I recently visited some friends and relatives in Pune. This was my second visit in the recent past and i must admit that i loved it.
The thing that i like most about Pune is its Food. There are several quality restaurants around that offer great food at a good price. Restaurants are also much cleaner than what you would find anywhere else in India. There’s only one catch. You have to be patient. Because it could take several minutes (or in rare cases hours) to get you a seat. Restaurants are always flooded with customers.
Pune is famous for ‘Puneri Patya’. For people who dont know what a Puneri pati is, its a notice/sign/advertisement board, with humour hidden behind it. I got a chance to capture a couple of them.You can find an extensive collection here.
Pune is also famous for its Rickshaw drivers. They are known to take visitors for a ride (literally, by following the longest possible route). Fortunately, i did not get to experience this. Rickshaw meters in Pune work on a slightly complicated logic. You have to multiply the meter count by 6 and then add 2 to it to get the amount payable.
Another thing thats unique to Pune is its traffic. You would find a lot many 2-wheelers in Pune than in any other city. This creates lots of traffic jams. I have seen 2-wheelers finding their way on the pedestrian footpath during one such traffic jam. I have seen them driving the vehicle on wrong side of the road to avoid taking a u-turn on a 2-way divided street.