East Coast Road Trip : Part 2
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we head back to Waves, and its pretty hot inside the tree house. so we put our beds in the balcony, and try to sleep irrespective of the fish smell, humidity and mosquitoes to top it all. soon, the wind blows and we dont remember what happens later after. we had a plan to go to le caffe the next morning 5 AM for the sunrise. its 8AM and we are still in our deep sleep. zzzz...z.z.z
Only by 10 AM that we get ready and plan to head to Auroville, with breakfast on the way. ( I was told this guest house is run on donation so I paid 500 on checkout, but i was quite surprized when the lady asked me 200 per person, anyways, for you to remember if you go. I doubt the security, its a great place otherwise.) Well, Auroville beach is little dirty but could 've been pretty good fun in the water, if at all we would have got it. rather we decide to go to the temple, in the first half of the day, which I can tell you now was the worst decision of the whole entire trip. I should have been better half visiting Auroville city in the evening, but because we did, we for drenched out of the energy due to the hot climate, and long walking and at the end of it was no fun to see the temple from the far (sorry auroville lovers, no offence meant, I just feel its better to visit it in the evening.. )
since the first of the day went over in walking to and back from Auroville, it did ruin other plans we had for the day. so back to Promenade, me and anindita decided to sit in le cafe and hog. but take my words, its good fun to spend few hours in there eating some nice stuff, and sipping some good french cold coffee. I loved it so did Ani. I guess the best part of the trip was food apart from anything.. be it GRT or Pondi.. we had good food, until we visited to fisherman cove on our way back to chennai.. but lets leave this for now. for now, we are having good time at le cafe watching various colorful people roaming around. good enough eating, we decide to take a trip to the few known places around, like aurbindo ashram, and Aayi Mandapam etc. Imran is still sleeping in his car, and we let him do so. our plan to go to paradise beach or any place south , south-west is cancelled for this trip now. so once we meet up again, we visit the JN street, ( I hope thats the name) and have some fun in kalki store too.
Around 4:30/5PM we are back on ECR and driving back to Chennai. There was only, one thing which was a left over yesterday due to dark, and that was Back water Salt mines at Marapakkam. which we find on our left by the sunset time. The small-small heaps & stacks of snow-white salt placed in lines forming geometrical structure is a lovely sight to see and click. since its a bit dark, am not that satisfied with my shots.. however i wonder how the sight would look if shot an aerial since it seems endless.
bygone the salt mines, the last stop of ours on ECR before we hit Chennai is Fisherman Cove, part of Taj hotels group. well, Nice enough ambiance, but I'd rate the food 1 and .5 when it comes to rates. it way too expensive for the taste it comes. GRT wins hands down for me here. we pay some 2500 Bucks and come out frustated.
Back in Chennai, this should be my first only round, towards Marina beach stretch. Its just a feel good drive before we board our Bus back to Bangalore at 10PM. Overall a good and successful ECR trip with hopes to come back to Pondicherry, Chennai, and Mahabalipuram, n of course GRT for food again!
Keep Traveling!
More Photos Here.
Hmm, wanna get cast away???
Say Yes and wonder why am I asking this now!
Continuing our drive down south on ECR, this is supposed to be our last stop for the day before we hit pondicherry. Sun is yet to set and so we still have time. Imran seems to be pretty happy (except that he doesn't like my driving ) and quoting again n again, that he' has never covered these many places in just one day this efficiently. he ooesn't know the day is not yet over.
At tamilnadu Boat house I call upon Peevee to get some hint on where to turn left from ECR and how to reach Alamparai fort. As he suggests, We keep looking towards left for a Green Board, and we do find one, announcing kadapakkam and alampara fort 2-3 KM to the left on a sandy, untarred path, which first reach a vilage, and then turning right, you can see the ruins of the fort.
from the pictures previously seen, and from outside, the fort does look ordinary. and just like any other ruined ones in south india, but when you cross over few walls and get to the backwaters, is when the real fun starts. you may find 'em or not, but we have a TV serial crew creating chaos, around there, and they definetely interupt us in our freedom of turning left and right and overlooking the area, since we probably are coming in there frame. wonder what they are shooting or not shooting, we take a boat to the beach, (200 per person I think) and cross the back water to get on to the virgin beach, (might not be but for now, we are the only people in that island-beach created by sea and back water and we have full fun filled freedom, the place so serene, and beautiful with sun setting down in the backwaters behind the fort, This turns out as one of the best evening we ever had. few good enough moments and we pedal back to the fort, and now is when we see, a girl in white clothes, lying on the beach, near the fort wall, pretending dead? I wonder, Ah so here is she, the heroine of the serial. :P
meanwhile our boatman catches two fish and put 'em on the boat, which I actually thought were mistakenly caught, so i pick 'em up and throw 'em back in the water, and yes, I get a good LOL for my on the spot social service done for the poor fish. (:P again.) coming out of the fort there are curious kids and villagers around parking area, few of 'em I shoot, and few of 'em shout out loud.
I leave the history of the fort on this wiki link, and get back on ECR to reach pondicherry-auroville. which must be another 10 KM away. again he signboard here is a tricky thing. just opposite to where The Board of Auroville says right, there is a board of "moorthy restaurant (i m not sure of the name :( now), which in a thin path takes you to the Auroville Beach. only at the half way where there is a small hotel on the right with 4-5 Tree houses, you need to park your car, since there is no way you can take it further to the beach ( I wonder if there is a path before to go to that side of the beach, I have not explored, but possibilities are, that there is one before the turn we took) Now this hotel tree house is what Imran has booked for us. and on the look of it only, it crashes all our dreams, of having a beautiful sea view, cool wind and the excitement of spending a night in a tree house. ( Its not a tree house thats 1) second its far away from the beach to even get a visibility.
We decide we are not gonna take this up, so either we can look for some hotel in Pondicherry now, or we can explore the option I had, Wave Guest house, which is managed by Auroville. so we park our car, and walk to the guest house from the narrow path between two long houses. its pretty dark and smelly as well, we find the gate to our left facing the beach, and soon figure out, despite the fact, that we cant get food here (we have to prepare ourself if we want to) and that the fish smell is killing, we are going to be here tonight. putting our beddings up there, and we head towards, pondicherry beach for some more fun and food. its around 7:30 in the evening right now.
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When you have a rat marathon in your stomach, you can think of anything. So we head straight to la Tarasse, a french restuarent, off promenade beach. they have a special pan pizza in their menu. some good soups too ( rest i guess i have forgotton til now. may be Imran and Anindita can fill in those details here) In all, I can say is, if you are in pondicherry, this is one place to try out for sure. after a satisfactory dinner, we walk back to the french colony, the ~ 2 KM stretch of the rocky beach. This road, and the area around is what's got most of the famous monuments, statues and buildings in Pondicherry. so you can easily spend half of your day walking around in French colony (which reminded me a little of san jose) and near by area. so this is what we plan to do the next day, for today its enough, and we are tired. and we want a good sleep. br />
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we head back to Waves, and its pretty hot inside the tree house. so we put our beds in the balcony, and try to sleep irrespective of the fish smell, humidity and mosquitoes to top it all. soon, the wind blows and we dont remember what happens later after. we had a plan to go to le caffe the next morning 5 AM for the sunrise. its 8AM and we are still in our deep sleep. zzzz...z.z.z
Only by 10 AM that we get ready and plan to head to Auroville, with breakfast on the way. ( I was told this guest house is run on donation so I paid 500 on checkout, but i was quite surprized when the lady asked me 200 per person, anyways, for you to remember if you go. I doubt the security, its a great place otherwise.) Well, Auroville beach is little dirty but could 've been pretty good fun in the water, if at all we would have got it. rather we decide to go to the temple, in the first half of the day, which I can tell you now was the worst decision of the whole entire trip. I should have been better half visiting Auroville city in the evening, but because we did, we for drenched out of the energy due to the hot climate, and long walking and at the end of it was no fun to see the temple from the far (sorry auroville lovers, no offence meant, I just feel its better to visit it in the evening.. )
since the first of the day went over in walking to and back from Auroville, it did ruin other plans we had for the day. so back to Promenade, me and anindita decided to sit in le cafe and hog. but take my words, its good fun to spend few hours in there eating some nice stuff, and sipping some good french cold coffee. I loved it so did Ani. I guess the best part of the trip was food apart from anything.. be it GRT or Pondi.. we had good food, until we visited to fisherman cove on our way back to chennai.. but lets leave this for now. for now, we are having good time at le cafe watching various colorful people roaming around. good enough eating, we decide to take a trip to the few known places around, like aurbindo ashram, and Aayi Mandapam etc. Imran is still sleeping in his car, and we let him do so. our plan to go to paradise beach or any place south , south-west is cancelled for this trip now. so once we meet up again, we visit the JN street, ( I hope thats the name) and have some fun in kalki store too.
Around 4:30/5PM we are back on ECR and driving back to Chennai. There was only, one thing which was a left over yesterday due to dark, and that was Back water Salt mines at Marapakkam. which we find on our left by the sunset time. The small-small heaps & stacks of snow-white salt placed in lines forming geometrical structure is a lovely sight to see and click. since its a bit dark, am not that satisfied with my shots.. however i wonder how the sight would look if shot an aerial since it seems endless.
bygone the salt mines, the last stop of ours on ECR before we hit Chennai is Fisherman Cove, part of Taj hotels group. well, Nice enough ambiance, but I'd rate the food 1 and .5 when it comes to rates. it way too expensive for the taste it comes. GRT wins hands down for me here. we pay some 2500 Bucks and come out frustated.
Back in Chennai, this should be my first only round, towards Marina beach stretch. Its just a feel good drive before we board our Bus back to Bangalore at 10PM. Overall a good and successful ECR trip with hopes to come back to Pondicherry, Chennai, and Mahabalipuram, n of course GRT for food again!
Keep Traveling!
More Photos Here.
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