Pondicherry

This weekend I went for the 1^st time, not to the west of India, but to the east of India. Also for the 1^st time I traveled without anyone of Frazer palace (or Raheja) and only with people of Benson town (Claire, Cynthia and Ronan). We were a group of 4, perfect for traveling in my opinion, not too many, not too less.

Pondicherry was the place chosen, a former colony of France. We get out of Bangalore on Friday around 11pm to arrive there around 6am. The trip I have to say was not very pleasant. The road that leaves to Pondicherry is really bad, full of holes, we were jumping all the way. It was the first time that I traveled to outside of Bangalore in a “only seater bus”, it could be worst i have to say, but not very pleasant.

We found a guest house to the second shot. The best guest house I found out here, with an accessible price. Even AC the guest house have, not very common here, a nice balcony outside, also nice people. We slept for a while, to recover the strengths, and of course, we went to a French bakery. Nice food we found here, nice cakes, and for the 1^st time here I found “real bread”. After we get out exploring the city, to find what Pondicherry has to offer. The city (in my opinion, probably Claire won’t agree) has no much things too see. Basically, some temples, some churches, a nice view to the sea. Here, and the biggest value of he city, is that in most of the cases the city is very cleaned, very difficult to find in India. For the 1^st time here I found a garbage can! The French culture is everywhere, from the food to the architecture. Even here I found the people more pleasant, friendlier, one of the biggest differences between Bangalore and Pondicherry.  The city worth more for the environment of the city than the city seen as a touristy place.

After we went to the beach, about 6km of the city. The beach when we enter was crowd, with Indians looking for us as usual (mainly for the girls). In India it’s very difficult to see a girl in Bikini, so when they see one in it, it’s crazy in the most of the times. We had some “paparazzi’s”, we needed to walk to the next beach  for they give up. In this part of the beach were only us, very calm, not crowd as the other one. The night was arriving, and we need to comeback. We went to the main street to search a bus, when we found out one we get in. Here I was without my t-shirt and I enter like that, otherwise would stay “on earth”. When I enter everybody was staring me, and laughing. For 5 seconds I was thinking if I should dress me or not. I decide me to dress and when I’m doing it, the bus just stopped, quickly according the Indian rules. I just crash with my chest in the post of the bus, nice now the bus was really laughing of me. One thing that’s very common for these bands is the Indian starting to stare you, mainly when it’s not supposed to have tourists. In the way back we went to a restaurant, trying to eat fish. Actually we were trying to fish all the weekend but without success, except if you consider eating 5 (small) prawns as eating fish.

At night we were tryng to find a place to get out. And surprise, we found one! Joking, we found one but it was closing. Like in Bangalore, here everything closes around 11pm. Very sad, but what can we do? Solution? Going home, grab some beers, and let’s play uno and chat. Playing uno, with Benson town rules! We were there for some moments, but the worst thing that I found in Pondicherry was boring us, mosquitoes. I never saw so many mosquitoes in my life, they were so annoying. We went to inside of the room for some while, but the girls wanted to sleep. So, me and Ronan comeback to outside, but just for a while. It was really impossible to be there, and we put repellent! 

In the next day we did basically the same thing, exploring and beach On the way back we had one of the funniest moments there. Like I said previously, people are more friendly here. Do you want proves? The guy that sells the ticetks starts to dance right inside the bus. Funny moment, I was shocked, I thought this was impossible in India. Most of the “ticket guy” in Bangalore are not very friendly, nothing at all, here was the opposite. Also here the buses have music, people talk between them, there isn’t traffic! All of these things is really difficult so see in Bangalore.

In the way we went to a temple and I bought a book there! More one book that I will take one year to ready it. In general this trip was very good, not because of the city itself, more for the fun I had there, with the environment around it. A very relaxing trip (except the trip), with cool people always worth it! There could have more stories here, but some are to remain in the secret of gods others, i'm just too tired to remember or to tell. It was a nice weekend, but as every weekend when monday starts you're completed tired, mainly this time that i just slept 2h.

Waiting for the next one!