Mahabalipuram Excursion

Sunrise on the beach, ancient rock carvings, magnificent temples, beautiful artwork, seafood...and wobbly bikes. This was our weekend in Mahabaliparum, a world heritage site known as an ancient capital and seaport of the Pallava kings of the 7th century. Here, we can meet visitors from all over the world and all over India.

Our excursion began with a train ride to Chennai, where we jumped onto a moving train and packed ourselves into a crowded car. For the next 2 and a half hours, we stood in a narrow walkway (as there was no room to sit on the ground) balancing our bags on our feet, trying not to fall over from the pushing, and trying to ignore the intermittent whiff of various foul odors. Fortunately, at times, we were able inch close to the train to some scenery and breeze. Arriving in a state of exhaustion, we spent the night in Chennai where we would hunt down my luggage at the airport! It is so nice to finally be with luggage...although it really wasn't that difficult without, thanks to great travel buddies.

We then took a bus to Mahabaliparum (it sounds like one giant syllable when the natives say it). By the way, we have yet to take a taxi or private car...we decided to do everything Indian style and use the public transportation system. The scenery in Mahabalipuram lacks the rush, traffic, and crowds that we've gotten somewhat used to. Instead of nonstop honking, we hear the shopowners who are sitting outside the shops calling "hello!" at each foreigner that passed, and displaying their best items. Once the foreigner was attracted into the shops that held the eye candies of scarves, jewelry, intricate sculptures, they rarely left empty handed.

After around 5 hours of sleep, we arose to catch the sun rising over the Bay of Bengal. We arrived at the beach at 615, thinking that we had missed the sunrise, only to discover a faint red circle hovering through a thick layer of ocean mist. It was the sun...so subtle and mysterious! We ended up taking pictures of the beautiful scene with several curious families of Indian tourists from Calcutta...without cameras of their own, they chattered excitedly as we snapped pictures and showed it to them.

The rest of our excursion was spent biking from one attraction to another--from the Butter Ball, a giant round rock that looked like a cocoa puff balanced mysteriously on a hillside, to the Five Rathas, a site of intricate rock temples and figures, to the beautiful seaside shore temple dedicated to the Hindu diety Vishnu. The day ended as we balanced a watermelon on our bikes and painstakingly pedaled it to our hotel. We carried this watermelon on our journey all the way back to Vellore, and preserved it on our move to the CMC college dormitory. Want to know how to transform an ordinary watermelon into one that is unsurpassed in taste? Buy it in Mahalabalipuram, carry it for 300 miles and for 2 days, only to discover there is a watermelon stand next to your new dorm in Vellore.