Another Sunday trip is the visit of
Pondicherry (now Puducherry), the former French trading base in India. This time, I
was together with Ulrike, Joka and Sounina. We started on saturday
night with a bus from Majestic bus station. This private bus company
had quite comfortable AC buses, but sleep was not possible before the
end of the hindi movies, which were played in an astonishing
loudness. Actually no surprise, because everything on Indian roads is loud, but it was the first time for me to be in such a
movie bus. Fortunately, the film stopped around midnight, but real sleep
was still not possible during the whole night, because terribly bad streets in combination with the suspensions of the bus were the reason that we bumped around all the time.
After about 8,5 hours of shaky bus
drive, we arrived happy but tired Pondicherry, and started to walk
towards the white city, i.e. the former French area. The surrounding
parts of Pondicherry (black city) are much larger than the white
city, but do not contain anything interesting to see (at least if you trust the travel guide). Our first
stop point was the breakfast at a french-style cafe called “Hot
Breads”. We found it easily after 20 min walk (the white city is
tiny, about 1,2 x 1 km^2). The appearance and smell of the
croissants, breads and pastries made me remembering french
boulangeries. We took a variety of pieces and shared them all. The
taste was surprisingly good and the expresso was excellent!
here some pictures (click on the slideshow to get to the photo album)
Filled with energy, we went to the sea
promenade and had a nice walk seeing the morning sun rising over the
sea (Pondicherry is at the east coast). Very relaxing to hear the
waves breaking on the rocky coast line. Later, we wandered through the city and
enjoyed some calm streets with french colonial buildings, all very well in shape. It was funny to see restaurant signs like "Cafe Paris - Indian, Chinese, Vietnamnese cuisine", but we also saw decent restaurants with a real European or french touch. Around 11 am, the city became more alive, and streets started to fill up. We wandered through a big market place. When we entered the fish selling hall, we were quickly shocked by the smell of all the cut fishes, squids and sea fruits which were offered by about 100 vendors without any cooling. We preferred then the fruit and vegetable stands and did not even think to go into the meat hall...
In the noontime, we took a taxi and drove to the nearby city Auroville, which is sought to represent a new level of community living:
With this extra load, we sat at the beach and just enjoyed the last hours of our stay. It is true that Pondicherry is not very big and has not that many sites to see, but it is a nice contrast to the typical Indian cities with their busy, dusty streets, and no places to stretch out. AND Pondicherry is the city with the nicest Police-uniforms!
"Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity." (from their website)
It was very interesting to see their main hall, the Matrimandir, which looks like a golden globe and which is constructed in such a way that one person can speak to 3000 people without any amplification. To be in the surrounding gardens created a feeling of peace and harmony, and the city might be the place with the highest density of foreigners in India. But to be honest, the community with its >2000 citizens is still far away from its capacity of 50000 citizens. After that little trip, we got back to the white city and visited a very nice church. The basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was particular in its styling with its flashy, bloody heart above the entrance and the colorful glass windows, which came from Strasbourg and Grenoble (anno 1908). Interestingly, next to the church started the Muslim district with colorful, well maintained houses and very clean streets. The rest of the day, we did a bit of shopping in some high quality warehouses and enjoyed another coffee in "Hot Breads". After a tasty dinner, we decided to get back to the sea and to finish the day in drinking a glass of wine and watching the full moon. On the way to the promenade, we discovered an art gallery, and I found and bought a very nice painting..
