Day 2 - Missed mentioning that we went to Ashram when it opened at 2 PM. The ashram closes at 12:00, i wrongly said 11:30 in my earlier post. It is required to be silent in the ashram. There will be volunteers to guide you to Mother's samadhi. Spent a quiet few minutes there.
Day 3 - Nothing much really. It was a sunday, we had planned to just have a late start to the day and visit Chunambar boat house also known as the Paradise beach. This beach is like 10 kms from Ginger on the way to Cuddalore. There is a nondescript board on the highway for the entrance to Chunambar. We reached there by 9:00, the place opens by 9:30.
The beach is some distance inside and one has to take a ferry to the beach. We got into the boat (150 bucks for 2 people both ways) and it was nice short ride. The weather was great and there were so many fishes in the water. You could actually see some of them jumping out. I tried several times to capture on camera, but I guess it wasnt my day. Paradise beach is really lovely and it is recommended to have an early start like we did. When we were on our return boat, we could see lots of people come in. And more crowd means more mess. Nothing much on the beach. We didnt get into the waters because we had to check out by 12:00 and would not have much time to change or unpack and pack etc. There were boards saying swimming is dangerous, but I did see some jokers venture out to swim.
We spent a good 1 hour there and unwillingly had to return back because we had to check out. Drove back to Ginger and checked out. The plan for afternoon was to do some scented stick (agarbatti) shopping at Auroshika (a shop that stocks a whole lot of perfumed items, affiliated with the Ashram). Wifey ended up picking up a whole lot of soaps, scrubs, agarbattis etc etc etc. Lunch at Sri Krishna Sweets. Again highly recommended since its very clean and simple veg meals which will be light on the stomach. Then a walk on MG road and wifey picked up some veggis saying these were cheaper than Chennai!!!!
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If it is a sunday afternoon and you plan to set out to Auroville, then please dont do it. We realised after we reached there that sundays its closed from afternoon. So we couldnt see the matrimandir. Anyways having come this distance, we walked a good 1 km to the mandir gates and took a couple of pics of matrimandir. Auroville is a global township which has citizens from all over the world. It is built on a wonderful theme by the mother (see pic below for the auroville theme). More shopping at Auroville, we picked up a nice hanging car perfume stick in shape of a leaf with lemon grass perfume and its refill pack (i dunno what is the name of the scented stick which is hung from the rear view mirror). The drive back was quick and we didnt stop anywhere. Reached home by 7 and had a nice cuppa coffee and curled up on the bed to see the pics and relive the journey experience.
All in all, Pondy is a good break. It is close to Chennai and can be a good 2 day holiday. We didnt venture out to see other places like botanical garden, museum etc, but these are a pretty ok too for people who are interested.
Needless to say, the best part of Pondy is the cheap booze. Though this time I didnt indulge much, but its really damn cheap booze out there.
Best Time to visit - Nov to Jan (pleasant climate around 25-28 deg C and mild showers at times)
Places to see - Aurobindo Ashram, Manakula Vinayakar temple, Sacred Hearts Church, Promanade Beach, Paradise beach, Auroville (pls check the timings before you go), Pyramid Natraja temple
Around Pondy - Chidambaram for Natraja Temple, Pichavaram backwaters, Velankani, etc
Here comes the final set of pics -