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Three months, well by any standards that's a bit unfair on me to be tied down at home. I was itching for a drive. Growing up kids means you need to respect their schedules. Finally, I was granted a three day break in August by them. Three days was too short for me to drive too far. The search for a location ended up in our friendly neighborhood Pondy.

Pondicherry, the place we have visited innumerable times, but never saw her beauty. All trips ended up with visiting our contacts and saw what they wanted to show us about Pondy. I wanted a stealth drive, I wanted no one to know we will be there, I wanted to see her beauty, and three days I wanted just for ourselves.

From the moment we zeroed in on Pondy, I got the bookings done and the drive plan worked out. We wanted to see Pondy for her beauty, for her French culture, for her beaches and most important of all food, and some cool fun!

Weather forecast said it would be intermittently raining at Pondy, which meant cool breeze, and that greatly added to the charm of the drive.

And thus after three long months, after our Kumarakom drive in May, Civvy got to get out of Bangalore chaos, and oh boy! it was indeed a fun drive.

Civvy at Pondicherry

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The Plan

Day 01 : August 09, 2013 - Bangalore - Kanchipuram - Kalpakkam - Pondicherry (460KM)
Day 02 : August 10, 2013 - Pondicherry
Day 03 : August 11, 2013 - Pondicherry - Pichavaram - Chidambaram - Salem -Bangalore (490 KM)

We started from Bangalore by 02:00 hours on Day 01 and reached back home on Day 03 by 21:30 hours.

A total of 950KMs, three days and loads of fun!

We were booked at Big Beach Resort, near to Cuddalore and mighty impressed with the resort, especially the variety of food.


The GPS trail of the drive

KML
Pondicherry.kml

GPX
Pondicherry.gpx


The drive plan (We love to do loop drives)

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Civvy after a refreshing drive in the rains


Civvy at Kalpakkam Beach


Fisherman at the estuary near Kalpakkam beach




We visited Alamparai Fort


The back waters near Alamparai Fort




I always wanted a fairy tale, but I have a great partner who is the enabler of my dreams


Great daughters too , Our PPGs


And a great companion for our drives




We visited French Beach


My Girls


Tsunami has still left its mark here

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And we arrive at Pondicherry


We parked Civvy at Goubert Avenue


The place had an old world charm!


My Girls at Goubert Avenue


Jr. PPG enjoying the breeze


She was not the only one enjoying the breeze


Pondicherry War Memorial


The Promenade


Old Light House


Place de la Republicque


Gandhi Statue

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This picture best describes the laid back nature of Pondy


French War Memorial


Le Cafe


The Town Hall, apparently a hotel, which now looks like a deserted place


The Town Hall


Eglise de notre Dame des Agnes


PPGs near Notre Dames Church


Goubert Avenue


Isn't the Avenue beautiful?


Wifey enjoying the Avenue


Another view of Goubert Avenue


Alliance Francaise

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We went to La Terrasse for lunch


We were greeted by a cute puppy!


Jr. PPG gets her Italian Firewood Pizza


I continuously searched for the beef in my beef stake


Sr. PPG gets a Sizzler


La Terrasse is an avoidable adventure!

My trust in Lonely Planet Guide book have long been broken. The experience at this restaurant solidified the same. Especially from 12th Edition to 14th edition of Lonely Planet India guide book, I find their facts questionable, narration to be rather annoying and a tasteless dig at readers. I am annoyed more since there were Indian editors too for the guide book, and they should have at least tried taming down their theories about India!

Joseph Francois Dupleix Statue at Dupleix Park


He had a nice little butterfly for company


PPGs at the Pier


A panorama near the Pier

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Some French architecture as we walked through the French Colony


Yellow seemed to be the most favored theme


This seemed to be a school


Orange too


Hey! Blue too!


Oh! Red too!


Now, this avenue is quite colorful!


Le Duplex


Deep Orange


I would definitely like to make my house this way!


Orange is back


French Consulate

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A structure at Bharati Park


Church of the Lady of Immaculate Conception


Sri Aurobindo Ashram


Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple


Joan of Arc statue in Joan of Arc park


Tree lined Vysial Avenue


Back to Goubert Avenue


Sacred Heart Church


Sacred Heart Church and MG road


Pondicherry Railway Station

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We went to Botanical Garden in search of Life of Pi fame Richard Parker, only to find this guy!


There were tiny sharks too for company


This Shiny guy was a bit shy!


This note got our attention! Yes, this week was the food festival at Pondy


We reached our resort, it was beautiful


The path to the beach


We were already on our way to the beach


The beach near our resort


Jr. PPG was happy with the beach


The resort was all set for the evening


The dinner was amazing and there was absolutely no need to get out for the food festival, it was a delicious feat here at the resort!

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We had a nice breakfast


Interesting


Life was as usual for the boatman


Flowers wet in the night rain


Another variety


Beautiful


PPGs took to Cycling


PPGs at the beach


Oh boy! How we love beaches!


The first time I ever tried swimming in the sea

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Lunch was interesting too, Curd rice with an amazing collection of pickles


Appam with Stew


After lunch, I took to cycling


It takes around 30 odd minutes to do a full round of the resort!


I stopped by to enjoy some beautiful flowers too


PPGs were at the activity center making kites for the Kite flying event


We enjoyed the pool till sunset, the pool side restaurant kept refreshing us


Dinner was interesting too


Wow, Squid butter fried and Fish in Oyster Sauce! Lovely


A few of the desserts


Night was young with guests dancing to a DJ. This one was the lungi dance

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Simple breakfast


Onion oothappam after a long while for me


We saw a star fish


We visited Pichavaram


Pichavaram mangrove forests


We took a row boat for an hour


Pichavaram is the second largest mangrove in the world


We visited Chidambaram Sri Natarajar Temple


We had our dinner at McD on our return


We reached home back by 21:30 hours, after a fun filled trip!

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I will update the day wise accounts with some more details of the places soon.

Please bear with me for the copy rights on the pictures. It is like once bitten twice shy for me. I was recently a bit unhappy about some one making a brochure for their tour operations in Leh Ladakh from the pictures I had uploaded for TBHP readers. I am not such a wonderful photographer, nor do I think I can make it big with my pictures. All I needed was a simple phone call or a chat message before they used that. I felt bad about it.

Now if you are wondering what this India From the Front Seat is all about. It is just that I have collected all the links to my travelogues I wrote in TBHP ( I do not write anywhere else) in a FB page, so that I can connect with non members as well. I have got quite a few friends that way too

Thanks much for the understanding and reading my logs.

[Eddy]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing.

[Raps]

Wow! Wonderful pics and crisp narration. Even I had been to Pondicherry couple of months back, way its been captured and portrayed here feels like going back and visiting again.

Cheers,