How not to do Pondicherry part 2

If you haven't read part one, click here.

Swapnakoodu gave me unrealistic expectations about Pondicherry 

So maybe I lied. It wasn’t just an urge for knowledge or to get closure for an old French project that had me crave a visit to Puducherry. It had a little more to do with the 2003 fan favorite Swapnakoodu. The beautiful scenic bicycle rides, the colorful houses, the cute Malayali hotel management students, the locals and the foreigners who parle Français? Hell, yeah!

I should’ve known the big screen tends to glamorize. Pondicherry wasn’t as big or as great as I imagined it to be. And now that I think about it, Ponmudi wasn’t either. It was the journey or adventure to and during that made it fun. It was the people who I was with and who I met that made it interesting. Whoah. Did I just uncover a huge travel secret? Did I just get enlightened? Eh, probably not.  

The story continues aka Suite Rooms and Pick-me-uppers

We found a pretty decent hotel called Corbelli (pronunciation still questionable) about two months before the trip. It didn’t have like an awesome view or anything, but the staff was super friendly and almost everything we wanted to see was in walking distance. I know everyone’s all digital with their bookings nowadays, but there’s something about actual human interaction that really pays off. One of my best friends, Jyo, helped us with this booking. She even talked us a discount because it was off season. Score.  One day I’ll learn to sweet talk in Tamil just as well as her. ;)    

Which brings us to this money saving side point: If you’re travelling with friends or if you’re an all-female crew like us, check out the prices of the suite rooms. With suite rooms, you can enjoy the luxury and stay together like a slumber party your parents never let you attend (shout out to all the brown kids, am I right?). One would think it would be more expensive, but sometimes it’s the price of two standard rooms. Rates vary depending on the hotel, the suite and the season you are travelling in of course.

Our suite room turned out to be pretty okay. Despite it seeming more like a deluxe double room than a suite room. There were two rooms- a living room with a couch that converted as a bed and a proper bedroom. The amenities included two flat screen televisions, one mini-fridge, a small dining table, one toilet and one bathroom. The latter had a faulty door so we had to be careful not to accidentally lock it from the outside.

The air-conditioning was a godsend since we were all sweaty from the torturous bus ride. We took some time to freshen up before we headed out to scavenge some food. Two of us still hadn’t had a proper meal yet. Our hotel had an Italian restaurant on the top floor (which we’ll talk about later) and there was another restaurant slash bar sort of thing outside, er underneath the hotel? In the end, we opted for a little café nearby called Mission Café though. The interior design was pretty cool with cute illustrations of coffee and tea making. We snacked on brownies and chocolate croissants to get the adrenaline going.

We later found out that it was one of the few places that were still open. Most of the cool cafes that we had read about in those fancy travel magazines were closed because of the French Summer (that’s what they call off season). This turned out to be another disadvantage of travelling during our month of choice. You win some, you lose some. Thankfully, we hadn’t come to Pondicherry to sit at some cafes. We came to explore!

We hoped to at least.

Aller faire une Promenade? 

From the cute little cafe, we set off to the Promenade beach or Pondicherry beach. Whatever you prefer. On the way, we  noticed that most of the street signs are written in Tamil and French. It was so cool. My inner French student started squealing. After a few photo sessions, we finally made it to the beachfront. 

The Promenade is beautiful. Seriously, Pondicherry tourism, nice job. I almost want to say it doesn’t seem like India…. No. Why do we do that? Why do we put ourselves down by referring to places and people in comparison with the West. How insane is that? I mean, she’s Aishwarya Rai, a talented Indian actress, not India’s Angelina Jolie. And it’s Alappuzha, not the Venice of the East. Okay, to be fair, that phrase was coined by some British Lord. The question should be why do we still use it? And end rant.

With the sun setting and the cool breezes encouraging us forward, the feeling that settled over us was almost euphoric. I have to say the Promenade is even more amazing with the street lamps on. We bought some street side snacks and decided to simply stroll. It was nice, peaceful. I do believe that evening was probably the best part of the trip. After that, everything went sour. No, I’m kidding. Sort of. 

Bear with me, there’s a part 3. 

Aparna, please don't kill me.