Sight-seeing on Pondicherry Beach Road

The first place we visited was the beach. While I had been to Pondicherry umpteen times, I did not recall how we reached the beach at all and so I was no help at all to the Arien, who was equally clueless. Anyway, we got lost a couple of times but we reached the beach only to find that the beach road is usually off-limits for vehicles in the evening on some days. We finally found a place to park and walked back. The beach was crowded and we walked from one end to the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the other end. There were quite a few foreigners, either strolling on the beach with kids in tow, or running (exercising). The Arien waited till most of the folks were either too far away or were nearer the beach before he took this lovely shot of the beach road. It was quite warm and so Ice-cream break banta hai.

As we walked, eating the fast-melting ice-cream, and wiping the perspiration beads off our face, neck, etc. – we realized how much we love the Bangalore climate. In August, Pondicherry was quite warm, so warm that my ice-cream melted and fell down while I was eating it :O

As we continued our walk, we came across  the French War memorial, on the left.  I was very sure that the Aurobindo ashram was closeby. I could recall that part vividly. But, I was not sure which one of the gullies would lead us to the ashram and did not want to take chances. 

We also saw the Church of the Lady of our Angels. Some construction work was in progress. The Arien took multiple pictures of both. We reached the statue of Ghandiji and started walking back. A cool breeze was coming up and we were totally enjoying the walk. The Arien of course, was busy shooting pics.

It was almost the second time we were walking past the Le Cafe` and though I was not hungry, it looked quite inviting. I mean, I could easily see myself sitting there everyday. The Arien meanwhile wanted a shot of the Le Cafe` without ppl around. I thought that it was an imposs task but the optimist that the Arien is, we kept walking. 

It was quite late when he finally noticed that there was no one around Le Cafe` and took a picture just as the old man got out of the cafe and walked away. The Arien was not sure if he shd laugh or cry.  Soon, a lot of ppl were walking past the cafe and I cajoled the Arien to let it go. This was still Day 1 – we had at least 2 more days to go. He finally agreed and we moved on.

It was a lovely day and our holiday had just started. We drove back to the resort, after one wrong turn that made us go around the place once again! I was glad that it was only once. Well, if he had listened to me the first time, we would have reached the resort 😀 The Arien picked up some of the stuff he wanted and so was glad that we had lost our way!