Time for a road trip! Pondicherry is a little French town 4 hours south of Chennai, famous for both its “French”-ness and for being located in its own little district of India (i.e. not in the state of Tamil Nadu) and therefore having cheap alcohol. What better destination to head for a weekend getaway?
Our intrepid crew of adventurers set out straight after work on Friday night with the goal of reaching Pondi in time to catch a quick drink in town and then watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics from our hotel room. We picked up our rental car outside of the office (the guy made Mandi give him her actual driving license as collateral – apparently it’s okay to drive with just a photocopy?!) and headed off… only to get stuck immediately in crappy Chennai rush hour traffic. Oh well, a quick stop at a little electronics store on the side of the road and we at least had a cable so that we could plug our phones into the stereo system of the car for some music!
Once we got out of the city it was smooth sailing on the highway. Cranking the music and singing along (if there’s anything I’ve discovered about India, it’s that no one shies away from singing and dancing, no matter how bad they are at it!), sticking our heads out the window (illegal in India, who knew?) to catch the warm breeze, taking silly photos of passing vehicles, talking about life and love, laughing at each other’s music libraries, and doing every other cliché road trip time-filler, I felt like I was part of a happy movie.
A minor detour into Mahabalipuram by mistake almost meant the end of a cow’s life (oh Mandi!), but otherwise we arrived in Pondi safe and sound. The mediocre dosas that we had en route at a dirty roadside restaurant weren’t very filling and we were hungry when we arrived. After checking into the hotel, we headed into town to catch some food and a bit of the night life, despite the hotel owner’s opinion that everything would soon be closing up.
The French-ness of the town itself was admittedly a bit disappointing – aside from establishment names like “Le Cafe”, “Le Club” or “Le Boulevard”, the architecture nor the general ambience of the town wasn’t particularly French. However, it wasn’t exactly Indian either so you can see their point in calling it a French town.
Le Cafe.
Beach road!
Sadly, the owner was right and all of the dinner places were closing as we arrived. We asked at three different places if they would at least sell us some bottles of beer or wine before they closed up for the night but I guess the liquor licensing is quite strict about timings and they all refused. However, two of the waiters informed us that we could ask one of the auto drivers outside to take us somewhere to buy some beer illegally.
Not feeling thrilled about a sober version of the Opening Ceremony (recall the medal, mascots, logo and torch designs so far), the boys went off with one of the auto drivers on a beer mission. They were driven to a little roadside stall where the auto stopped for as little time as necessary while the boys dashed in to grab a bag of beer. Apparently, if the auto drivers get caught by the police with their vehicles waiting outside the stand, they’re the ones who get the rap for the illegal sale of alcohol. The boys joined us back at the waterfront and we stopped into Le Cafe for a brownie with ice cream before heading back to the hotel. Yum.
Mandi and I hanging out at the waterfront.
We managed to stay awake all the way until the end of the Opening Ceremonies (5:00AM IST!), which included a heated debate about whether or not that was the real Queen in the palace (John, you may be British but I know that lovely lady when I see her!), lots of laughs for Rowan Atkinson, confusion at the chaotic pop-music scene that made zero sense, lots of guess-the-next-country, and huge cheers for Team Canada (despite the fact that they cut to a commercial RIGHT as our athletes were walking on, and we had to frantically flip to another channel) Team India and Team GB (and Jacob, I promise I did cheer for Team USA too but I think I may have been the only one in the room who did…).
The next morning while the boys were still asleep, Mandi and I headed down the road to Auroville (“Auroville is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.”) to try to get tickets to go inside the Matrimandir for a 15-minute meditation session the next day. Sadly, we arrived just in time to see the last two tickets being given away right under our noses to the couple in front of us – ARGH! Ah well. Instead we walked the ~1km to the Matrimandir viewing point (photos below), ate the delicious town-grown food at its cafe, and browsed its famous store of handicrafts (handmade paper, necklaces, carvings, incense sticks, etc) which are all produced in the town itself.
The Matrimandir. (aka gigantic golden golfball)
HUGE tree en route to the Matrimandir.
Afterwards, we collected the boys from the hotel and headed to Pichavaram, a town roughly one more hour South from Pondicherry with a huge protected mangrove forest. Stopping along the way for fresh coconut water from a man on the roadside who just lopped the top off a coconut and stuck a straw in it for us (man I love Asia!), we reached Pichavaram with not quite enough time to fit in the 4-hour beach-and-forest boat tour (despite Mandi’s epic pleading with the booking agent). We instead chose the 2-hour 2km forest-only tour and hopped in a tiny little wooden row boat with our rower. We tried to get him to take us to the beach anyway but he explained that because of the tides and the time of day, he wouldn’t be able to bring the boat close enough to the beach and we would have to walk >1km in knee-deep water just to get to the sand. This sounded like a bad idea given our time constraints so we instead offered him an extra Rs.200/- to just take us on a more exciting tour of the forest. He accepted and suggested a 6km route instead of the original 2km.
It was a lovely tour! Lots of little crabs scurrying around the base of the mangroves, overhanging arched branches above us at certain points while the boat weaved its way down tiny canals in the forest, and a cool breeze (and even a bit of rain) to keep us from overheating in the hot humid weather.
Odd door to find at the dock where we waited for our rowboat…
Setting off!
The government-owned rowboat.
Our rower let us each give rowing a shot. Reeth getting some tips!
John(ji) getting a hang of the rowing.
It’s genuinely harder than it looks.
Trying to touch crabs! Reeth, the zoology student, was the most afraid of all of us, haha.
We kept asking our rower if there were any dangerous animals in the water to worry about but with the language barrier it was a bit difficult to make ourselves understood (Reeth and Mandi are from the North so don’t speak any Tamil either). We threw out an array of suggestions for various dangerous creatures that could be lurking below us (crocodiles? eels? stingrays? lionfish?), but he adamantly denied the presence of anything dangerous – he said only water rats(?) lived there. He also mentioned that the water was only 3-4 feet deep throughout the whole forest so we doubted the presence of crocodiles.
We let the topic drop and then almost killed ourselves laughing when a few minutes later, as Mandi starting swinging her legs over the side of the boat to dip her feet into the water, our rower started shouting at her to stop and, pointing down at the water, announced that it was full of stinging jellyfish! Granted, they were apparently not fatal man-of-war jellyfish but anything that stings should surely be classified as dangerous!
Mangroves!
Baby mangrove starting to grow! So cute.
Mangroves up close.
Beautiful canal ahead!
Lovely overhead canopy.
Another interesting fact he told us about mangrove forests is that they are believed to be a huge factor in protecting coastal villages from tsunamis. Apparently the roots can grow up to 25 feet deep in the water and therefore help to brace against the surging wave, and so researchers are actually looking into growing fake mangrove forests for protection. I don’t know if he meant that the mangrove trees themselves will be fake, or if the forests will just be planted manually, but in either case, it seems like a neat idea.
After the tour, we headed back to Pondicherry hoping to catch some of the nightlife for real this time. Keeping in mind that all clubs and bars close at 11:30PM, we were surprised to find that even at 9:30PM everything seemed dead. Oh well. We asked around and chose the most happening club (Asian House) for an hour or so of dancing. The cover charge was what initially appeared to be a ridiculous amount of Rs.500/-, but turned out to include a free buffet dinner and a free drink so it was reasonable in the end.
In the midst of our dancing, the only other caucasian person in the club (aside from John) asked me where I was from – when I said Canada, he looked shocked and said that I looked very European. I wasn’t really sure what he meant (do Europeans really look that different from Canadians?) but it became obvious later on in the conversation. When he mentioned that my English was really good, I looked at him bewildered and explained to him that most people speak English in Canada – but then it dawned on me – he had misheard Canada as Kerala as per usual. Hence why he was so surprised at how non-Indian looked – classic!
Sunday was BEACH DAY! We beach-hopped to three different beaches, including the lovely Paradise Beach which was ~10km away.
Getting lost on the way to Paradise Beach – even the GPS had no idea where we were at this point. The road on the map just ended!
On the short walk to Paradise Beach. Eeeeee!
Paradise Beach! Wonderful golden sand.
I love coconut trees!
Lunch was a delicious “French” meal at Satsanga in Pondicherry itself and dinner was Tibetan veg momos near our hotel (which were about a million times better than the last momos I had which were the god-awful ones at the last teahouse before the Thorung La pass in Nepal and tasted as if they had been soaked in kerosene).
The long drive back to Chennai was filled with more good music but also a sense of urgency as any time spent past 6:30PM with the rental car would be charged at a rate of Rs.100/- per hour. We ended up taking an extra 3 hours (and then sat around the petrol station for an hour waiting for the guy to show up to pick up the car) but it was all worth it for such a great weekend!
An Indian Adventure 