Pondicherry on Two Wheels!!

Sanket: Hey, April 3^rd-4^th-5^th is a long weekend. Wanna head out somewhere?

Me: Hmm…. Pondicherry?

Sanket: By bike?

Me: It’ll be hot.

Sanket: We’ll have to start very early.

Friday the 3^rd of April, 3.30 AM. The time when our cellphones whined out simultaneously and made me whimper out of the bed, my mind begging all the time for some more time in the bed. Sense of déjà vu, right? Well not for Sanket, who was literally hopping from foot to foot to be ready and out on his “Dark Knight”.

Let me introduce you to the Dark Knight – the Harley-Davidson Iron 883 from. In matt black. It’s with us since November 3. And Sanket just loves even a semblance of a chance to take it out roaring on the roads. This should explain the enthusiasm even at 3.30 AM.

We set out by 4.45 AM and were provided lovely company by Sakti and Gitanjali, on their Honda CBR 150R. The first leg was hard on me as I struggled to keep my eyes open. It was finally the breakfast at Vellore that really awaken me. (P.S. Vellore is about 200 km, i.e. three and a half hours, from Bangalore). After Vellore the road shifts from the wide expansive national highway to the single lane state highway, where you need to drive with your eyes truly wide open. We were hindered by our faulty saddle bags a little before Vandavasi. The place where we stopped had poultry farms on both sides of the road. Sanket and Sakti got busy fastening the saddle bags, one of whose zips had come out. I got busy looking for a rope. Gitanjali found a tamarind tree and plucked some tamarind for us. We instantly started enjoying the ripe tamarind forgetting about the rest. Not to forget the supporting role she played in the repair drama, lending a helping hand all the while enjoying the fruits of her labour! Two layers of Velcro tape was what it took to hold the errant bags in place at least till our destination.

The state highway finally gives way to the national highway in Tindivanam, about 40 km from Pondicherry, which is where we took our next break. We were offered water by a generous nursery keeper. I believe his generousity had been triggered by our now red faces! We also enjoyed a cool drinks break courtesy a Mausambi juice seller, in Tindivanam, who hails from Kanpur. You see, we don’t get to hear such good Hindi around here. By the time we were done, a throng of curious onlookers had gathered around our bikes. Here onwards as we breezed along the highway, we could notice the definite dip in temperature owing to the sea breeze. This is where we touched the highest in speedo, 140 KMPH for a short while as Sakti is fast disappearing on the rear view mirrors.

We arrived in Pondicherry at 1.30 PM, bogged down by the unexpected setback. I must say, sea breeze is a moderating factor. The heat that was consuming us throughout the journey had vanished here. Even at 1.30 PM, we could go out in the streets, strolling and looking for a restaurant. After reaching our hotel and parking our bikes that is. A sumptuous meal later, we came back to the hotel for a nap. 

You see we had managed with only 4 hours of sleep the last night. The evening was well spent walking up and down the length of the Promenade beach. And the night was well spent, learning the tricks of playing cards. Sanket and Sakti, having had years of experience in this matter (thanks to their college days) came up trumps each time. It helped to have them pitted against each other rather than with each other.

The Paradise beach needs one full day to be enjoyed, which is where we set out for the next day. All of us were at our beachy best: Gitanjali flaunting her cute owl tattoo, Sakti in his happy shorts, Sanket with his loafers and me in my skirt-pants. We were amply warned about getting tanned, and so we buried ourselves in about a ton of sunblock. But water does not care for sunblock. It washes off any amount of sunblock, and any worry about tan. We splashed around, we frolicked about, we ingested a good amount of saline water and basically looked for the silliest reason to stay longer in the water. One of them was laughing at a guy who had lost his KOOL shades to the sea (K intended). Four hours and a drag-by-the-ears warning later, we crawled out of the water. Thankfully the beach has bath areas where you can change into dry clothes.

 

The lunch that followed was another fun time, with a baby girl taking up our attention. There was a lunar eclipse that evening and we got a spectacular view of the red moon beside Mr. Dupleix statue. That day we also discovered how bustling the Promenade beach is in the night. Since all vehicles are prohibited from entering the beach road after 6, you can see many children skating or riding their bicycles or running around carefree. The hawkers have also been moved away from the beach road thus rendering it clean.

On the day of our departure, Sanket was extra cautious about the saddle bags and had tied it securely in multiple layers of rope. For breakfast, we went to our favourite joint: The Baker Street. The place boasts of authentic French bakery items like quiche, lasagna, croissants and eclairs. This time being a bike trip we could not take any items back home. But we ate to our hearts’ and tummies’ content savouring every dish served to us. We started for our return journey at 10.30.

It was getting increasingly difficult to resist the heat and somewhere near Arcot I forced my rider to take a break. We stopped near a sugarcane farm beside a few cud chewing bovine hosts (A group of Cows J ). The watch dogs of the farm got jealous of our company and started charging towards us. Luckily the owner tamed them away from us and locked them in. Gitanjali again started looking for some more tamarind. Lo and behold!! We were standing under a tamarind tree. We plucked out all the tamarind within our reach, correction, within Sanket’s reach.

The heat was searing by the time we reached Vellore at 2PM, where we were joined by one of my Devars: Richie. In his words, “Vellore is closer to the sun than rest of the earth”. We were forced to stop over for an extended lunch in air conditioning. Ultimately it was only when the hotel staff switched off the AC that we were forced to move out! We scooted into CCD where we demanded the AC cooling to be increased. This place we stayed put till 4.30 PM.

We then started out together but some place in the highway, our bikes got separated. It was only near Shoolagiri where we met again. Here we decided to split up and head home directly. It had taken us three hours to reach Electronic City from Vellore (around 200 kms) and one hour to Sarjapur road (around 10 kms). In the end the CBR came up trumps against the Harley because of the scheming Bangalore traffic that throws the best of machines out of gear!