Hi, let me introduce myself - I am Preethi -Keerthi's sister. Keerthi has most graciously let me use her blog to chronicle some of my travels. While cooking appeals to Keerthi, travelling appeals to me.This is my first attempt at
blogging, so bear with my discoveries.
One of my favourite hobbies is travelling. Lucky for me my husband M
is also into travelling and our dream is to be able to visit all the
continents. While our travel list is very long and money very short for the kind
we want to do, we also realized that there is so much to discover in India . Now that
we live in the US , we miss
travelling within India and
enjoying the earthiness that India
has to offer. I am sure many of you will remember growing up in India and being
dragged to many temples in the name of vacation. While I resented it quite a
bit while I was growing up, even though it was mentioned many times to me that
this was the route to salvation, I wish I had captured and jotted down the many
places that I visited with my family growing up. Those were not the days of
digital camera and so pictures were expensive to process. I still remember this
fabulous vacation we took with my favourite Chitti (mother’s younger sister)
and Chittappa. We covered all the wonderful places – Kashmir, Delhi ,
Agra . While we
posed in the Mughal Gardens, stood with Taj in the background, rode the pony to
Gulmarg and Pehalgam and photographed the many monuments of Delhi and came home eagerly expecting to see the
pictures – my chitti called back on her return to tell us that Chittappa had
forgotten to load film in the camera and we were only clicking away an empty
one !
So to liven things up – I will
continue posting a travel series, alternate between posting places in the US that we have visited and places in India .
The thoughts of actually blogging have entered my mind only in the last year or
so – with that in mind, the quality of pictures has improved over the last
year, the ones before might be a bit hazy.
Being from Madras
(for us old timers, it is hard to say Chennai), I had to dedicate the first
post to one of the most visited destinations from Madras – Mahabalipuram.
Mahabalipuram is at a distance of
60 km from Madras .
It can be reached by road in about 1 ½ hours depending on traffic. There are
resorts in the area where you can stay if you wish to – overnight. We spent
about a day and half at this place. Left after breakfast from Madras and reached Mahabalipuram around lunch
time. Located on the sea shore – it shows us the exquisite craftsmanship of the
wonderful artisans of the Pallava era. There is a lot that has been written
about this place on the internet– so I do not want to add any more.
We made a trip to this location
with my dear sister K and her family in 2008 (yes, it a little bit dated, but
things have not changed at Mahabalipuram in the last 1400 years!)
There are various locations to
visit.
The Shore Temple – our resort was just outside the shore
temple on the sea coast and we walked across to the Shore Temple
after our morning cup of coffee. It was an amazing sight seeing it rise so
majestically out of the ocean. Cannot believe that this monument is from the
700 A.D. Wow ! It was a great place to visit in the morning with no bus crowds.
The Five Rathas –
Chariot temples dating back to the 7th century again. These are
large structures in stone – amazing architecture. Apologies – only two pictures
available here, the other ones with the large nandi and elephant had pictures
of V and R that I did not want to post.
Arjuna’s Penance – a giant bas relief that contains many detailed
carvings including two large elephants which are popularly associated with
Mahabalipuram.
This is a picture of a mural
inside Arjuna’s Penance.
Finally Krishna ’s
Butterball – A giant rock that precariously sits defying all odds. You wonder
if it is going to fall anytime now, but it has not fallen as far as I know in
the last 20 years….
Finally, here is a picture of a ride that we
took on the residential bullock cart at our resort. The kids loved it.
We found the shopping around to
be a bit expensive as there are many foreign visitors who make a visit to
Mahabalipuram. The shop keepers did not budge on their prices and eventually my
sister and I gave up and moved on.
There are a couple of places to
eat other than the resorts – but being so long ago and not writing information
down, I do not have that information with me.
I hope I have inspired your to
visit Mahabalipuram if you have not. If you have – I hope this will make you
visit again.