I had booked at the Zest Big Beach Resort Pondicherry a couple of months back, and even then just about managed to get a room, thanks to a surfeit of long weekends in September, practically everyone was headed out of Bangalore!
Though Sep 25th was a busy day with the office Ayudha Puja, Ranga, Toshu and I left at 5am on the 26th. Sep., Saturday to beat the traffic and cover as much distance as possible when the weather is cool. Other than a brief traffic snarl near Electronics City, most of the road till the toll gate at Hosur was smooth. Driving under the huge flyover is awesome. After paying Rs.25 toll we drove on to the smooth road to Krishnagiri, which is any driver's dream come true. As all good things have to end, so did this, it seemed too soon, when we turned on to the road to Utharangai which is a nightmare. With huge craters dotting the road, it looked more like the surface of the moon:( After this bumpy, swerving ride up to Chengam, and a stop for some home made upma for breakfast and hot coffee, we took off and the road too gets better and once again we were able to clock 100 on the speedometer. A brief break for coffee at a roadside stall near Gingee (home to the only more than a 1000 year old fort which has been under the Cholas to Marathas, English to the French) and a couple of photos later, off we went, till once again, brakes were applied to enter Pondicherry twisting through diversions because of roadwork. On entering Pondy, we asked for directions by calling the resort and they told us that the resort is 17 kms from the city. Good signage helps you find the resort quire easily. We had driven till then 327kms and time taken was 7hours.
The Zest Big Beach along the sea on the way to Cuddalore is situated on a 25acre property buit on modernistic lines and in keeping with the times. What hits you first though, esp. coming from Bangalore is the heat. It was 32deg with a humidity of 90% so it seemed more like 36deg. The rooms are spacious, about 400sft. and comfirtable, only 1 irritant- other than a tiny hanging space, there are no shelves or wardrobes and unless you repack immediately every time you change the room can get quite messy, but otherwise it is very comfirtable. Good AC, a must in that weather! We checked in and immediately went for a buffet lunch which is priced at Rs.450/head + tax (Tax in Pondy is 2% by the way, nice nah?). We then went back snoozed for a bit and in the evening went for a one hour swim which loosened all stiff muscles, then had a drink in the room (we carried our own poison:)), then went to the sprawling lawns, where being a Saturday, they had set up a carnival like buffet dinner, complete with a dance floor with the DJ raising a storm and also a big screen to telecast the Indo_Pak Champions trophy match which by the way, India lost. It was a lot of hungama and noise, nice if you like that kind of thing, but for me, I like a quiet break when I go on a holiday and this din was unwelcome, but I will not complain, the atmosphere was quite nice. We decided to give the buffet priced at Rs.500 + tax a miss, as we felt, we would not be able to eat much. I tried the a la carte French cuisine, while hubby and son played safe with Indian tandoor platter.
The day had been hot though a soft breeze was blowing in the evening, but to avoid both, we decided to get up and leave early on Sunday, Sep 27th. for Auroville. We left at 7.30am. We were guided to Hotel Maas for a buffet breakfast, which was ok. Sonny had the buffet while we settled for a dosa and idli. Then off we went to Auroville, driving back the way we came, did some ogling at some lovely antiques and made up our minds firmly that we are not buying anything as there's no more place at home. Since this was our second trip to Pondy, we skipped the usual touristy stuff, went around the French quarter, thw White town and The Corniche. The Sunday Bazaar on Jawaharlal Nehru Street is interesting as you get some great bargains on branded wear and also because I enjoy browsing. Ranga of course being a shopping addict was in 7th heaven. Weighed down by bags and sweating by the bucket, hubby dear was dispatched to bring the car down and off we went to a lovely restaurant we had visited the last time we were in Pondy, at the Annamalai International. The restaurant was as we remembered, lovely and to our delight there was a festive South and North Indian thali at Rs.100/head nett!, which we tucked into and stumbled back to the resort by about 4pm. Crashed out for a couple of hours. The guys went for a swim while I packed all the stuff we had bought, before we sat down for the drinks. A vote was taken as to where we should have dinner and it was unanimous - Annamalai! Don't be fooled by the name! - its a three star with an a la carte restaurant with lovely murals and great service. After having a good dinner, we headed back to the resort. We fell asleep listening to the waves crashing on the beach, as today everything was quite - no party, no noise.
We woke and were at breakfast at 7.30am. At Rs.250 + tax, it was pricey and did not live up to its expectations. Anyways, our hopes of an early start were delayed as the billing desk despite our telling them twice had not kept the bill ready and we could only leave around 9.15am. By the time we reached Krishnagiri toll booth we were famished and were under the impression that we would stop at Adyar Ananda Bhavan for lunch, but A2B is not accessible on this road, and we drove for some time before I started to feel queasy with my sugar levels dropping so we stopped at Cafe Coffee Day, had some delayed sandwiches and coffee and set off again. Despite being a holiday Bangalore traffic was still heavy and we reached home at 5pm after a brief halt to pick up some milk and curds.
We clocked a total of 770 kms at 19.6km/litre :) Mind you, even the first service is not done yet - all our hopes from the Santro were vindicated.
It was a lovely holiday and we are now planning one more soon...Cheers!
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