Excursion to Mahabalipuram

This Sunday I was on a business trip to Chennai. I started in early morning and it was an excellent journey by Shatabadi train. The hotel Ambassador Pallava where I checked in was a splurge and very comfortable. There we had a rest of few hours and a very delicious lunch. As we had rest of the day as leisure, I thought of visiting Mahabalipuram which is about fifty five km far only. So I booked a Tata Marina by hotel travel desk and started after one in noon. The route to Mahabalipuram is parallel to the sea shore and very picturesque. In city it goes along Marina beach and after that it goes along sea on one side and backwater on another side. I was enjoying this scenic route and got slept in between. The driver just make me awake to know that we are now going to pass Crocodile bank if we wish to have a glimpse. This crocodile bank was about fifteen km before Mahabalipuram and there were thousands of crocodiles lying inside. From there it hardly took fifteen minutes to reach Mahabalipuram.

 

Mahabalipuram, also known as Mamallapuram is the world heritage site declared by UNESCO and all its beauty is in its architecture and rock sculptures. A number of temples are made out of rocks and these were built by Pallava rulers. Major attractions of this place are Pancha Rathas and Shore temple and we visited these two. In Pancha Rathas, each of the five temples was carved out of single stone and that makes it fascinating. The shore temple is just on the beach and nice to visit. You can sit here for a long time, enjoying the cool wind and noisy waves.  There were other temples and caves which we did not visited as all are nearly same but portraying the best sculpture illustration of the history. We started back for Chennai after spending two hours to have rest before a busy next day.