After two days of hectic sightseeing and struggling with the heat in South India, we decided to leave our final half day to slow down the pace and catch up on one remaining visit in Mahabalipuram and another on the way to Chennai.
Cintra and I began our morning with a walk to the beach close to the residence. We had seen the Indian ocean and now we would step into it for the first time. It was a most pleasant experience and the beach was almost totally vacant and clean. It was far too deep and dangerous for swimming, so we enjoyed walking and taking pictures.
We drove into town and had breakfast and then dropped Arul and Sel at the bus station so they could return to Chennai to work.
With another beautiful sunny morning, we decided to return to Mahabalipuram on the Bay of Bengal, to view the stone monuments. As we entered the site, I was amazed at a huge monument with detailed carvings of a variety of images from Hindu mythology.
Soon we found another and another with mind boggling carving in the rocks of similar images and stories. These monuments, like the Shore Temple and a Five Rathas, were built in the 7th and 8th centuries by the Pallava kings. These made for a most memorable adventure.
We ended up, not by design, in a lighthouse museum. An old lighthouse is the centre piece of this stone park and the museum displayed rare examples of lamps and other gadgets and equipment used in Indian lighthouses.
Mahabalipuram is also well-known for exquisite granite sculptures of Indian deities. Many Indian villages have street side merchants of these intricately carved pieces of everything from pocket size to sculptures of more than a ton, all using the Pallava styles.
The heat was beginning to get to Cintra and me, so we joined Mathias and Sujatha and the driver on a return journey to Chennai. The one major attraction that was left on the return journey was a crocodile park, more accurately known as the Madras Bank Trust and Centre for Herptology.
Normally, I would avoid sites like this as a tourist trap. But so far nothing in India felt like displays simply to lure unsuspecting travelers. I did enter the park with some skepticism and inside was awed by the collection of live crocodiles, alligators, caimans, along with an assortment of snakes, turtles and birds.
The park covers over eight acres and includes 2400 crocodiles. Inside the park we wandered from enclosure to enclosure admiring the many kinds of crocodiles. They mostly were lying motionless like statues in the sun or fully or partly in the water.
Then once in a while one would stir or move a few feet. After it began to feel like more of the same, a young man who seemed to be a worker on the site commented that we were missing the star of the collection. His comment caught our attention and before we knew it, we had the most interesting and informative guided tour of the displays that we could every imagine. This became one of the highlights of our trip so far.
We ended our visit and moved on until it was time for lunch. We stopped at Sangeetha's once more and then returned to Chennai. As we arrived in the city we made a short stop at the Cholamandal Artists Village, which includes an art gallery and a commune of 30 resident artists. This is the largest artist commune in India and reputed to include some of the best post war art in India.
Our timing would not allow us to see the artists at work, so that may be done another day.
It was again time to maneuver through the famous Indian city traffic as we made our way home.
We hope to spend the remaining days in Chennai taking in some other local attractions. Stay tuned and feel free to share with family members and friends.
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