25.12.11

Pondy Shondy IV: Putting up and getting around


Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.

A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the holiday.

If you’re a lover of trees and the colour ochre, and if rising wave and ebb means music, then hiring one of the many gearless motor two wheelers would not be an option for you. And a bicycle might be more your thing. Staying at one of the several guest houses on the promenade or on the road running parallel to it is a great idea – for they are fairly inexpensive, located conveniently in the midst of all things nice and clean.

Of course Pondy has enough for the five-star hospitality lover (boutique hotels, heritage bungalows turned into hotels, a sexy Accord coming up at the city entrance) who would prefer buying branded underwear and baby clothes (Casablanca’s definitely your haven!) and do the spa trip mid stay. Hire yourself a day long taxi service or even one for the entire duration of your stay (grumpy Kamraj at Autocare will be more than cheerful if you’re doing that rather than putting forth a tiring enquiry about his bus service to Auroville, said Mrs Indira Kapoor – more on her later) and you’re good to go!

No comments: