Mahabalipuram Tour

I wrote about my journey to Kalpakkam in my last post. In Kalpakkam, I stayed at my friend’s house. There, we all planned to visit Mahabalipuram the next day evening. We started off at 4 pm in Rahul’s cars from his house. We were 4 (me, rahul, Chandra and srinu) in number, all in our three-fourths(bermudas). Finally we left Anupuram and headed towards Mahabalipuram. Here I should mention about Rahul’s driving which was really good or rather better than what I expected. We went through the road called ECR. I earlier read somewhere on the internet that this specific road is best for nature buffs. Well as we went through the road, it proved itself. Again prior to my Mahabalipuram trip it rained heavily in Anupuram at around 3pm. So the weather was nice with slight sunlight. “This had to be an ultimate visit” I mumbled to myself. The cool breeze made my creative self to come out and started finding words to describe the nature. This is the essence of nature.
We reached Mahabalipuram. I could hear the roars of the waves at the beach. Mahabalipuram was famous for its Shore temple. If we go a bit factual this place is listed on the world heritage sites being famous for monolithic stone temples. We walked into the Shore temple premises. I was amazed to see such a historic temple standing just beside the sea. It is said that there were 7 temples like the one standing now but all got submerged into the sea some centuries back. . I would like to bring to your notice that this place was also one of the places seriously affected during the Tsunami which hit Tamil Nadu. Tsunami caused the dislocation of some of the temple parts which were later brought into their places when found. The temple was completely carved out of only one stone and so is called ‘Monolithic’. Such a standing beauty beside the sea mesmerized me. We went into the temple and found that it was under renovation and anyways our purpose of visit was served. I did some photography of the temple and then went to the beach. There was a huge rush of the people there. The beauty of the beach was so ravishing that it could spellbind anyone. We walked along the shore with waves hitting our feet only. We enjoyed that. Now we moved back to our car while on the way I saw some shops which sold bangles, bags, wrist bands...Our next destination was Arjuna’s Penace and the Lighthouse. By the time we reached there, we found that the gate was closed. On enquiry with the local people, we got to know that we could jump over the fence and go inside. We tried and went inside. Here, I saw a stone…no…no, a boulder which was standing still on a slippery rock and I was told that many body-builders from across the country were called to destabilize the rock but none could do that. Even the mighty Tsunami couldn’t do any harm to that. That was the history of that ‘Boulder’. Now we went to the lighthouse where we saw how the lighthouse in olden days used to be with a contrasting modern one beside it only. All along the path I could see caves and ‘Mantralayas’ which were used in the olden days. Then we headed to a Venkateswara temple nearby as it was Saturday. We visited the temple and went back to our den by 8.30pm.

Now that was a truly memorable evening. The most unforgettable part was the beach which has always been the most satisfying spot of enjoyment for me. This place specially the beach and the caves gave me an idea of writing a book on my tour to Tamil Nadu but then it sparkled to me that people may misinterpret that book as a tourist guide and would only abuse me if they find this kind of description. So, I immediately dropped that idea and thought of writing this post on my blog. I would like to thank Rahul, his bro and his friend Srinu for such a wonderful evening.