Srivatsa took the initiative and booked the 3 families in Zest Big Beach resort , a mahindra resort a good 14 km away from Pondi. The booking was done a month in advance and considering that we had booked right on the christmas time , the rate was on the higher side expectedly.
we started off at early morning 5:30 am on 26'th Dec 2009 from Bangalore. It's the first time that i have gotten up so early for a trip :-) The plan was to reach the destination via krishnagiri - tiruvannamalai - tindivanam - pondicherry. This is the shortest path any given day to Pondi.
we reached Krishnagiri around 7 am . we first get a toll booth and we have to shell out 25/- Rs . The road from Bangalore to Krishnagiri is a super road , so no problemo at all . This road actually continues to Madurai and then on to Kanyakumari. At krishnagiri , after the toll booth , you will see signs to take left for vellore/chennai. Take this left . Just some distance afterwards , we have to take a right to take the road to Tiruvannamalai. Don't miss this right , else you will continue to Vellore !
Now , this is indeed a wretched road and after some distance you will begin seeing fantastic deep potholes . All my video game playing skills came in quite handy here . If you have played Need-for-speed car racing games , the skill will not go a waste here. It's a thrill ride - overtaking slow-coaches while both you and they are negotiating potholes is a lifetime experience . "These stunts are performed by experts ..." - haven't i heard that somewhere ?
The other most important thing - You won't get a single eating joint of repute on this route . we missed having our breakfast at A2B before we hit Krishnagiri and we had to make wait until we just about reached Tiruvanamalai - we ended up having a bad breakfast at a place called Aruna Anantha. The time - 9 :30 am . My advice : Don't have breakfast here.
Tiruvanamalai is a quaint old town - Not a single board has anything but Tamil - No english anywhere ! . The good part is that people are very helpful giving directions. They have made one-ways everywhere , so we really had to keep asking to get out of this town.A piece of advice : It's better to ask directions to rikshawallas , if you can get one close to where you are stuck. we have to go through the busy town streets - can't avoid this. On the way we got the gigantic temple with a gigantic gopuram.
Fortunately , the road from Tiruvanamalai to Tindivanam is having very very few potholes - in fact we can cover this distance in 1:30 hours in good speed . En-route , we passed by the fantastic Gingee fort on a steep hill .
Tindivanam is another dusty town in which we have to keep asking and going through the busy town streets , climb up the fly-over and keep going straight ( In fact on the fly-over we get this funny looking sign showing a cross mark on a right arrow ) . After we keep going , we end up getting this under-construction fast highway which is a straight road till Pondicherry.
The zest Big Beach resort is another 30-45 minutes from pondicherry , on the cuddalore road. You will get the sign after you cross the chunambar bridge.
The rooms in the resort don't overlook the sea - one disadvantage. However , the rest of the resort makes up for this . we checked into a very decent room - by far the best minimalistic room design i have seen. It's got very simple cemented finish , just about perfect. A view of the outside of the room is below :
The resort's got a lot of things to do. It's got a good garden at the centre , a good swimming pool next to it , good activity centres , bicycles and most importantly a walkway that leads you to the beach.
The beach is the best thing at this resort ! They regularly clean their part of the beach ( though it's not really a private beach ) as well as have a security guard. I didn't see any baywatch style guards , but i am not really the kind that ventures too deep anyway ! The resort also houses a good kitchen - their breakfast spread is really good , the lunch/dinner is quite descent too.
I took a good nap that afternoon after the hectic drive and headed out to the beach in the evening.
The kids enjoyed by building idols near the beach , getting wet with the superb waves and then having a dip in the excellent pool .
Niharika turned 6 that day , so in the evening we celebrated the ocassion by candles and pastries. The resort had hosted a MC who conducted a lot of games and Niharika ended up winning a musical chair kind of a game by playing very intelligently - way to go gal ! The events were followed by a Rock-show by the band Molotov Cocktail . They were way too professional and it seemed that they didn't have the right crowd to reciprocate that ! I am really kicked now to go to another Rock concert after watching their performance !
Srivatsa in the backdrop of the lighting in the resort :
Now to the best part - The "spirits" come very cheap at Pondicherry . With my troubled nose and throat , i tried out a good blend of brandy,honey and pepper and it did wonders ! I also tried out Bloody mary and finally a bacardy . I was wondering whether a heady mix of 3 varieties would cause a great churning inside , but surprisingly my body took this quite well. The spirits tend to take me to high spirits - so I don't remember what i ate after that , but i took a good night's rest after that.
The next day morning we woke up early and headed to the beach again . A magnificient sunrise view and a long walk along the clean beach bending once in a while to collect great sea shells - it's indeed a very serene experience.
Followed it up with a good breakfast and everyone had yet another tryst with the waves followed agajn by a dip in the pool . Have good calories and burn good calories , the "resort routine" !
The kids are giving a lazy pose on the pool recliners ...
we decided to have a quick trip to Pondicherry town . we visited the Aurobindo Memorial which had a fast moving , but a big queue to pay homage to Aurobindo and i saw quite a few people deeply bent / meditating over the memorial inside - it's almost as though they were being sucked by some energy - kind of eerie . Absolute silence is required here , tough to manage with kids. After this , we walked by the beach road - it's too crowded for comfort on weekends - and there's nothing else to be really done here. we hurried back to the resort, since that was much more enjoyable.
we returned back to Bangalore the next day morning .
It was good fun - probably being together with more family members made the resort experience more fun than it would have been otherwise. I didn't really see much of Pondicherry , but then i felt there isn't much really anyway for my taste .
I would recommend folks to visit the Gingee fort and the temple on the way back which we couldn't . Well , there's always a next time - isn't it ?
