pictures of this trip. But while we were strolling down one of the beaches, we were approached by a tourist photographer. He said he would click our picture & mail it to us for 20 Rs. Now neither of us believed him but we agreed to take the risk. And actually forgot about this as soon as we were back. But there it was in our mailbox a week later !!!

Anyways back to the trip, the second day we went to see the Diu fort. Now this is a magnifient monument - one it is so huge that it is a city in itself and is protected with steep cliffs on three sides. We spent around half a day exploring this fort and if you are a history buff like Div , then you should spend time here too. The fort has an amazing number of underground escape tunnels, cannons lining the walls and cannon balls lying around.

Then we headed back to Ahmedabad, with couple of bottles of alcohol stashed away in our bags for our friends back in the hostel. But on the way the bus was stopped for a surprise check by the police. Now we were sweating at the prospect of being caught and arrested!! Though we knew we could probably get away by bribing the policeman (and maybe giving him our bottles too) but we were scared - what if we had encountered the only honest policeman in the IPS !. But since I looked innocent enough the policemen decided to not check our bags and we survived it :))

why are we here?

You must be wondering what this is all about. Well....this story starts way back in 2000 when I joined MICA (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad). This is where I met Div, then my senior..now my husband. Wait ..dont go, this is not a love story. I mean it is a love story but I am not telling you the love part of it :)

I come from a semi-traditional south indian family who just does not believe in traveling as a means of entertainment or learning or self actualisation. As a consequence, even though I originally belong to Kerala, I had never seen the famous backwaters till i was 23 years old!!

On the other side, Div comes from a traditional gujju family which believes traveling is as essential to life as air, water, food etc. Infact his grandparents both well into thier 80's visited Kashmir a couple of years back inspite of the terrorism, the difficulties in travel, severe weather, health problems etc. Thus Div had pretty much seen most of India by the time we met.

So as you would have guessed, Div introduced me to the idea of travel for the sake of pleasure (not just work). And since then I am addicted to it.

So I decided to put together a blog for the following reasons:

1. If we really travel the way we plan to, we will need a document like this to remember where all we have been.

2. Its easier to share with people our adventures through a blog.

3. If you are planning to go to any of these places then you will benefit from this too.

So here we go....