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Christmas Weekend Trip to Pondicherry and It's awesome !

Last year we went to pondicherry for a weekend trip, just after Christmas (26th -28th of December 2014).

It all started with "Yaar ! Is weekend toh kahin ghumne jaana hai ? Kuch plan kar bhai !".(Yaar ! Let's plan for a weekend trip.) We were planning for a trip on 25th December for the coming weekend. Friends put forward few suggestions and ultimately we decided to go to pondicherry and the main reason for this decision was the availability of tatkal tickets in the only train from Bangalore to Pondicherry (16573/Yesvantpur-Puducherry Weekly Express). Thanks to IRCTC and everyone else who didn't book a ticket in this train otherwise tatkal tickets vanish in few seconds.


After we zeroed-in on a destination, we started asking friends and colleagues to join for the trip and finally 4 of us were in for the trip and sadly, the numbers were the same as it was at start.

It was peak season for tourists in Pondicherry and It was very difficult to get a hotel room booking done a day before your trip, after calling so many hotels and guest houses, we were able to get a place for our stay in Pondicherry.

Our train was from Yesvantpur, but instead of going there, we boarded a bus from Silk Board Junction to Hosur and then boarded the train from Hosur Railway Station and I guess it was the same time when Super Star Rajini's movie Lingaa was released and we saw a big multi storey size poster of the Super Star:


Super Star Rajini Poster in Hosur
Super Star Rajini in a Multi-Storey size poster
We boarded the train from Hosur on 26th December at around 10 PM, played cards for 1-2 hours and then slept. We reached Pondicherry next morning at 9 AM, as usual train was a bit late. (Thank god we reached !)

We had our breakfast at Adyar Ananda Bhavana, had good and tasty South Indian cuisines.

Then, we headed to our hotel and it was Golden Sun Inn. It's a nice hotel conveniently located in the city not very far from the popular tourist spots.

Next two days we were going to roam in and around pondicherry and so, we rented out two bikes. It's easily available in normal season, but Pondicherry was buzzed with tourists, all the two wheelers were booked and it took us half an hour to get the bikes. There are so many shops renting out bikes in Mission Street. Two documents are required to rent out a bike - one, ID proof and other, Driving License.

Weather was awesome and so, our trip was. We visited almost all the popular locations - Gandhi beach, Auroville beach, Auroville, Matrimandir, Aurobindo Ashram and Paradise beach.

Matri Mandir, Auroville, Pondicherry
It was good to see the churches and shops decorated and lighted so well in Evening as if they were all set to welcome the new year. While walking in the streets of Pondicherry we saw a group of local artists performing on folk songs from Ramayana.

Food was good as well in Pondicherry. We had pizza at Cafe Xtasi and pizza was good. The big oven where they baked the Pizza was in front of the restaurant. We had dinner at one restaurant at Bussy Street (don't remember the name as I am writing this post after around two months). Streets of Pondicherry have many options, go and try out the food at any restaurant. We had a glass of masala milk and ice-creams at one of shops near Gandhi Statue.

Paradise beach was main attraction for our trip and it much more beautiful than we expected. Tourism Department of Pondicherry run motor boats in the backwaters to ferry the tourists to and fro the Paradise Beach. To and fro charges were Rs. 150 per person.

Chunnambar backwaters Paradise Beach Pondicherry
Chunnambar Backwaters, Paradise Beach, Pondicherry
They offer other water sports activities like kayaking, water sailing, camping at beach side and etc. , but due to the heavy rush all these were not running. On that day they were just ferrying the tourists to and fro from the beach.

We thought of getting tatkal tickets for our return journey, But, we were not able to succeed in that and then we booked tickets in KSRTC. Finally the two day trip was over and we returned the bikes, checked out from hotel and boarded a KSRTC bus from Pondicherry to Bangalore.

P.S. Pondicherry had been renamed to Puducherry 20th September 2006.
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Comments

  1. RailRecipeDecember 22, 2020 at 6:07 PM

    Each year we plan and do Christmas celebration. Thanks for sharing the best destination to celebrate Christmas. All the destination list which you have shared is awesome.

    ReplyDelete

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