Puducherry and Mamalapuram
About Pondicherry:
Pondicherry also called as pondy/puducerry (new village in tamil ) was the french colony for almost 300yrs. Puducherry got its indepence by 1954 and is now remained as the union territory, the influence of french culture can still be seen in puducherry.
The coastal city of Pondicherry is famous for its serene beaches, French War Memorials , Puducherry Museum, Auroville Ashram, Shri Aurobindo Ashram, Promenade, Chunnambar Resort, Old Light house and few other tourist spots.
About Mahablipuram :
Mahabalipuram is another coastal reagion which is also called mamalapuram. Mamalapuram is the historical centre, whos architectural structures dates back to 7th and 8th centuries. Mamalapuram is famous for its 9 monolithic temples which is spread accross the town.
Places to be visited : Arunas penance, Balancing Rock(krishnas butter), old light house, pacha rathas, sea shore temple, mahishasura mardini cave, trimuti cave, and few beaches.
Best time to visit Puducherry and Mamalapuram :
As Puducherry and Mamalapuram are coastal region it would be humid through out the year, the best time to visit would be in the winter(November-February) when the max and min temperature would be 28-20 centigrade.
How far from Bangalore :
Pondicherry is 320km from Bangalore (Suggested route Bangalore->Krishangiri->Thiruvanamalai->Pondy)
Mamlapuram is 350km from Bangalore (Suggested Route Bangalore -> Krishangiri ->Vellore-> Kanchipuram -> Chengalpattu -> Mamalapuram)
How it went :
In one sentence : Pondicherry the awesomeness of driving experience.
The total distance covered in 3 days was 916km. It all with started the flopped plan to Goa, as many didn't agree and few of my colleagues were off to there hometown, so it's only me and Rajaneesh left out at the last, Rajaneesh is good follower :-) so I love traveling with him as I will never be asked/questioned anything about the destination.
 |
| At AH45 |
Well getting into drive let's split it on basis of number of days
Day 1 :
It was 15th of August, we agreed upon to start from Silk board at 6am, and I was at meeting point right on time, to add to Rajaneesh confusion when I called him up to check where he is, he answered saying he just started from home, he though that we were supposed to start from home by 6am, I couldn't say much to him and asked him to come asap, by 6.30 am he was at Silk board. We did some stretches and started our bikes, we decided that we will stop at hosur for tea break, hosur is around 30km from Silk board, since we took the overpass we couldn't stop at hosur for tea.
 |
| Kamat @ Hosur |
Since we missed the first pitstop we though of taking break at krishnagiri, but before we reach krishnagiri we saw a kamat restaurant nearby, and we took the first break and had idly and vada in the hotel. In mean time Rajaneesh filled up his bike with fuel for 300 bucks and this is the only amount he had for the trip start up ;-) no comments on him as this was/is expected.
The next stop was krishnagiri and as per what I had seen in the map this is place where we had to take deviation. We asked the localities for direction as the construction of bridge made more confusion, we found the deviation of the thiruvanamallai road, this is were the fun begins :-P I had seen in the blog theloapers.blogspot.in that they had mentioned the road is in bad condition, but my viewpoint was different and expected better road than what was actually written in the blog. As we entered the road first shock was its a single road, till now we ridding on super duper NH for 100km, now it's like a road of century old, I was more scared when I remebered that the road condition is worse for another 120km, my heart stopped beating for a moment thinking about how we can cover 120 km in this kind of road.
 |
| Thiruvanamali Road |
The road was full of patch and potholes and more over its a very rough surface, we rode the bike for another 10km and stopped near a temple, I saw Rajaneesh face and I could see his pain in his eyes :-) you know where the actual pain is :-P . We picked this road because one of our colleague called Magesh told it's not bad but drivable, now both of were cursing on magesh, anyways we thought we will drive another 50km and take rest, the next point stop point was uttangarai, Magesh had told that the dosa of this place is very nice, but we had no mood of having one as we knew the road the condition ahead. We stopped at uttangarai as I found a atm to draw more cash, still this bugger had no intention of taking money even though he was running with 0 rs, I didn't care we started again, the next stop was Chengam which was around 30km, we stopped in the middle and took rest for a while under the tree and then stared again, but this time we didn't stop at chenagm, we thought we will make till thiruvanamallai which was another 30km and take rest there, with lot of effort we reached thiruvanamallai. We stopped near a juice center and had some soft drinks and chocolates, this time Rajaneesh finally withdrew amount I thought he will not ar all withdrew till pondy.
 |
| Gingee Fort |
It had become necessity for him as he was running out of petrol by then and we stopped at filling station and was happy as the petrol price here was quite less compared to our state, we roamed around the streets of thiruvanamallai as there were some block beacuse of independence day celebration because of the redirected route we could see the mammoth structure of the thiruvanamalai temple.
 |
| Thidivaram-Pondy |
I had initially planned to see temple but because of time constraint we couldn't make it, now the road was pretty much better. The next stop was at Gingee, which was another 40km I didn't plan to visit gingee fort but when we passed near the place we saw lot of KA registered vehicle parked nearby and we thought of giving a shot, so we parked our bike near fort entrance, by then Rajaneesh found one of his friend who had come with his family to spend time in pondy we all had a general conversation, by now we were getting late and we dropped the plan of the hill/fort, and we started towards pondy, it was still 80km away and it almost 1.30pm by then, so we wanted to wrap up early, as our lunch plan was supposed to be at pondy. We reached tindivaram and missed the route of pondy and traveled extra 5km, later we came to know that we had to take deviation long before, we missed because of the wrong board at the flyover ,somehow made to the bypass road of tindivaram and pondy.
 |
| Paradise Beach |
Believe me guys this is one of the best road I have seen so far, the road was equivalent to airport runway, I couldn't resist anymore because of the pathetic drive I had so far, I throttled my accelerator to the max , and I could reach 121kmph which is my max till now, and in no time we were in pondy. It was 2.30pm when we entered pondy, it was slightly drizzling we didn't care much and started to search lodge, after roaming here and there for 15min
 |
| Marine Drive |
we found a budget room which was pretty decent for 900rs, we checked into the lodge and got refreshed,it was 3.30pm by then, we went to nearby hotel had nice lunch, we came back to room and slept for an hour. We planned to cover two places for that day. First we went to boat house from where we went to Paradise beach in ferry boat. This beach was really good, it was clean and we played for 3half an hour or so and and then we came back to our parking spot, and had a cup of tea, by then it was almost 6am, we reached room and asked the lodge owner for other places to see around, he suggested marine drive which is beach walk path of 2km stretch. We were there before the night falls, we took some snaps and walked around the drive and returned back to room after getting lost in the street of pondy and slept early as we had to get up early morning.
Day 2 :
It was 5.30am in the morning and we had planned to see the sunrise, so we were up on time and took my bike to pondy beach, it was the perfect time when we had been there, I took the morning coffee and walked toward the marine drive.
 |
| Marine Drive |
The sun had just began raising, it was the picture perfect sunrise that I had ever seen, it was a beautiful view. We were there around the marine drive for quite a long time , we went to our room and had bath and by 9am both us were ready. We had breakfast and asked the lodge owner few information about auroville opening time, he told it will open by 9.30am, so we at auroville by 9.30am, this was on the way to Mahabalipuram and left deviation from the ECR around 8km inside, we didn't find the place much interesting, most of the people around are all foreigners we heard that if we take pre booking to visit mata mandir we will get chance to sit inside the center of the pyramid
 |
| Mata Mandir |
mandir which is supposed to be great for some physics reason, and this is what was told by Magesh, but again this time also it was a fruitless result. The pre-booking should be done two days in advance, anyway we went toward the mata mandir which was 1km by walk, we were carrying our huge baggage and walking 1km turned to be very difficult, somehow made till mata mandir, had a nice view of the unique construction, took some snaps and returned back to the main arena. Spent some time eating ice cream and by 11am we started towards mahabalipuram.
 |
| ECR |
This ECR is across the sea coast and you would love this drive. It was the awesome view to the right of our road, the beach was all along the road, and traffic was also less. We maintained the decent pace of 70-80kmph and stopped in between twice for break, in between we had a nearby call from the government buses whos driving think he is driving a rocket, after driving for while we reached mahabalipuram by 12.30am and again the search began for lodge. We found a room for 600rs and this was not as good as previous one, but it dint matter for th bachelor's, we refreshed and went out for lunch had a good north thali lunch and came back to room, we heard that all the temples/monuments will be opened after 4pm,
 |
| Balancing Rock |
we had 3hr of gap we watched TV for while in room and slept for couple of hours, it was 4am by then, so we thought of exploring mahabalipuram, there were around 6 spots which need to be visited that day and all went smoothly,
 |
| Rainbow view from light house |
the old light house was the best one, when we went upto the tip of the light house,it started raining heavily after that we saw some marvelous dual rainbow one above the other it was spectacular view, took some snaps and when it stopped raining we came down and visited pacha ratha and sea shore temple all these temples can be visited with only one ticket given at any counters, we visited different places and had some nice time, it was 6pm by then, and we had to return back to room, once returned back it was still sunny outside, so we decide to go to beach, this time we changed to beach cloth and spent considerable amount of time playing in beach, then we returned back to room,
 |
| My Bike @ Mamalapuram Beach |
I was like since we came so long from Bangalore why not to take a bike picture with background as beach, but Rajaneesh didn't seems to be interested, I was keen in it so took my bike and came to beach with lots of struggle to take bike on sea sand, took some snaps in the low lighting's, then returned back it was 7.30pm by then we both went to hotel for dinner finished off and come back to room spent some time in front of tv by 9.30 we had to be off to bed , as we had to travel long distance the next Morning. The initial plan was to go by the same route as we came, but both of us were scared to go in that road to hell, so I googled for the route and found that via Chennai would be a better route (via chengalpattu), by 10pm we hit the bed.
Day 3:
This is something very interesting as the last part has some funny moments.
 |
| Morning Breakfast - Kanchipuram |
It was by 4.30 I woke up and had bath and alarmed rajjo by 5am,
 |
| Kanchipuran to AH45 |
he got ready by 5.30am and we started packing our bags, we checked out the room by 6am and we hit the chengalpattu road by 6.15am or so, rajjo is a straight road tracer wherever he see straight road he just follows it :P , since I have bad view during night drive I prefered him to go ahead even thought I knew he didn't knew the route, we had to take deviation at some point but this guy didn't take turn at all, I had to chase him for another 1km and boughy him back to right track, we crossed chengalpattu and moved towards kanchipuram took some photos in font of kanchipuram temple.
 |
| @ wallahja |
We hit the bangalore Chennai highway this road was very good,
 |
| Bike @ Garage |
we were at 80s and 90s it was almost 9am by then, we stopped for every 50km, and we reached a place called wallahaja were rajjo bike started showing some sickness, and it didn't start after many trial it started again, and we moved towards krishnagiri. We stopped at krishnagiri for tea, it was 12am by then, we thought in another 1.5hr we wpuld be at house, but it didn't happen. Our great Rajaneesh bike didn't start at all, we found a local garage nearby and pushed the vehicle, and the mechanic told the engine has seized because of low oil, in Bangalore the bajaj guy had asked if he need the oil top up, but rajjo was like big NO, now we could see the effect, anyhow he told it will minimum 4hr to repair I was totally out of mood, went out with mechanic for boring the engine and he asked to come back by 5pm and we said OK, rajjo was like what to do now, I told lunch :-P we went to a hotel had nice full meals, still three more hour to be passed,
 |
| KRP Dam Park |
so I thought of going to krishnagiri dam, and we took my bike to the damand I slept in the park for almost two hours after roaming inside park here and there, it was 4.30pm by then we left the dam and slowly came to the garage which was 10km away,
 |
| Krishnagiri Dam |
by 5.30 the pulsar was ready, to add to the shock the mechanic told he cannot drive more than 40kmph, it was almost 6pm by then, I told Rajaneesh I can't wait and drive with him at 35kmph as at going to be night and I can't see much, so I let him and started towards Bangalore reached home by 7.30pm and messaged anand( Colleague ) on safe arrival, by 9.30pm I got call from rajjo that he has also reached and he then called up anand and told that both of us reached, this is were the fun began, I had informed anand that this had scenario had happened, rajjo wanted to hide the failure and told Anand not to spread with other colleagues in office about bike failure , but the secret exploded in office when anand busted the secret in font of everyone, from that day onwards rajjos bike has a unique identity in office ;-)
 |
| Total Trip Distance |
+fog+@+chandapura.jpg)
