This was my first trip with my salary 🙂 . I earned this trip 😀

The planning started with us being 2 girls, but ended up being 6 people- 3 guys & 3 girls- Me, Jessica, Siddharth, Tarun, Kajol & Shivang Bansal. The most exciting part of this was that many of us didn’t know each other.

The journey began on 25th of Jan. from Bangalore. Although the bus was very late but the company added another memory to the wait. It took around 7 to 8 hours to cover a distance of 320 km to reach our destination: Pondicherry.

Day 1 – 26th January 2017

We arrived Pondicherry by 6 in the morning. Despite drizzling we walked to our hotel “Hotel Vijayantra” as it was quite near to the bus stand . After checking into our rooms and freshning up, we headed for breakfast at Baker Street in Ola since we couldn’t book bikes (none of us girls knew how to ride a scooty 😛 ). We had some awsome pizzas and green tea. The cuisine was quite DELICIOUS!!!

Then we had a walk on Mission Street in search of a self driven car for rent because Shivang couldn’t arrive on the 1st day. We strolled past Archbishop’s House.

Next we decided to go to Rock beach since it was nearby. As we moved forward we saw Immaculate Conception Cathedral. So we went inside and prayed.

Then we finally reached Rock beach. It is a beautiful beach with Gandhi Statue on the shore. The street is clean and pretty.

Post beach, we stopped Bharathi Park on the way back from the beach. We took lots of pretty pictures.

Some snaps were also taken at Raj Niwas – outside the park.

By that time we were too hungry so we headed towards Cafe Xtasi, recommended to us by all of our friends who visited Pondicherry. It definitely is a must visit Pizza place in Pondicherry. The size of the pizza is too good. Here you must see the size of a party pizza :O

Since we ate too much there and also were very tired of walking so, we went back to our rooms for some rest. Evening was proceeded by some card tricks by Siddharth then played some card games like UNO and relaxed that evening. Shivang arrived before dinner. At night we went to Asian House for dinner. We made a new friend there- Satyam who was travelling solo. He and Tarun made plans of meeting up at Paradise beach the next day.

After dinner we chatted for hours and ended up sleeping very late.

Day 2 – 27th January 2017

Since I wanted to see the sunrise I woke up at 5:30 and tried waking up everyone else but only Siddharth woke up. We got ready and went down and found out that it was raining outside. So we took Jessica’s umbrella and went to Rock beach as it was the nearest beach from our hotel (2.5km). Since it was raining, we couldn’t see the sunrise 🙁 .

We being 3 guys and 3 girls now, the best way of getting around Pondicherry and its surroundings is by renting a bicycle or motorbike or scooty. There are plenty of rental shops all over the town.

We went to a 12 km ride to Paradise beach from hotel on our respective bikes and scooty. I enjoyed the scooty ride a lot 🙂 . Me and Siddharth were in one scooty. We joked and played rapid fire on the way and in no time we reached the beach.

Paradise beach is a must visit place for everyone who is travelling in and around Pondicherry. It is a splendid beach and is ideal for going in the water & playing with beach ball. Siddharth had brought football with him. I was more interested in going into the water and getting everyone else wet 😛 . After finding an empty space kept our bags on the shore and went into the water. We were there for a very long time and I didn’t want to come out. Since weather changed a bit, I started feeling cold so I came out to dry myself as much as I could with towel then wore Jessica’s hoodie. Then we headed back to the city with a plan of tasting some sea food delicacy for lunch.

By the time we reached city, it was too late for lunch. Most of the restaurants had closed. Being denied service at 3 restaurants we finally reached Karai Cafe which was open. For lunch we had Prawn Biryani, Prawn Fry and Fish Fingers (which were delicious). After eating, we went back to our hotel, freshened up (got rid of sand from the beach) then decided to rest and directly go for dinner. We spent some quality time with group in our room.

We went to chocolate place called Zuka Choco-la. It serves the best chocolates and pastries. For me, being a chocolate lover it was heaven!!!! I wished that I could eat everything they were serving. We ended up eating lots of chocolate pastries and chocolates. We also ordered Chocolates to take back home.

Finally, we went to Rock beach, met Satyam and came back to a restaurant near Zuka called ‘The Pasta Veneto Bar’. We had pasta and pizza with mocktails.

Day 3 – 28th January 2017

I and Siddharth woke up early, so we got ready and went for shopping on J N Street. I bought few accessories. While returning back I spotted a gorgeous temple Manakula Vinayagar Temple so I went inside and took a few pictures before we left.

By the time we returned back to hotel everyone else got ready. We went for breakfast in Auro Pizza. The guy served such mouth-watering pizzas.

Then the day’s journey started with a visit to a White town or French Colony.  As the name suggest it was a secluded section in Pondicherry which was exclusively reserved for the white French people who had settled here and called it home after 1674 when they acquired it and used it as a trading post. The moment you enter this locality you will be transported a century back into some French town. The roads, houses, hanging balconies, crisscrossing streets are typical that of a French town. It was a visual pleasure beyond words, bright yellowing houses with hanging veranda, bougainvillea covering the entrance and for a change spic and span clean streets. Even though Pondicherry was officially handed back to India in 1954 by the French government but the town remained the way it was and thus creating a pause in its history which is to be cherished. Street signs were both named in Tamil and French. We clicked pictures in in every corner we went. Siddharth’s photography skill being awesome, took so many marvelous pictures of White Town.

Then we headed to our hotel and took some rest before proceeding to Auroville. On the way to Matri Mandir we stopped for snacks at Coffee Corner. We had some Dosa, Tea & Coffee.

When we again started for Matri Mandir, it was already dark. Me & Siddharth somehow reached one of the gate of Matri Mandir, but it was closed so we took pictures from outside.

Since everyone took a different route but no one else reached the temple we headed back to Coffee Corner. From Coffee Corner we headed back to our hotel, since we had our return bus that night. On the way back the petrol in our Scooty drained up, so we stood on the roadside while Tarun went to the Petrol Pump and got Petrol. When we finally reached the hotel, Kajol informed us that our bus broke down so they had to cancel all of our tickets and we have to book the tickets for the next day.

After some rest we went for dinner in Zaffron restaurant. We ate way too much there, so after dinner we had a little walk then we headed back to our hotel.

Day 4 – 29th January 2017

Since we got an extra half day, I decided to catch up on as many things that we left as possible. So the first thing left on my bucket list was Sunrise in Pondicherry. So I woke up Jessica, Siddharth and Tarun. All of got ready and left for Rock beach at 6:30 am. The sunrise time was 6:36 am. I warned them that if I miss the sunrise because of them they are going to be in big trouble :P. We reached Rock beach at 6:38 am. There was few clouds just above the horizon so we didn’t miss the sunrise 🙂 .

There were so many vintage cars parked on the Rock beach Road so we went crazy, clicking pictures with those cars.

Then we went to Baker Street again for breakfast. Jessica went ahead to attend the mass in church and we followed her after finishing our breakfast. While leaving waiter gave us a scooty key left on our table so Siddharth kept it.

We reached Notre Dame Des Anges Church and sat there for 10-15 min during the mass then we thought of going back to our hotel and wait for Jessica and Tarun. When Siddharth took out the key from his pocket he realised that he still has another scooty key. We then figured it out that the scooty key that we took from the table was Satyam’s key. We went back to Baker Street. He was still there so we gave him back his key and had a laugh over the whole incident.

We then proceeded to Auroville beach. It was a wonderful beach. As we only had half a day so we just took pictures and didn’t go into the water even though I was tempted to go.

Next we proceded to Matri Mandir and took photos from outside the gate since we had to take some pass to get past the gate.

Finally we went to collect our order of chocolates from Zuka.

We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel with so many memories to cherish 🙂 😀 .