Continued from Weekend at Pondy – 1
We woke up by around 8:00 AM the next day, and after the customary ‘freshening up’, we got dressed and headed out for breakast. Out-voted 2-1 for a Vegetarian breakfast, we went to a Udupi restaurant next to our hotel and had Masala Dosas and Vadas. I didn’t particularly like the food, nor the service, but the other two seemed to think it was great. After breakfast, we decided to visit Auroville, a spiritual retreat, about 20 km from Pondy. Buses don’t go that way, so we had to take an auto. After haggling with an auto driver, he agreed to bring us back for a princely Rs.400.
We reached the place, and took our tickets. After a long walk through the woods, enjoying Nature’s beauty, and Raghu establishing his GreenPeace membership periodically, we finally made it to the heart of Auroville. There is a huge golden globe at the centre of a very large lawn. We posed for a few pics, walked back to a small tea-stall in the premises,and had Hibiscus Juice. It was sweet, and refreshing. We found our auto, and he took us back to Pondy.
Raghu had spotted a decent looking restaurant the previous day and we agreed to go there. We were exhausted after the trip and glad to sit in air-conditioned comfort. We ordered soup, Tandoori Chicken, and fried rice. We then decided to walk to the bus stand, paying no heed to Raghu’s protests. But halfway through, we gave up, and settled for a bus. We headed over to the ‘Palace’ and proceeded to fill our bags with Budweiser, Carlsberg, Tiger, Hayward’s Black, Smirnoff Orange & Green Apple. We then hurried back to our room to sample our loot. We spent a few hours getting mellow, and watching Federer cry after losing to Nadal in the Australian Open final.
We were tipsy,and we decided to go to the Promenade. We took an auto and found a couple of guys singing popular songs on the terrace of ‘Le Cafe’. A crowd had gathered to watch them perform and we happily joined in. After a few snaps, I managed the convince the other two about the urgent need to taste some French Cuisine (I’m sure Raghu would’ve been happy with Chicken Biryani). We looked around for a while, and managed to find Madame Shante’s which advertised French food. Prices were steep, but we decided to go ahead. We had an annoying fellow who wanted to sit beside our table and smoke, and then he wanted to place his beer mug on our table. Thankfully, the management found him a table and he was off. We ended up having Poulet Cordon Bleu which was Crumb fried chicken stuffed with cheese, Poisson belle Meuniere which was fish fried and topped with lemon butter sauce and Pates au Champignons et tomatoes which was Spaghetti with mushroom & tomato sauce. Raghu, predictably had Chicken biryani. The crumb fried chicken was good, the fish reminded us of Thilakan’s classic comment in Kilukkam when he’s presented with fish (He asks for a stick so he can beat the fish to death). All were served with bland boiled vegetables. We helped ourselves to Raghu’s biryani to have a change of taste. We then went back home (in an auto of course) and then proceeded to work on the Orange Smirnoff. After suffering more of Raghu’s choices in Tamil movies, we went to sleep.
We lazed in bed the next morning, not particularly keen to go anywhere. We had already exhausted our sight-seeing options the previous day. After breakfast at the same Udupi hotel, after which the other two finally admitted it to being not that great. Mahesh and I went over to the Palace and stocked up on some more supplies, mostly stuff we had found tasty the previous day, and we spent the day at the room sipping our drinks and chatting. We had lunch at the dingy place, and caught a bus back to Chennai. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one which came to Tiruvanmayur, and we had to get down at Tambaram, and change buses.
Raghu then left for Coimbatore that night and Mahesh went over to his place. It was the second of our guys-only trips (not that we’ve been on any trips with girls) and was memorable, as was the first.
More recently, we went to Yercaud. Lets see if Mahesh writes about that.
To us mates. To us!
Cheers!
5 Comments
August 30, 2009 at 5:08 am
Enjoyed the Pondy trip very well. We had also been to Pondy but never bothered to visit the sites and your narration filled in the blanks for us as if we had been there ourselves. What lovely style of writing you have. Keep it up!
August 30, 2009 at 7:53 am
I have passed on Lemonade blog Award and Indian Bloggers Community Award for your fantastic food reviews. Visit my site and they are yours.
Wish you receive more and more.
January 22, 2010 at 7:30 pm
[...] Own Country Jump to Comments You’ve met Raghu & Mahesh here and here. After our trip to Yercaud, we decided it was high time we went on another [...]
January 23, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Mite, what abt the gorgeous looking females we saw at auroville?
January 23, 2010 at 3:23 pm
And Federer won the day we were at pondy. And he never cries, hes just emotional.