Pondicherry Calls

After the "road trip" to Mangalore it was time for the second preparation trip, preparation ?? well preprations are in full swing to hit the highest motrable roads in ladhak. Second trip took us to Pondicherry, once a French colony and now a union territory.

We started on 31st March, after having a great Ugadi treat the previous day. We all assembled in Mukundu's house at 5:00 AM in order to be out of city limits by the time traffic picks up, as planned we managed to start at 5:30 AM, but how can we forget our friend Mr. Murphy, it was time for him to play his role.

We had just started our bikes when Chandru, who had gone ahead to pick one of our friend called us, "Mayur had fainted....", came the message from him, panic all over, Mukund and Manjunath went for the rescue, as we all decided to wait for them at Shell petrol bunk on Hosur road. The guys dropped Mayur at his room and joined us. So the journey finally took off at 7:00 AM.

Soon we crossed Hosur and our Speedometer was showing this..., you can imagine the condition of the roads...

It was like this...amazing roads bikes were speaking with air as we flying at 100-120 KPH.

We stopped at Krishnagiri for break-fast. Agenda was to eat Idli-sambar in such a way that even Tamilians feel embarrassed, Naga did it :), after breakfast the ride was more of country side with still great roads continuing with tree shade on either side.

As we Approached Tiruvanna malai, we came across a pond full of blooming lotus, pond in the backdrop of mountain was a sight to sit and watch for a while.

Close up of a lotus was worth a click

We reached Thiruvanna Malai at about 2:00 PM, the sun was following us all the while, this called for 25 pineapple juice to beat the heat, Krishana was the only interface with the local people, he negotiated the price and paid up, we went into Ramana Maharshi ashram, it was closed.

But there was a peacock to welcome us at the ashram.

We left Thiruvanna malai and reached Gunji, this place has some nice fortresses and mountains.

I managed to take some technical photos for the mountain and fort :), courtesy Mukund's bike mirror.

We reached pondicherry at 5:00 PM, I was impressed at the entrance of the place.

I was informed that in pondi bike fuel and human fuel were very cheap, boys filled up the bikes and themselves with fuel and we hit the bed that night.

Next morning few lucky once went see the sun rise. ( Well pondi is not a place for sun set :))

The beach road at the end of French quarters give a great view of the sea, it is treat to eyes as the waves come and hit the wall.

As a custom there is a statue of Ghandiji, in spite of the fact that you find maximum number of Bars, pubs here and more importantly human fuel is given away dead cheap.

We went to Arbindo ashram, well at this point I have to admitt that I have not done much reading on Arbindo, may be should take it up sometime.

We went to Mother's museum, this place displays all host of the things used by Mother and Sri. Arbindo. What caught my attention was a tissue paper used by mother which somebody had preserved.

This nice statue welcomes you at the entrance of the museum

By the time some of us finished the trip of French quarter, the other group members had started to proceed towards beach on Kadloor road, it is a private beach owned by tourism department.

With next days sunrise we started back to Bangalore.

All said and done, still the question of what happened Naga's purse, Sri's Mobile and Purse remains biggest mystery of the trip. No matter how long you stare at the horizon, you will never get the answer.