Where Time Takes a Break

Swathi and I went to Puducherry this weekend. Just to take a break.

Day 0

We left on Thursday night in KSRTC’s AC sleeper from Bengaluru’s Shanthinagar bus stand. It was the old white Ambari Dream Class bus. (Earlier this month when we went to Kerala, we had gotten Ambari Utsav for the first time). Since we had booked the tickets only on Tuesday, we where in the last lower row of double berths. It was nevertheless okay and Swathi went to sleep after “sternly” requesting the neighboring batch of loud college students to be silent. This time I tried sleeping on the window side to see if it improved my sleep, and it did help a bit. I did wake up when the bus stopped in Krishnagiri (and peed) and also 40 minutes before Puducherry. Since the journey duration was itself only about 6 ½ hours, basically, I didn’t get much sleep, as usual.

It was not just the bus tickets that were last minute. On Tuesday night we were planning a trip to Udagamandalam (Ooty). But we didn’t have the energy to go to a new place and so we changed the plan to Puducherry (Pondicherry) where we had already visited once in 2019 September, and I had visited with other friends in August 2014 too. We didn’t even book stay, deciding instead to just go there and figure out.

Anussha had recently gifted Swathi a backpack. Since we were on a strict break from work, neither of us needed to take laptops. So, we just packed everything in this single backpack and used tote bags for walking around. Just outside the Puducherry bus stand on Friday morning about 5:10 AM the bus dropped us. We started walking straight towards the beach. I was carrying the backpack and Swathi was feeling weird traveling without a bag.

After walking about 400 metres, we saw a bike rental shop that was already open on the left side of the road. We knew that we would need a rental scooter and decided to ask for price. They said it would be ₹400 per day, except for Vespa scooters which would be ₹500 per day. We weren’t thinking of getting a scooter right away. But it was there right in front of us. And we had maybe 2 kilometres to the beach. So we changed our mind and decided to take the scooter right away. But we were like “we will take for 3 days now and then decide on extending for another day”. So we paid ₹1,200, gave my voter ID as security, and took a Jupiter scooter. As I was about to sit on it, I noticed the right foot rest was missing. Thus we chose another scooter, this time a Fascino. One which had both footrests.

The moment we got riding, we knew that walking till the beach would have been really tiring. We filled petrol for ₹200 from the first petrol pump we saw on the way to the beach and continued.

As we crossed Anna statue, I started thinking about the governance of Puducherry and learnt that it has a chief minister who switched from Congress to NDA and also that there was (is) an attempt to get statehood for Puducherry.

By 5:45 we had reached the Promenade beach. It felt like no vehicles were entering the beach road and we also parked right at the intersection of Le Café. First we had to pee. The toilet at this intersection is very clean. (A recurring pattern of toilets in Puducherry). It was ₹10 for use. I gave the lady a ₹200 note asking for change. Since I hadn’t had time to practice my rusty Tamil, she thought I gave her a ₹20 note. At the last moment when she saw it in some faint light, she realized she couldn’t give me change. And so I paid ₹20 via GPay for both of us.

We both had a list of three things we wanted to do. Swathi’s list was:

• Eating crab from the street
• Wandering aimlessly
• Cycling

My list was:

• Visiting Promenade beach in the night
• Chicken wings from the street
• Watching sunrise

Simple humans we are.

Both of us also had decided to do digital detox.

Sophisticated humans we are.

As for digital detox, I was more prepared. The whole night I was downloading and configuring apps that would help restrict internet access to social media apps. I searched for “Firewall” in F-droid and couldn’t find my older favorites (AFWall or DroidWall). Instead I found something called Rethink DNS. I installed and configured it to only allow Firefox, and later GPay, and later Google Translate, and so on. Then I realized I should just switch the mode and block unnecessary apps. When I was doing all of this Swathi suggested why don’t I use NetGuard which I had set up for her. Turns out NetGuard was still there on F-droid it just wasn’t showing up for the “firewall” search. (AFwall too!) So I downloaded NetGuard, blocked Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram, X, and Telegram, and started digital detox. Swathi continued sending people photos, messages, etc but not work related.

Day 1

We sat on the first bench south of Le Café waiting for sunrise. It was very cloudy and there was no sun to be seen even after the rising time of 6:00 AM. The smell of breakfast from street vendors who were opening their shops on the way made us hungry.

We headed to Hotel Manoj, right next to the shelter for urban homeless, on the grand canal. There we had Idiyappam with the coconut milk, chutney, and sambar. Swathi started her practice of a language that she believes is Tamil, but is an invented mix of Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil. And I had tea. By the time we were done, Swathi figured out they had Pongal which she wanted but couldn’t eat now. So she settled herself for getting a ulundu vadai. It was ₹125 in total.

We now had to find a place to stay. So we sat on a bench on the beach, and started looking at Google Maps. After going through several candidates on the map, using reviews and photos to guide us, we started calling up and visiting places. Some were too expensive, some had suffocating rooms, some wanted us to wait till noon for check-in. And then we struck gold. There was French Rivera in White Town (FR) who were happy to let us check-in early, and also had a beautiful room on the second floor with balcony, sunlight, AC, nice mattress, geyser, WiFi and all for us at ₹2,500 each for the three nights we would stay there. We paid the ₹7,500 then and there and hit the bed by 9:45 AM, falling asleep after watching an episode of Modern Family.

We woke up around 1:30 PM and got ready to explore the town.

First, we walked to the beach which was 250 meters from FR. There Swathi spotted a churmuri van from whom she got a ₹50 churmuri bowl. We sat at the beach side bench for a few minutes eating it, and realized it was indeed very hot in Puducherry. Probably around 35°C and making us all sweaty/sticky. So we headed back to FR, took the scooter, and went to eat some lunch.

A cursory Reddit search via Google took us to Kamatchi restaurant for lunch. But it was too full with many people waiting. We walked a few feet from there and found The South Indian Kitchen (TSIK). It was also full and we had to wait. After a couple of minutes, they told us if we wanted there was space in first floor. Surprisingly, this space was better than ground floor.

We ordered Prawn Kadai Soru (₹315). (Swathi found it too spicy and too “yummy”! We would visit TSIK again on Monday to have Chicken Kadai Soru.

After lunch we decided it sit in a cafe and plan the whole itinerary because it was too much ad-hoc planning to do for everything. We looked for nearby cafes, but didn’t want to spend much on this. There was a Starbucks Coffee in walking distance. We went there and sat in the farthest seat in first floor. Many people were having meetings and doing other work. We took out our notebooks and the Reynolds Trimax refill (the two pens that I brought were in the backpack in FR). We connected to Starbucks WiFi. I then went through every thread linked in r/pondicherry wiki. Swathi found an Instagram page called @pondy_live and looked at all the listed events of September. We listed down churches, beaches, other attractions/events and restaurants that we could potentially visit. For restaurants, we also looked at the menu using Google Maps and ruled out the expensive ones.

After listing everything down, we roughly divided them into the four days on four pages. On Friday we would roam around, visit some churches, eat street food, etc. On Saturday, we would visit the beach, have food there, come back and crash, then attend Pondy Reads, and a story-telling event. On Sunday, we would do cycling and explore Heritage Town, French Colony, etc. And on Monday we would mop up things, do shopping, etc. On all days we would attempt to catch sunrise.

A lot of things went according to plan. Some new things came up.

Swathi was getting a headache by then and wanted tea inside her system. The much spoken about KBS Kofi Barr (KBSKB) was right across Starbucks. We got ourselves iced tea, chocolate bun, and coconut cakes from there (₹140). The iced tea was too sugary and I drank Swathi’s bottle too.

Just as we were done, an ultimate salesperson sold us two glass bracelets for ₹250 — A grandmother who was too cute for Swathi to resist.

Then we went to the beach and started roaming around. Every time we were in the beach, Swathi would get a bottle of raw mango for ₹30. I would take a couple of pieces mixed with the irresistible masala. Swathi would finish the rest.

We skipped Sacred Heart Church and Adisil Bay Art Gallery that we had planned. We also skipped Bread & Chocolate as it was too expensive. Instead we walked along the beach road and looked at various attractions. We started from the south end with the Marquis Dupleix statue. This is when I told Swathi about Mahe, and the Malayalam novel Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil. When we were at the Bharatratna Dr.B.R. Ambedkar Manimandapam, I noticed there’s a library there. It was 6:30 PM and the library had closed at 5 PM. But perhaps it is the Ambedkarite politics of knowledge, the people there gladly opened the door and let us inside the library.

There is a very selected collection of books here. We thanked them for letting us inside and decided to come back on Monday during the day (Sunday is holiday here). Then we moved towards South Boulevard where we knew exactly which eatery we wanted to be at.

In 2019 when we came to Puducherry, we were staying at the Aurobindo Ashram Guest House, despite their spirituality business and conservative ideology, as they were very inexpensive. In that trip we remember walking outside towards the beach and walking into a dreamy barbeque stall. It was adorned by LED light strips and smoky. We had some chicken wings there.

And so, we went directly to Bullet BBQ Ride. By now they had three people working the grill, and a dedicated person to write down orders in order. We took a combo plate this time for ₹180 which would contain a variety of chicken pieces.

On the way back to FR, we stopped at Grinde, a grocery store, and bought some shampoo sachets, a face wash, instant tea packets, and a mosquito killer liquid machine.

At FR, we made use of the bouncy mattress, and went to sleep. It rained heavily that Friday night.

Day 2

Swathi had kept alarm for 5:30 AM for all days so we could watch sunrise. I woke up quickly and looked outside our balcony of FR to see rain clouds everywhere. So we canceled the sunrise beach visit and slept some more.

The rain had flooded the passage outside and there was some water that had slipped into our room’s floor too. We decided to ask the wonderful Balakrishnan (BK) of FR to get the room dry. BK is a no-shit caretaker at FR. The moment we checked in previous day, BK had given us everything we needed without prompt. WiFi passwords, how to handle main door of the building, whom to call for any help, etc. Every time we were near BK, we would first hear “Sister!” and then spot BK. It was so nice BK would anticipate what we wanted and ask us before we even had to say anything. And so as soon as we reached ground floor, BK was asking us to hand him the key so that the room could be cleaned!

For breakfast on Saturday we wanted to revisit Crêpe In Touch, which we had been to in 2019. It had grown slightly more expensive from what we remember. We spent ₹850 on Glenan crepe (Tuna and tomatoes) and non-veg Quiche. Swathi loved the quiche.

Four our tea fix, we stopped at a nearby small, local place. They had nice pongal again, but Swathi couldn’t eat, again. And they didn’t have tea ready yet. So we walked to the other corner and drank tea and ate parippu vadai for ₹50 from Coolcat Coffee bar.

Before heading out to Eden beach, we filled ₹300 worth petrol from a nearby pump. It had filled up the tank fully and even overflowed a few millis. The lady filling asked me “are you here for 1 day or more?” I said “three days” and she was like “Okay, then you’re good”. This place revolves around rental scooters.

I discovered Eden beach in 2014, before it was even called Eden beach. In that trip, my friends and I were waiting for boating tickets at Paradise beach. There was a very long queue and it was expensive. And me being me, wanted to spend my time better. I looked at Google Maps then and found that there was a beach to the North of Paradise beach that looked very similar (in satellite view and in photos) and could be accessed without boat. The only label that stretch had back then was “Veerampattinam”. I called it “The poor man’s Paradise beach”. We went there (to what is now known as Eden beach), had some photos taken on the curved coconut trees, and had lots of fun in water, in an empty beach.

When we return in 2019, the beach had changed slightly. It had a white arch/pillar construction on it, and there were a few vendors selling seafood on the approach path. I was still calling it Veerampattinam beach (although technically it should have been called Chinnaveerampattinam beach).

But this time, it was Eden beach. It had now become a blue flag beach. And it was full of people. There were life guards. And they had restricted the swim zone with buoys. And it was very small. I am a tad bit disappointed with what happened to my precious secret, but that fades in comparison with what I can imagine how people of Puducherry must be feeling with how much Puducherry has become tourist-oriented.

Anyhow, we parked the scooter in the parking area for ₹20 at 12 noon. There were about 40 more scooters already there by then. My calf touched the silencer of the neighboring scooter and we got a cold water bottle for ₹28 to put on it. While I was applying this to my leg, we watched a few people catching fishes in the water body parallel to the beach.

We kept the tote bag on the sand and found a relatively less dense area of the swim zone to get into. The swim zone was so narrow and shallow that I hit my knee on the sand when trying to swim with the wave. I ruminated on my memories of swimming in Payyambalam beach after football, more than a decade ago, when we were literally swimming inside the swirl of the wave.

After Swathi also got tired, we got out and headed to the changing rooms. At ₹40 we both could shower and change clothes in privacy. Compare this to what people were doing in Promenade beach — holding down a bed sheet over the person who is crouched up on the sand. Perhaps this is one advantage of being “blue flag”. We had used the same changing room availability to happily swim in the sea in Kozhikode’s Kappad blue flag beach last year.

After changing into dry clothes, we walked through the coconut lane and the paved path and reached the lane of eateries parallel to beach. We went to the one at the southern tip for lunch. It was 2 PM by then. Straight off the menu we ordered squid fry, crab fry, and two plain omelettes. The squid fry and omelettes came quickly and it made great combination.

Crab fry is a story in itself. The first time I had crab in my life is in the 2019 visit at Fish Aurant Restaurant. We didn’t know how to eat crab then. Do we eat the shell or not? If we have to not eat the shell, it is quite complicated to get any flesh out. I did try eating the shell and it felt like eating egg shell. And I was scared to continue. So we asked the restaurant manager who told us we should bite into the shell and suck the juice that comes out. We did something like that then. This time when we ordered the fry, we got much smaller crabs. I did a quick search on YouTube and saw a couple of people just biting and eating the whole thing. Google also told me that for soft crabs we can eat the shell. I didn’t know whether this small crab would qualify as soft crab. So I started imitating what I saw on YouTube, biting off big parts of the body and eating most of it. When it came to legs, I did what I was doing last time, cracking it open, sucking the juice out, and then eating only the flesh. Although this was Swathi’s idea, she had very little of the crab. So I finished almost 2 ½ crabs, and Swathi about ½. Would I eat crab again? Maybe.

I finished the meal with nannaari sarbath and the whole bill was ₹430. Oh, by the way, we saw some garden lizards all around.

On the way back to the scooter, we had raw mango, lime juice, and pineapple from various shops, for about ₹80.

We reached back at FR around 3 PM and took a nap watching Modern Family. We decided to skip Pondy Reads at Bharathi Park. We weren’t even sure if it would be there.

So, around 5 PM we got out, did some more walking by the beach and then took the scooter to travel to Yaazh Theatre and Research Foundation in Villianur. It was about 9 KM away but the road was good. We got lost at the very end when we reached inside the Thattanchavadi village, hitting dead-ends and non-existent roads. So I ditched the route Google Maps suggested and went with satellite view to reach very close to the place. A random person walked up to us at that point and told “Walk into that building with blue sheet”. I knew that he knew where we were going and parked the scooter near the goats and the chickens.

As we entered the building we were hearing someone singing and people clapping to it. We saw about 30 pairs of slippers arranged neatly in front of closed doors. We were worried we were late to enter. I walked to the back of the building and then realized the event was actually happening in first floor, under a shed. So we climbed up, looking at the cows that were behind the building and entered the venue.

It was an independent artist named Ajay Nathan (YouTube) who was singing songs. We sat at the last row and enjoyed the rest of the songs. There were a very interesting mix of children, young adults, and older adults in the place. It looked like a few could be tourists like us, but most of the people appeared like they were from the same village.

After the songs, the story-telling started. It was very fast Tamil and (even) I couldn’t catch up. I used the “live translate” mode in Google Translate to get a running transcript going which both of us looked at. We knew the story was something about independence fight, caste, and a village where a military man lived. It was getting a lot difficult to follow and we decided to go back.

As we were wearing our slippers we saw the person who was introducing the speakers, etc outside. We had a quick chat with them to hear that Yaazh has been doing several events like this including theatre. We said bye and headed back.

At the intersection where the village road joined Villianur main road, there was a bakery called Barathi Bakery where we had some nice tea and masala vadai for ₹40.

As we were entering back to Puducherry town, I saw a big mall named Providence Mall on the right side. I asked Swathi to take a U-turn so that we could explore the mall. “To understand a city, we should visit the mall there”, I said. It was a regular mall with a bazaar, some phone shops, W, Soch, Aurelia, movie, food court, escalator, elevator, foot massager, mehendi, etc. We got out after a quick run through the place.

For dinner, we were at South Boulevard again. I was developing random pains in my abdomen which Swathi diagnosed as gastritis. It could also be my fear of the crab shells. Anyhow Swathi had a chocolate fruit bowl (chocolate sauce on apple, banana pieces thing) for ₹79, and then I had a chocolate sauce on brownie thing for ₹99. And then we had Quail Egg Kulfi for ₹60. Then Swathi had some chicken wings at a different shop, which was ₹60 for 3 pieces.

As I was feeling utterly confused about my stomach, we took a couple of coconut cakes and a chocolate bun from KBS for me to eat later in the night.

And then on the way back to FR, we found the Ponlait cafe right behind the beach road. We took a couple of cups of curd from there. The place right outside reminded me of the night I had with Swathi and her JNU friends outside Priya complex a couple of years ago. So we sat there and had one cup of curd.

I finished the other cup of curd and the bakery items from KBS after we reached FR. And we slept peacefully.

Day 3

Swathi woke up to the alarm and checked the skies from the balcony on Sunday. It looked like the sky was clear. I confirmed and we went to the beach. And her patience was rewarded with a good view of sunrise.

We came back to FR and got BK to make us some good tea. Later we went out to have dosas for breakfast. I swear in 2019 it was in South Boulevard that we had good dosas for breakfast. But we couldn’t find it. So we stopped at one of the couple of roadside shops we saw by Grand Canal. We had two egg dosas, and one vada for ₹87. I had tea at a nearby shop for ₹10.

We had to cancel cycle riding as it was too tiring in this weather.

We then went to Mission Street where Swathi had spotted Archies the previous day. Since she has a lot of memories about Archies from Mysore, we wanted to visit it here. As we parked, she told me to go ahead and that she’ll join me in two minutes. I knew that she had gone to pick up a rose for me. I browsed some outdated greeting cards at Archies while she joined me with a yellow rose. And then we bought a couple of small cute boxes from there.

Afterwards we went to the Puducherry Museum. The entry fee was just ₹10 each. There were some nice galleries of the history of French occupation in Puducherry, showcasing some statues, furniture, vases, etc from that time. Photography is prohibited. In another section there was a pallaquin, a push cart, and a horse cart. There was a geology section which we swished through. And there was a painting section adjacent to the main sections which was air conditioned and gave us some respite.

We had tender coconut outside for ₹60 each, and bought a couple of anklets from a street vendor there.

The weather was quite tiring, we went back to FR and took a nap. I had told Swathi when she came with the rose that I knew her so much that she could hardly surprise me. So, as I woke up, she came up with a surprise. I would get a massage from a spa she had found with good reviews. Although I keep talking about massage, I have never gotten a professional massage. I was also feeling afraid of the awkwardness. So I made a deal with her that if it was couple’s massage I would agree. Meaning Swathi would have to join too. Her original plan was to send me off and enjoy some solitude with the books she had packed. Anyhow, we decided to do the first step of entering the spa and making an enquiry.

It was 4 PM by then and we hadn’t had any lunch. So we had mutton ghee rice from Ende Nadu restaurant, a Kerala restaurant. It was unremarkable.

We then went to Hoshi Wellness, the spa that Swathi had identified, which was on the same road. Since we were only doing “the first step” of going inside the place, we had to find an excuse to get out. We just had heavy meal, so we can’t do it today. ₹6,000 + 18% GST is outside our budget. So on. For the budget, the person there told us we could get a 20% discount and it would be about ₹5,664 for a couple’s massage. We took their contact card and came out.

In the next few minutes we made up our mind that we should not chicken out of this idea. And we called up and booked an appointment. For the same day. 6:30 PM.

We had therefore some time to kill. First we had tea at KBSKB. And then we went to the Live Art Museum. It was ₹295 each for tickets. There was a section full of teddy bears dressed in various countries and states’ traditional clothes. Then there was a section of single line drawings. And then there were silicone statues of various celebrities.

And at 6 we went to the massage place. I got a Balinese massage while Swathi got a Swedish massage. It was certainly an interesting experience. And I was feeling like my back muscles were all amazing right afterwards.

After wrapping up there at 7:45 PM we went back to the beach. First Swathi had a potato twister for ₹50. This time we also discovered that next to the Ponlait Cafe, near the Jawaharlal Nehru statue, there was also a food court and crafts market.

The food court was comprised of all the stores selling the same pani puri, dahi puri, gobi fry, stuff. We came out quickly.

Then we went to the Craft Bazaar. This was an amazing place. We quickly realized this was the same place as we had noticed the other day while driving around (from the other end) and had mentally noted down to checkout later. They had all kinds of crafts, gifts, toys, purses, leather items, wooden items, so on. We spent ₹1,440 on getting gifts for everyone.

At 9:30 PM we went to Le Café, ordered some Chicken Salad, Vegan Sandwich, and Cold Coffee for ₹580 and had a chill beach side dinner. This would be the moment comparable to the breakfast moment I had at Gokarna in 2023, where everything was serene and my mind had nothing in it.

On this day we had also done some street photography like most tourists. Another unremarkable event was going to visit Adisil Bay which was supposed to have an art gallery, but it was just a restaurant with some art behind the tables. Considering how we had enough this day, we canceled the plan to go to Mel Whisk too.

Day 4

As Monday morning came in we were hoping that the crowd would be less in most places, and we were right. We had very little planned for the day. I was tired of the vacation already, but it was Swathi who had a work meeting planned from 10 AM to 11 AM.

I woke up with a stiff back as opposed to the amazing back I went to sleep with. This was surprising, but also unsurprising considering how much stress I had put on the back in the last couple of weeks.

We had egg dosa on another place by the Grand Canal for ₹80. While Swathi was in the meeting, I packed most of the things. And by 11:10 AM we checked out of FR. We gave a ₹500 tip to the amazing BK who also let us keep the backpack in his room till night.

We headed straight to the Dr BR Ambedkar library where we spent till noon, reading and photographing the cover of interesting books to read later. I was purposefully wearing the Preamble T-shirt which was noticed by A Panneerselvam of Adidravidar Confederation of Trade and Industrial Vision. We spent some time talking about his work. And then he left. Later we too left, for lunch.

It was repeat of The South Indian Kitchen, this time with Chicken Kadai Soru, at the ground floor, for ₹263. Followed this up with tea from KBSKB.

We then spent a couple of hours at Starbucks doing a meeting of Action for Equity. Since there were very few people there today, I got a cold coffee for ₹299.

Afterwards we went to KBSKB again, for hot chocolate ₹50 each.

By now we were nearing the end of the trip. The scooter had still almost half tank of fuel left. We decided to do a zig zag ride throughout Puducherry covering all the streets. It was tiring to get off and on at everything interesting, though. So as we reached mission street, we ended this by stopping at Our Lady of Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

Right opposite the cathedral there was a book store doing sales which I had eyed since a couple of days. They had a boring collection of books nobody would want to read.

And just to the North of the cathedral there was another book store called Focus. They had better books, although expensive. We bought a few more gifts from here, and some more from in front of Arulmigu Manakula Vinayagar Temple for another ₹465.

We made a final stop at KBSKB for getting some coconut cakes for Bangalore and headed to the beach one last time at 5:15 PM.

We found an empty bench to sit till the end of time. Swathi brought out a notebook from the tote bag, to capture the beach on paper, and asked me where her Trimax Refill was. I had thought it was not intended for use and had packed a regular pen in the tote bag. Not wanting to miss her painting I took the scooter and went from stationery shop to stationery shop looking for a Reynolds Trimax pen. All they had was some Rorito company’s Robomax pen which Swathi had to settle with.

After drawing the beach and making a cartoon on privatization, Swathi had another bottle of raw mango at 6:40 PM and we said goodbye to the beach.

We went back to FR to pick up our backpack and by then the bike rental folks had given us a reminder call to return the scooter. We gave the scooter back at 7:30 PM and paid the remaining ₹400.

On the way from there to bus stand, Swathi found another egg dosa place where she had her dinner. After figuring out the platform where Bengaluru bus would be at in the bus stand, we went to the nearby Green Palace hotel to wait and also have my dinner. We had mixed fried rice and curd for ₹399 there and I ate it at the slowest pace ever to stretch time till 8:45 PM.

Then we got into the KSRTC bus, again dream class, at 9:30 PM. The AC stopped working halfway into the ride, and luckily the windows could open and it converted to non-AC sleeper. Talk about failing safely!

We reached Majestic by 4:50 AM on Tuesday and took a Namma Yatri auto back home where I spent most of the day writing this blog post.

Some random observations

• There were people on bikes all over the place, continuously selling mangrove forest boating and other water rides.
• There were clean, accessible toilets everywhere! And because they’re so clean, they can be right in the middle of important places. The first toilet we went to on Friday morning, for example, was sharing a wall with a birth and death certificate office. And there was a toilet right at the entrance of food court, and in the middle of crafts bazaar. There were prominent boards pointing to toilet all across the bus stand. And so on…

Some photos from 2019 trip

A couple of photos from 2014 trip

Expenses total

Amenity	610.00
Food	5,493.00
Gifts	2,465.00
Grocery	274.00
Massage	5,664.00
Scooter	2,120.00
Stay	7,500.00
Tickets	610.00
Travel	3,881.00
Total	28,617.00