Pondi!!! - (Part 2)

And now *drum roll* the most important and dearest section of our Pondicherry trip… the one reason for which Kaybee and I really exist...

Where to Eat:

We had one simple thing on our minds: French food. And so it started.

Le Club - Perhaps the best of the lot. It’s a quaint little place, done up casually with a good-but-not-extensive menu. The iced tea was good, the beer chilled. The salad interesting, and the chicken in wine sauce rather heavenly. The ambience was relaxing after the cruel sun outside, and even though we had those two random men discussing their womanly exploits on the next table, we found it rather easy to ignore them. Average Meal for two: Rs 750

:)

Aaah...that amazing chicken in wine sauce!!!

Satsang - The name doesn’t suggest French, the cuisine does. The décor was breathtaking, and just made us feel happy. The menu got us excited, and we ordered a cheese platter, a steak and a lemon chicken. This is when happiness came to a standstill. The cheese platter was this ugly plate with slices of cheese just cut and laid out. The bread with it, was well, sandwich bread. And a cockroach ran out from under the bread basket. The food was just o-k…and given the prices, was really not up to the mark. The iced tea still had bits of iced tea powder floating around. So much for fresh. Average Meal for two: Rs. 900

Pretty...Pretty...Pretty!!!

The not-so-pretty food

Le Café - Breakfast at Le Café was something we were looking forward to. Kaybee was keen on returning to Le Club, but heat+location made us visit Café instead. Well, next to the beach on the promenade, that was pretty much all it had going for it. We ordered an English breakfast. Omelette which wasn’t really customized the way we wanted, juice which was thankfully fresh, but fruit which looked like it had been cut a week ago. Overall just so-so. Coffee was good though. Average breakfast for two: Rs. 500

The English breakfast, with some mush on the side

Madame Shanthe’s - Shady as it sounded, we climbed up a lot of stairs to try this place out. Rendezvous had been our original dinner choice, but as it was shut for renovation, our tiny bit of energy turned to Madame Shanthe’s. Terrace restaurant, interesting ceiling, 2 couples cozying, no waiter. The latter is the only thing that was of our interest. There was NO waiter. Or maybe he was the same as the cook. And the owner. Or something like that. So when a man did appear after 15 minutes of our waiting, we quickly finished all our queries and order in one go, not knowing when he would magically appear again. The food took time, but eventually was by far the best value for money meal in Pondicherry. They didn’t have much, but what they did have was tasty. And cheap.

It took forever, it looked just o-k, tasted yum!

The Promenade, Sarovar - For dessert we decided to head to the one classy hotel we had come across, The Promenade, Sarovar. And boy, was it classy. A nice roof top restaurant, away from all the crowd and the noise, with quaint lil desserts that might have been just a mouthful, but were plain heavenly. If only we had tried it earlier. Oh well.

The roof top romance...

The tiny portions from heaven

And well, after all the sight seeing, and all the hogging and more hogging, our trip finally came to an end.

How to get out of there:

Now somehow everyone tells you there are buses every 1 hour from Pondicherry to Goa. What they don’t seem to tell you is that these buses are crowded, and that you have to wrestle with the localites to manage to get a seat on them. I am not exaggerating. We:

1.       Ran after a bus

2.       Dodged bags being thrown through windows

3.       Skipped over a man lying down to block 3 seats

4.   And well, initially shifted to make room for one more lady, as usual. Of course said lady proceeded to fall asleep on Kaybee’s strong shoulders and deposited enough oil there to warrant a US siege on it. She also drooled a bit. But just a bit.

Eventually after what seemed like a really long ride in the summer sun, we reached a point outside Chennai from where we hitched an auto rickshaw (Rs 210) to the Airport. He of course tried to fleece us further and after a long argument we walked into the not-so-welcoming Chennai airport, tired, hungry and really sweaty.

Trip Summary

Duration: 2.5 days, 2 nights

Weather: hot

Skin Tone: 3 times darker

Quiet Quotient: 3/5

Food: 4/5

Tourist attractions: 3/5

Final Words of Wisdom: Pondicherry is a little South Indian town, in a French mask. While it’s away from the world, it isn’t as quiet as it is made out to be, nor as peaceful and calm. Don’t expect too much, and it won’t disappoint you. A good weekend getaway, but only if you live in Chennai. Or if you’re travelling with the love of your life.