Pondicherry revisited

August 7th 2010: The hubby and I packed our bags and headed south-east towards that one place with a blend Tamil culture with French influences set alongside the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal. The trip was meant to be a celebration of sorts of my current unemployed status, this wonderful period between jobs. Not sure when I would ever get free time like this again, we seized the opportunity with both hands.

The beauty about Pondicherry lies in its serenity and architecture. This does not mean that it has any architectural wonders that warrant whole afternoons of sight-seeing. It just means that this city has the kind of cobbled streets, french windows and wrought iron balconies reminiscent of those small alleys in Fontainhas, in amche Goa. Well, if you have been to European towns, these these should probably remind of of them, but in my case, having never been to said towns, they remind me simply of beautiful Goa.

As we walked around the French Quarters (the area with a predominant French influence, that contains the sea-facing promenade), we passed by a park with wind-chimes up in its trees, the sea breeze gently drawing out tunes from it. The use of wind chines in public areas is something i'v noticed only in Pondicherry. Auroville also had a similar 4 ft. tall wind chime up a tree.

The beach front, called the Promenade (its namesake, the Promenade hotel, owned by the Hidesign group, is also along the sea shore, and charms you with its clean angles and white facade) is something like the Bandstand at Bandra. Rocks line the shore. We came across a charming cafe on the beachfront, and having had our food just a while before, we did not stop to eat, although the scones and granitas being served up looked tempting.

 

The hotel we were put in - De l' Orient is in Rue Rolland street, a 2 minute walk from the beachfront. A heritage hotel, restored and operated by the Neemrana group, comes highly recommended. Now, "heritage hotels" are tricky to trust, and a "charming antique four poster bed" described on the website might have just turned out to be an excuse for moth-eaten old furniture that has been given a coat of varnish. But charming it really was. A spacious courtyard doubles up as the out-door restaurant. Each of the 10 rooms are different and are named after south Indian cities (ours was the Madurai - tariff Rs 3000 inclusive of breakfast) are a pleasant change from rooms that are cardboard cut-outs of each other.



Two reasons why we chose Pondicherry - the laid-back beautiful city and the appeal of fresh seafood. Full marks for the former but the experience of the latter was very disappointing. The idea of having "Creole food" as peddled by 75% of the restaurants/eateries/cafes was unappealing to us since it would take a more refined tongue than us to appreciate food whose second name is blandness itself (apologies to all you French connoisseurs). Now I love a well made croissant like any one else would but give me my prawn recheido over a greek salad any day. Still, Creole food non-withstanding, we did have high hopes for seafood. Our planned dinner at Le-Dupleix (Rue Suffern street) where we had eaten on our last trip, didn't happen due to a sudden rain shower. We ate at the hotel itself. Though the set-up was in itself very good (a live band played Nirvana and Guns and Roses!), the prawns in garlic and pepper and the French Onion soup were a disappointment. A lot of sauces and spices were used to camouflage the fish (which lacked in flavor) in the Orintal fish curry that we ordered.

Our opinion about the food did not change when we had lunch the next day at Rendezvous, a popular roof top restaurant, well known for sea food. The crabmeat was overdosed with turmeric and coconut and served up as Crab pepper fry. The only saving grace was the malabar fish curry (tangy and mildly sweet) and rice.


And now for the one thing that tipped the scales in favor of Pondicherry (at least for me)...shopping baby! The birthplace of Hidesign (they have a Hidesign factory outlet for pete's sake), the epicenter of pottery crafts, junk jewellery, hand-made paper... I should stop now, the drool is practically on my keyboard now.

Its just one of those quirky things I must do, like doing a pad-yathra to Mannat (if you don't know who lives here then you wouldn't care to know anyway) when i'm in Bombay, or like I simply must browse a Hidesign store if i'm in a 50 mt radius even if i'm not buying anything (read as can't afford any more - eyes spot price-tag, swoon, whoosh, thud!).



So that was my Pondicherry for you ... a big thumbs-up for the senses and a big thumbs down for the palate. And oh yes, do not forget the sun-screen.