trip to Mahabalipuram

Last weekend the three of us packed and went to Mahabalipuram, the place is known for it's ancient architecture. We kicked off at 11 in the morning(I shouldn't say this but, our day starts at this time only), went to the bus stand and boarded an ECR(East Coast Road) bus. It was a 45 minutes journey, but was pleasant, as the road was along the sea coast and I could see the vast coastline running on one side and the rocky mountains of the Eastern Ghats on the other. First saw the famous Five Rathas temple, it was built circa 600 AD and was in the shape of five rathas(chariots) in queue. It still stands strong owing to the fact that the whole piece was carved out from a single rock.

Moving ahead we went to the Light House. This place comprises of two light houses, old light house was of the same era as the temple itself whereas the new one was built in 1900 AD. Looking from the lighthouse I could see the greenish waters of Bay of Bengal. The sky was clear with some clouds and there was cool breeze flowing- the air was fresh and was smelling of the sea-I spent some time here, climbed on the rocks-biggest clusters I have ever seen-and moved down towards the coast. The sea water here was clearer than that at the Besant Nagar beach in Chennai-Mahabalipuram is a very small village as compared to others, and people here do take pride in helping to preserve this old piece of architecture-city life seems surreal in front of all these places. I went into the waters alongwith Raman, with Arun sitting on the shore and going the whole hog to click every moment with Raman's newly bought digicam-in all there were 150 photos taken in Mahabalipuram alone.

Atlast, we moved to the shore temple, it was badly hit by the Tsunami and was getting a renovation. It was built for the Pallava Kings and had of carvings of the various types of goddesses on it's walls. Last we boarded the bus for Chennai and came back. Well ...all in all it was very relaxing time and had a good time.