The year 2009 is gone. It was satisfying as far as travel is concerned. Except for one or two, all places were new to me. Not many to count but observed and learnt a lot during the course.
And all these trips were personal trips, not work related.
It was Ratnagiri and Ganapatipule to begin with. Temples, forts and beaches greeted us with stories of their own.

Then it was Bangaluru. solo trip. Somehow I felt more uncomfortable in going

Answer to last quiz was Matri Mandir or Auroville in Pondicherry. Four people could guess it correctly, two were slightly off track;  Ram was not allowed to participate and many others raised their hands up.

Matri Mandir
The winners are

Guess which place is this ? And I’ll tell you some more about it.

Note:- Ram is not allowed to participate.
Ok, I’ll moderate comments for this post.
The result will be announced after a week.

Lycee Francais at Victor Simonel Street.

It was established in 1826. This institute still imparts

Early morning, we were walking back to our hotel from Rock beach in Puducherry. Truckloads of oranges were just offloaded and I stopped to take some pictures.

It is 24 hour coffee shop on the famous Beach road. Not only coffee, the aroma of freshly baked cakes, breads, croissants, baguette, Danish will not allow you to go without tasting some.
Popular with tourists, this shop

A little background – The Romans came to Pondicherry for trade in the 1st century AD. After that Pondicherry passed hands into many dynasties of Southern India before finally the first Europeans set foot on Pondy soil in 1497 in the form of the Portuguese who set up a trading post in the 1600s.
The Danes and the Dutch followed before the French period of Pondicherry began after a scuffle with the Danes. Pondicherry was thus established as a well planned and rich capital of French colonies in India and known …