Clothes...I-pod...Guitar...we were geared up to have an adventurous trip altogether. Located around 60Km from Adayar, Mahabalipuram is hardly a 1hr drive requiring no breaks in between. For those who prefer to have the cool breeze blowing on your face while you’re on a really fast ride alongside the beach, I’d recommend that you take the East Coast Road, visa vie ECR. The other alternate road, Old Mahabalipuram Road (mostly called OMR) is good for those who prefer a relaxed ride along side most of Chennai latest IT firms and Luxury Apartments. For those who don’t know yet, Hiranandani has started construction work in Chennai and finally we have some apartments of international quality coming up hardly 10Km from Sholinganallur. Inspite of the so called good weather here, having a beer or 2 during a long drive helps keep your head cool.
Once arrived, we unpacked at this Hotel Sunrise, which belongs to a friend of mine. Equipped with comfortable AC rooms and very personal room service this place is definitely worth 1k for 24hrs stay. Also includes a roof top bar, which serves excellent Kalimiri (local name for squids), Fried Sharks, prawns and many more delicacies from the Bay of Bengal. After a quick change of attire, we moved on to the beach and sat down at one of the beer bars located there. We treated ourselves to some real good fried Pomfret. Amazing part was the fish was whole, but the scales were scrapped off & some real spicy masala was added to it through carefully cut slits.
Soon after, we went walking on the bazaar road. I grabbed a marble ‘Chillam’ (Indian name for smoking pipe generally used for pot…!) shaped like a king cobra for Rs.200. Bought two silver rings, both with multiple concentric rings, of bronze to give the ‘witchy look’. Also got myself around 5 or 6 marble pendants, all custom shaped into different symbols. We soon headed back to Hotel Sunrise to finish up with some real good food, tastefully accompanied by some house music. Not sure if I should be writing this part, but to be frank, I was quite drunk by 01.00Hrs and have no idea how I got to the bed at night.
The second day, as per 'The plan', we went sight seeing and for some window shopping. Some of the must see places here are Shore Temple, Arjuna’s Penance (described in Mahabharata) , five Rathas (all carved out of a single rock of granite), Lion Pillars (pillars within caves), Mahishasuramarthini cave temple (pretty long name…lolz). Some of the caves and other architectures date back as far as 700 A.D and shows the predominant Dravidian art work of those times. Piece of advice to everyone, sight seeing here (especially since it involved climbing mountains and crawling through valleys) was really one of the most tiring experiences that I’ve had. But the look and feel of the experience is really worth it all. Besides im sure it’ll help us all loose a few pounds too…! I incidentally found that Mahabalipuram is also known for its many orphanages which often invite tourists to visit them and donate.
After quite an exasperating journey, we pushed off for Chennai early evening itself, only cause I had booked tickets for ‘The Hangover’ at Sathyam. No surprise, me and my roomie were in quite a hangover, when we reached the movie hall. Movie however, was really good and we really didn’t mind sitting through it inspite of the tiredness. All those who happen to stumble down to TamilNadu, do make a trip to Mahabalipuram, for it definitely speaks volumes of a forgotten history and culture. Besides Mahabalipuram is also one of the ‘World Heritage Sites’ in India and from my end I'd rate it a 5 out of 5 for a short vacation.
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