.......the beach view from Nalla beach resortHere we go to Pondicherry after a lot of confusion....
100 holiday destinations were on our mind.
Finally planned to leave at 1pm but as we had to catch up with the family, we could leave only at 3 in the afternoon on the 1st of May, 2009 (Friday).
Raveen drove very well I must say, as we reached Pondi (Pondicherry) in 5 hours. Our stay was booked at a place called 'Nalla eco breach resort'. Nalla is tamil means good. This is a new resort with still things coming up. The beach is just 100 Mt's away from the resort.
The trip went on very well as we relaxed and had a lot of fun. Saturday morning, we swam in the beach, jogged in the waters and had a little bit of sun bath. Visiting Arabindo Ashram was in out things to do list but we could not as it would open only at 2 in the afternoon and we were too tired because of the heat. It was 40 degree Centigrade! We did some shopping all morning. Pondi is famous for its terracotta stuff. After lunch we got back home and slept....which we are deprived of in a normal working week!
One funny thing happened here when we got back to the resort in the afternoon. By the dinning hall in the resort there are a lot of coconut trees and a huge lawn area. People generally park their cars there as it is good to drive through these coconut trees.
Raveen loves speaking in Tamil. He tries to converse in Tamil as much as possible with people. His favorite is Rajnikanth.
I have a habit of scolding people as 'waste fellow' when 'm angry. Raveen also got used to scolding people like that. It is not out of anger buy just like that.
Our favorite parking place in the resort was under the last coconut tree. We came back in the afternoon, we found a car parked blocking the way to go to these coconut trees. I found Raveen's immediate reaction very hilarious and could not stop laughing for some time. I laughed so much I slept immediately when we got back to the room. He tried to convert waste fellow to Tamil. So he called the car fellow a 'waste payya'. The way he said it with an accent was too funny. He explained later that payya means person in tamil.
Towards the evening we decided to explore pondi a little bit and so we just kept on driving where ever we wanted. We reached a shopping place which was at least 3 times bigger than our commercial street in Bangalore. Too good...
From the moment we came to pondi we were craving about eating at a place rendez-vous. We finally found time to go there for dinner. But, that place was closed for renovation and would be open from the next day, i.e 3rd may. Pondicherry being a French colony in the past, had a lot of French restaurants and a lot of French people. Actually the manager of 'nalla' was also French. he married a Pondi girl and settled there. We found this restaurants called 'Le space'. This place was on the terrace, evolved over time. The owner of this place is a artist...that's what he said. He put up some of his abstract people paintings...we didn't understand even a single one; but all the French people who came there admired them.
The next morning we decide to go for the Sunday bazaar which was very famous and have lunch at rendez-vous before we left for Bangalore. But because we had to meet some one at Thiruvannamalai (Thiruvannamalai is a religious place and a 2 hour drive from Pondi, on the way to Bangalore). Because of some reasons we could neither meet them nor could we do what we wanted.
We were on the way to Bangalore. Petrol in Tamil Nadu is cheaper compared to Karnaraka. While coming we filled gas in the car at Krishnagiri. We wanted to fill it before we let pondicherry But could not as we were in a hurry. This put us in danger. Half way we realized that we do not have enough fuel in the car!!!
No option other than to keep driving 'coz there we no gas stations any where in the vicinity. The fuel in the car was just enough to go 10 km. We asked a passer by about the gas station and he said there is one in around 10 km. That made us relax a little bit. But we do not have any idea about how accurate that information was! We kept driving.....4 km .... 3 km... 2 km... 1km... we don't see any gas station ahead...we were already planning what to do if the car stops.. then came 0 km.....I was waiting for the car to stop..but it didn't! We asked some one as they said its 2 km away. We finally reach the gas station. hamma...and another twist in the story. The waste payya doesn't accept credit cards. We just had 500/-. Filled gas for 400/-. We wanted to keep 100 as we wanted to eat 'munjalu'. That would be enough gas to reach Krishnagiri. And then in krishnagiri we filled the tank.
@$#%^$^%&^*(%^%&$%$&^*&^&^ good fun!
we reached home by 6:30 in the evening. Our return journey was around 5 hours.
It was a very good trip I must say. both of us have been very naughty through out the trip in doing different things which made it even more interesting. ;)
