A Day Trip to Pondicherry!~ (Solo)

Here is how I spent my day at Pondicherry on 28th March 2019:

I reached Pondicherry by about 10:30AM at the bus stop and immediately had to cover myself because it was quite hot (I picked the beginning of summer to go because I was free then, but perhaps there is a better time to visit?) and then took a share auto to my first stop of the day

1. Cafe Des Arts restaurant: 

The food was good- I had the crepe ratatouille (a savory crepe) and a pineapple juice. I have never had crepe before-though crepe is traditionally a dessert (as I know it). The cafe decor was very mismatched as no two set of tables and chairs looked the same and there were a lot of people having a lazy brunch/ late breakfast.

2. White town streets

Post my brunch I walked around in White town and briefly entered Bharathi park, before heading back out to look for the lighthouse in Rock beach. 

Old Light house??! 

I stopped by a small roadside shop (because that's where the Old lighthouse was on google maps) for some colorful lanterns and bought a string of light in colorful little lanterns and also bought a hat (for 150 rupees) which served VERY WELL for the rest of the day, a major part of which I spent along Rock beach. 

The people at the small shop, said that we're not allowed to walk up the old lighthouse, but the new lighthouse is open for visitors, and that it's about 2 km away from the point where I was along the Rock beach.

3. Rock beach

The beach road is quite pretty and I was stopped along the way by raw mango sellers, and a few others but the rest of the walk was pretty uneventful - but I did have a nice walk along the beach (if you have more than a day to spend in Pondicherry, I definitely recommend to come to the beach in the evening when it's not quite so hot out). 

There are several rocks along the shoreline and many people were sitting out on the rocks close to the water (I guess the tide wasn't that high at the time in that place). After walking along for a long while (through the slums along the Pondicherry beach) I finally reached the New Lighthouse by around 2:15 PM but the lighthouse opening hours were 3-5 PM. 

There I met a fellow, solo female traveler from Rajasthan. She didn't know the language commonly spoken here by most of the locals (Tamil) and I did, so she was visibly a bit more skeptical of the place than I was. 

We ventured on to the end of the beach together and finally she had to return to college where she had come to attend a conference, and I decided to head back to the new lighthouse because it was almost 3 PM.

                                 

4.New Lighthouse. 

At 10 rupees a pop, it's not a crazy expensive tourist spot, but I was surprised at how remote the location was (deep inside many narrow streets) and then we had to climb over 150 steps and just when I was questioning my sanity over walking up so many stairs after essentially walking the entire day - I caught a glimpse of the view.

 I don't know what it is about vast expanses of water that seem to have no end from my eyes, that inspire me to have profound thoughts. There was a heavy breeze/ wind and all thoughts of the heat below vanished. I thought about how tiny we are in the vast spectrum of things. I thought about God and why he cares about us when we are so small in this huge world (which is probably not that huge in the scale of Universe of everything). I thought about my life problems and others' problems and how at the end of the day they are very very small. 

I thought about letting go of trying to control the bits of life that I am too small to and trusting God that He will take care of it.

                            

And then it was time for me to leave, so I reluctantly went to my final stop for the day (After some more walking).

5. Baker's street

After hearing a lot of rave reviews from this place I decided to get quite a loot of stuff for my family back at home (and myself to try). Most of the pastries and food they had were new to me because these are french cuisine and I hadn't tried much of that before. 

I got the macaron, eclair, fruit tart, choclataine, (and one more cheesecake-like dessert that I don't remember the name of) and the spinach Quiche. 

The Quiche was by far one of the best things I have tasted in a long time! And I wanted to learn to make it at home immediately. I didn't quite like the vanilla macaron ( it was too sweet for me) - but everything else was quite tasty too when we had it the next day back home.

After a scrumptious meal there, it was time for me to head back to the bus stop with a heavy heart and wanted to taste more of Pondicherry, but also glad that I had made the trip. (Thank God!) 

There are few places I visited on a previous day trip to Pondicherry that I didn't cover this time (like Auroville). And there were few more places I wanted to visit but couldn't because of the time constraint (like Paradise beach). Maybe there'll be another trip in the future, who knows. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the various facets of traveling alone, of course it's important to be safe and follow some safety guidelines (don't wander off along in too isolated areas, stay in more public safer areas). I enjoyed making my own choices about where I wanted to go next and not have it clouded by someone else's desires (thought I love my friends and family too, it is nice to go solo once in a while). 

Would you travel alone? If yes, where? I'm curious! 

Have a good day! 

-Jeffy Sarto