Surguru - Haven for Veggies!

Surguru was one of the earliest hotels to be set up in Pondicherry. They created the first multi storey hotel in Pondy right at the heart of the town. From that day to till date, they are the preferred veggie hotel for Pondyites. Today they have started expanding and now at 4 locations within Pondy. If you are a vegetarian, definitely Surguru is the place. Some of their traditional specialities include the 3 tast uthhappam. Visited both their branches in mission st and ecr, they have an excellent ambience, good food, good service. If you are visting Manakula Vinayagar temple in the morning, best to have your breakfast in Surguru Spot which is very close by.

Rating
3.75/5

Link:

http://www.hotelsurguru.com/

Trip Advisor:

http://www.tripadvisor.in/Restaurant_Review-g659792-d1079658-Reviews-Surguru-Pondicherry_Union_Territory_of_Pondicherry.html

ChinaTown - Restaurant - Review

After weeks of planning, finally got a chance to visit the ChinaTown restaurant in Ambour Salai. Really loved the place! The ambience is excellent. Quantity and Quality for the money is good. Its neat and design of the restaurant deserves kudos! The food was OK. I had hot and sour soup chicken soup, which was excellent. If you fancy some alcohol, good news to you, they do serve beer! They do home delivery as well.

If you are planning, for a weekend stay in Pondicherry, worth a  visit. It is also close to the White Town, so one could visit the tourist attractions nearby and move in here for lunch. But the best thing would be an evening dinner after a great shower.

Rating : 3.5/5

TripAdvisor link:

http://www.tripadvisor.in/Restaurant_Review-g659792-d1974294-Reviews-China_Town-Pondicherry_Union_Territory_of_Pondicherry.html

Address

https://maps.google.co.in/maps?q=China+Town,+H.M.Kassim+Salai,+Puducherry,+Pondicherry,+605001&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oi=geospell&ct=clnk&cd=1&geocode=FVMdtgAdqyXCBA&split=0

唐人街

Pondicherry Beach - Must visit!

A visit to Pondicherry is not complete without the beach! The colonial buildings are a must watch, not many towns have retained their heritage in this part of the country as Pondicherry! Some of the notable stops in your walk along the beach is stone mountain, Kargil Memorial, French War Memorial, Light House, Gandhi Statue and Nehru Statue, Promenade Hotel, Ambedkar Mani Mandapam and finally the statue of Dupleix. Dupleix was the French Governor who established it as the center of French colonial rule in India. Recently, the  stretch behind the dupleix was opened, one can walk along the beach and reach the end of small pier. The beach front can be seen in number of movies/ads. The Tourism office is also on the beach road. They do have packages, so one can reach out to the tourism office and see if the packages fit your purpose. I recommend one exploring Pondy on their own. The beach front is crowded like hell these days. During weekends its a vehicle free zone so the entire road is available to pedestrians. Recommend taking a walk along the beach front very early morning or very late night when the crowd is gone.

One can see a chain of wooden logs in the sea, those wooden logs were part of a wooden pier sometime back. The sea has been eroding the beach front and it has come in submerging jetty and the wooden logs are the left overs. So it gives you an idea how much the sea has come in. Lot of stones are dropped regularly to check the erosion. Only Mother Nature knows whether she will give back sand to the Pondicherry Beach.

https://maps.google.co.in/maps?q=pondicherry+beach&hl=en&ll=11.93413,79.836574&spn=0.001874,0.003428&sll=13.090006,80.240537&sspn=0.238762,0.438766&hq=beach&hnear=Puducherry,+Pondicherry&t=m&fll=11.93413,79.836574&fspn=0.001874,0.003428&z=18

Tiruvandhipuram - 108 Divya Desham

Tiruvandhipuram is at a distance of 36 km from Pondicherry. It is a very special temple. Its small but very powerful. If you happen to visit the temple on any wedding dates, you wouldnt have a place to stand. The number of marriages happen in this temple is huge. If your children have marriage obstacles, pray to lord devanatha swamy here. There is also a hyagriva shrine on a small hill. Its one of the 108 divya desham. If just in case you had made prayers to do offerings in Tirupathi and couldnt go to Tirupathi, you can very well do it in Tiruvandhipuram.

Picture courtesy : Dinamalar

Link to directions to Tiruvandhipuram from Pondy:

https://maps.google.co.in/maps?saddr=Pondicherry&daddr=Thiruvandipuram+temple,+Padrikuppam,+Tamil+Nadu&hl=en&sll=11.834175,79.735805&sspn=0.239922,0.438766&geocode=FVQNtgAd3mzBBCnPz0mOq2FTOjFOsPDSJtNrzA%3BFYsZswAdfN-_BCE20O6Et4KhsSkrfbiMD6NUOjE20O6Et4KhsQ&mra=ltm&t=m&z=11

Pondicherry special adakari!

Another Puducherry Special Item on your way!

Its called adakari!

Ingredients:

Green Gram - 250 gm

Ginger Garlic paste - 2 tablespoons

Fennel Seed (Perumjeeragam) - 1 tablespoon

Crushed Onion - 2 medium size onions

Green Chilli - 4 chillies

Coriander leaves - few

Curry Leaves - few

Salt - 2 tablespoons

Steps:

- Fry the  green gram without oil in tawa 2-3 mins lightly until it becomes light golden color

- Immerse the fried green gram in water for 2 hours

- Filter out the water and grind it in mixie, until it becomes a paste. Paste should NOT be watery, it should be a tight paste. So dont put water while grinding it.

- After you get the paste, add the rest of the ingredients listed above. While adding chilli, grind it once in mixie along with ginger/garlic paste, fennel seeds an chilli together and the masala paste to the green gram paste.

-Add salt, onion to the mix

- Add curry leaves and coriander leaves

- Make this paste into small cakes , boil it in water vapour like you do for idly

- After its boiled, take it out and leave it cool down for sometime like 5-7 mins

- If needed cut the cakes into further small pieces

- Then deep fry the cakes, in 500 ml of oil until it becomes golden color

Adakari is ready!!!

Siddhars of Pondicherry - Guru Siddhananda

Pondicherry is a place of fun to many, but inherently it had been a place of salvation since ancient times. Not many people know or realize that all in all there are 30 siddhars who attained jeeva samadhi in and around Pondicherry. I seek the support and blessings of all the siddhars to help me write about them, in this blog. The first and foremost among them is Guru Siddhananda. Siddhars are not Gods. But these are people who actually lived in this world and performed miracles. Guru Siddhananada lived 175 years ago. He is said to have possessed powers to convert water to gold. But please don't go here for Gold. You land here for inner peace.

The temple is right at the entrance of Pondicherry when one comes from Chennai. The first stop (if the buses go via bye pass) is Sivaji Silai/Siddhananda koil. When one enters the temple, on the left there are two trees intermingled on to one another. One is the neem tree and the other banyan. Its very rare for these two trees intermingle and it stands testimony to divinity of the site. The trees stood the thane cyclone. There were lot of trees in the Siddhananda temple which got uprooted in the Thane cyclone but they stayed there strong. Its said that the roots of these trees actually go right below the jeeva samadhi of Guru Siddhananda.

The temple has a lingam inside the sanctum sanctorum which is on the samadhi of Guru Siddhananda. The temple has a beautiful pond (please dont pollute it, for God's sake). Since people come here in search of inner peace, there is a meditation hall in the temple. Please maintain silence and reflect on your inner self.

Poet Bharathi composed the Kuyil Pattu within the farms of this temple though a small extent of is what is left out now. He has a small statue erected in memory of him.

I could find only one picture of Guru Siddhanada over the web. Om nama sivaya!

Courtesy: Agasthiyar.org

Temples of the town - Vedhapureeswarar temple

The town of Pondicherry  is blessed with many temples. The natives built temples that stand testimony to their love of God even today. I will be writing about some of the key temples within the town of Pondicherry. Every town in Tamil Nadu will have one main temple around which the town's religious activities are centered. Sri Tirupurasundari sametha Vedhapureeswarar temple is the main temple of Pondicherry.

It is said Pondicherry was known as Vedhapuri during ancient times. It was a seat of Vedic studies and hence the name Vedhapuri. The Siva derives the name Vedhapureeswarar from the town's name. His consort is known as Thirupurasundari. Goddess Thirupurasundari is in standing position and shes quite tall and explicitly carved. Shri Vedhapureeuswarar is said to be Swaymbhu Lingam.

This temple was built during the French occupation. There used to be another ancient temple called  the "Sambha" temple. The "Sambha" temple was destroyed by the French and the natives had to carry the idols and rebuild a new temple. It is said the main Lingam of "Sambha" temple was installed in a separate shrine in the new temple, called "Bhakthapureeswarar"

Hundreds of devotees throng the temple on Pradosham, Shivarathri, Karthigai and so on. The temple has a beautiful rajagopuram more than 70 feet tall. The sculptures on the rajagopuram are intricate.

When you plan to visit Vedhapureeswarar temple, one should also visit the nearby temples in one go. Each street in this part of the town is named after one temple. The temples are Vedhapureeswar Temple, Vardaraja Perumal Temple, MuthuMarriAmman Temple and Kamatchi Amman temple. We have each one street named after each of these temples.

More detail about the temple at dinamalar site : http://temple.dinamalar.com/en/new_en.php?id=640

Picture Courtsey: Dinamalar.

More pictures at : http://temple.dinamalar.com/en/new_en.php?id=640