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| White Town Pondicherry |
Despite the rain that had been forecast, the weather during the first couple of days in Pondicherry was actually OK and we spent much of the time wandering along the promenade and around the town which was very beautiful. The French Quarter with the quaint colonial style buildings reminded me of Luang Prabang in Laos - a place I also loved ❤️
Mehak and Anup were brilliant hosts in every way. They gave us lots of really useful recommendations - places to eat, where to shop and sites to visit. All of which turned out to be really useful and absolutely spot on 👍.
We worked our way round as many of the cafes and restaurants they'd recommended to us as we could. Bread and Chocolate was a great open air, rooftop cafe - great coffee and lots of gluten free options for Max 👍👍. I had a fab shatshuka one lunchtime and a lovely smoothie bowl another day. Surguru was a really traditional restaurant in a hotel basement just round the corner from us. We enjoyed a fabulous paneer tikka, tarka dhal with steamed rice for Max and a lovely fresh naan for me. All of which was absolutely delicious 😋. Slightly more up market was Kailash Parbat - we definitely got carried away and ordered way too much food that night but somehow we still managed to put it all away 😂😂. The most popular hangout spot in town was Mel Whisks, a trendy rooftop bar run by Mehak and Anup's two grown up kids. Every friday is Karaoke Night so they had a lucky escape as we went on Sunday! Max even put on his best (and only) shirt for the occasion 😂
Having recently started a yoga class in Berkhamsted we were both keen to continue and where better to do this than while in India. Mehak helpfully recommended a former teacher of hers, a yoga master called Satish, and we booked a session with him. We also decided to try a studio overlooking the beach and took our first session there with Pathivr at 8.30am. We'd warned her we were beginners and she booked us into a private session meaning only one thing - there was nowhere to hide 🫣🫣. Boy did she put us through our paces, she was really enthusiastic and Max's competitive spirit kicked in which only made things worse for me 😂😂. In the second session we had with her Max tried so hard he nearly fainted! That turned out to be a godsend for me though because she had been planning to extend our session to 1.5 hours and 30 minutes into the class I was already nearly spent 😅. The couple of sessions we took with Satish were very different but equally good. What they both did exceptionally well was start with the basics and take time to properly explain each of the poses and to really help us recognise whether we were doing them correctly. Having their full attention, if a little intense at times, was actually very helpful and after just a few sessions we were both starting to feel the benefits. Hopefully we'll get a chance to do some more yoga later in the trip.
Having sampled some of Mehak's fabulous food we were keen to try some more. During the course of our stay we tried a variety of her breakfasts, brunches and lunches and I can honestly say it was the best food we ate while in Pondicherry by a country mile. She carefully adapted each meal to accomodate Max's gluten intolerance and all her dishes, while bursting with flavour, felt really healthy too. I'm certain her cooking and our entire stay at Mel Ville will remain one of the top highlights of our whole trip.
We signed up for Munni's cooking class which seemed to get very good reviews on google. Munni met us outside the local market late afternoon and took us round a variety of stalls to buy some of the ingredients for dinner. She introduced us to many of the stall holders who were all very engaging, humorous and colourful characters. It was such a great experience and insight we would probably otherwise have missed. We were joined by a really nice French couple, Carmen and Marcel, and we all bonded really well over the cookery lesson back at Munni's house. The cooking was great fun and it was really interesting to learn all manner of things about Indian life from Munni and to chat about life and travelling in general with Carmel and Marcel. The food we cooked wasn't that impressive and certainly not a patch on any of Mehak's dishes, but we thoroughly enjoyed the class all the same.
Just when we began to think we might escape it the rain it arrived and to say it was torrential doesn't really do justice to what we experienced! Always quick to sieze an opportunity Max wasted no time at all in planning a trip the cinema. He was hoping to see Gladiator but I had my sights set on Wicked and my luck was in because the Gladiator screening was the Tamil version. I absolutely loved it, Max less so it has to be said. We went back again a few days later to see a Tamil movie, Lucky Baskar, with English subtitles which was also quite good 👍. The rain subsided after a couple of days but then we heard reports of a second cyclone making it's way towards us. This time the storm was even more dramatic - torrential rainfall - about 40cm in total - meant that some areas were completely flooded and the electricity went down for over a day 🫣. We survived thanks to the kindness of Mehak and Anup who looked after us as best they could and also the Surguru restaurant where we'd had dinner a couple of times before. They managed to operate a limited takeaway service and when we arrived the place resembled a soup kitchen with a huge queue of people waiting to be fed. It was still delicious and a very welcome respite indeed 😀
The storm did eventually subside and when we ventured out the following day everyone was hard at work clearing away the debris. There were fallen trees and branches strewn everywhere! I felt so relieved we'd left Chennai early to avoid being on the move when the storm arrived. Max is always so brilliant at thinking ahead 👏👏👏
Before departing Pondicherry there was one last thing on our list - a trip to Auroville and the Mantrimandir. Although it's very famous I must confess I hadn't heard of it but once in Pondicherry we quickly realised we couldn't go without paying a visit. Mehak and Anup guided us through the rather tricky process of planning our visit. You have to book in advance to visit to the Mantrimandir and they will cancel all bookings in the event of bad weather. Thus our first two attempts were scuppered by the storm and we ended up squeezing in a visit early morning on the day of our departure. I'm so glad we did though as it was definitely an experience not to be missed. It's hard to sum up and do justice to it but here's a couple of quotes from their website and Wikipedia which may help:
"Auroville is an experimental township where people from all countries can live together in peace and progressive harmony and above all creeds, politics and nationalities. It's creation was the vision of The Mother, from Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry"
"The Mantrimandir is the geographical and spiritual centre of Auroville. It's a circular structure with a gold metallic sphere in the centre. Inside the Matrimandir, a spiralling ramp leads upwards to an air-conditioned chamber of polished white marble referred to as "a place to find one's consciousness"."
I feel that we only scratched the surface with our visit and perhaps one day I'll return to explore it all in more detail - especially if the yoga takes off 😀.
Mehak also recommended a trip to the Sound Garden while we were in Auroville and not wanting to miss out we made a quick stop. As luck would have it we arrived just in time for the next guided tour of the garden. It's such an unusual musical experience - a beautiful setting with a wide array of specially crafted instruments designed to generate unique sounds which all had a very soothing effect. I would have loved to have spent much longer exploring but I knew Max was keen to get going given we had a fairly long ride ahead of us and of course, as always, he was absolutely right 😂
We really enjoyed our stay in Pondicherry. It's a lovely relaxing place with a great vibe. What really stood out for us though was our stay at Mel Ville. We were looked after with such warm hospitality that we felt really sad to be leaving. It will definitely rank as one of the highlights of our trip. A very special memory indeed ❤️
Thanks for sending through the link Sarah. The posts are a great read. I read them in the office and pretend to be working. You seem to specialise in going away, just when the weather in the Uk is at its worst. Auroville is where will go to find you if you stop posting.
ReplyDeleteHi Rich, great to hear from you. It's good to know we can be a useful distraction from work and bad weather 😉
DeleteYes, Auroville would be a good place to start looking. Failing that, I might dismount halfway up the mountain if the climbing gets too much for me, Max loses patience and I refuse to ditch any of my belongings 🫣😂
Another great blog Sarah - I loved reading about all your interesting meals - some of the photos are similar to Codsall at the moment as they try and clear all the debris from the storm here last week ! I love the photo of the Cathedral - Helen
ReplyDeleteThx Helen, I'm so pleased you liked it. We've had some amazing food and it's a good job we're cycling or our waistlines would be expanding exponentially 😂. The UK storm sounded dreadful; I hope you were relatively unscathed 🤞🤞
DeleteSounds like you landed on your feet with your lovely generous hosts 🤣 Really look forward to sampling all your new culinary creations when you get home 👍🤣
ReplyDeleteWe really did - it was definitely a highlight and a very special memory. I might have to ask Mehak to share some of her recipes with me if I'm to stand any chance of impressing you 😄.
DeleteGreat update and lovely photos Sarah, so much going on. Enjoy!
ReplyDelete