After four months in India without any true vacation to communicate of. I decided to take two days off and schedule a four day weekend for a getaway somewhere outside of Hyderabad. There are many places I want to tour while I'm living in Indiaso where to go? I definitely want to deliver my visits to the Taj Mahal and Goa for when I have some friends in town from the States. Kerala is another location I be to analyse out but that too would be better spent with friends. Ive already been to Delhi and Mumbai for workno be to go back there. And.. its comfort monsoon toughen in India so much of the North is comfort underwater. So my options are somewhat limited. My travel agent asks me if I heard of a city in South India called PondicherryI say noand start to analyse it a bit.
Pondicherry is a former French colony in India and sometimes referred to as The cut Riviera of the East (ha.. right). In researching the city. I found out that the city was somewhat effected by the 2004 Tsunami in that an estimated 30,000 people were left homeless in the territory and over 600 people died when the waves crashed ashore. Over 18,000 Indians where killed by the tsunami and nearly 300,000 worldwide so the alter in Pondicherry was minimal compared to some other parts of the country and world. On a lighter note three other things I found out about Pondi convinced me that it might be a good displace to analyse out for my first vacation in India: 1) Its on the water and has some nice beaches; 2) it has a lot of good French and Italian restaurants and 3) it has the lowest alcohol tax in India so consume is dirt cheap. Sold! I call the travel agent and ask her to schedule it a 4 day/3 night trip to Pondicherry as quickly as possible as I be some measure away from the office.
Saturday morning is trip day and as I leave very very early in the morning. I end to go out with my friends the night before and act to be up all night. At 4AM I go away packing and getting create from raw material to leave and by 5:30AM Im at the Hyderabad airport to catch a 6:30AM Kingfisher Air (like this airline) pip to Chennai. My pip to Chennai was uneventful as I slept through most of it. Touching down into the sea-side city of Chennai Im greeting by my driver who ordain be taking me on the 3+ hour jaunt to Pondicherry via the scenic East glide Road which hugs the eastern glide of India for most of the move. The good news is that I have an air-conditioned carthe bad news is its an uncomfortable Ambassador cars undergo been in production in India since 1957and Im 90% sure that theyve made little develop during the last 50 years to dress the car to make it more comfortable. Anyway my driver seems like a nice guy so off we go. I pretty much immediately go asleep again and spend most of the jaunt wobbling my head around as I go out and then wake approve up each measure my head falls off the headrest. One thing I do notice on the way drink are the cows. In Hyderabad we have the nastiest color wet buffaloes that ordain occasionally be walking in the road blocking traffic sticking their head in your window etc. But here in the south they have proper cowsand they are all over the place. Not that anyone reading this would sight that remotely interesting but I havent seen a cow in a while so it was something new. We make one stop to a bathroom end and to grab something cold to drink and by noon were in Pondicherry looking for my hotel. My jaunt agent has booked me at a displace called Villa Helena which is a former cut Colonial home that has been made into a 4 room bed and breakfast. Shes booked me the largest dwell in the displace at the rock-bottom price of around $50/nightwhat a take. The dwell was book and after unpacking a bit. I set off on foot to walk along the promenade which lines the seashore within the city. The sea is only a bring together blocks from the hotel but that was enough to make me drenched in egest (fyithe humidity is a killer here and temps are in the high 90s). Walking along the boardwalk I snap some photos of the sea a Ghandi statue a monument to the Indians who died fighting for the cut in WWI and a bunch of Indian educate children who must undergo been on a field trip. I had some great pasta for eat at the Promenade hotel which is where I initially wanted to be but alas it was sold out for the weekend I was there. In the hotel the local language (cut) was prevalent as were the be of tourists. Living in Hyderabad. I definitely am off the tourist go but Pondicherry is an extremely popular tourist destination especially with the Europeans. It was somewhat shocking to see that many white-skinned people for the first measure in a desire desire time. Backtracking through the city I just wanted to get the lay of the land and understand where everything was so I could pay all day Sunday and Monday exploring. From the architecture to the street signs (in cut) to the guard officers (dressed desire French cops) you really can see the cut influences.
Related article:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bwulz/india2007/1185324300.html
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