Day 23: Bengaluru to Mahabalipuram

Back on the Road

After a few restful days in Bengaluru, the road called again.

I left the city around 6:15 am, hoping to stay ahead of the traffic that builds quickly after sunrise. The timing worked well. Within twenty minutes I was already on the highway.

The morning sky was clear and the sun was just beginning to rise. For a while the road stayed quiet, making the early start worthwhile.

The route passed close to Kolar Gold Fields, KGF, reminding instatntly of the famous movie. Entered a stretch of Andhra Pradesh just a little later, the Chittoor district, before crossing into Tamil Nadu. The landscape was mostly dry and flat, the sky wide and already bright.

Breakfast on Wheels

What the road offered instead of scenery was something better. Since this was an early start, the breakfast was missed and hunger was showing up now. Looking around, there were no restaurants in sight, at least on the stretch or side of the road I was on in Chittoor. However, what was noticeable were food trucks lining the road early morning instead of the dhabas and highway restaurants that line most national highways. Small setups, a few plastic tables beside each one, lined every few hundred metres along the road. Idli, sambhar, vada, dosa, coffee, tea. The kind of breakfast that this part of the country has been making the same way for a long time.

Private cars and long-haul trucks were pulled up at them in equal numbers. No hierarchy at the tables.

Stopped at one. Three idlis, two vadas, a cup of tea. And the bill - just Sixty rupees. In hindsight, it was one of the best meal of the entire south India leg of the trip and one of the cheapest on the whole journey. Upon enquiry with the vendor got to know that these food trucks were a kind of speciality of this region.

By now it was mid-March and the summer had begun to announce itself. Starting early had helped avoid the traffic, but the sun slowly creeping through the car window made its presence felt. A little tanning came along with the drive.

Stopped once more for tea before continuing the drive, reaching Mahabalipuram around 2:15 PM.

One of a shorter drive of the journey, it passed through the famed East Coast Road, ECR as it's called. Like many other roads along the way till now, this stretch was also under widening efforts and hence, didn't provide the view of sea as I had read and seen in some videos. A little miss however, absence of any traffic made the drive peaceful and helped reaching in time for local exploration.  

The Homestay in the Fisherman Colony

The homestay I had booked looked inexpensive while making the reservation. Had called the owner and negotiated a good price. The reason became clear soon after arriving - its location, inside the fisherman colony, about a kilometre from the famous Shore Temple and the main monument sites. A couple from Nepal were managing it. Clean, simple, and honest about what it was.

Had lunch at the restaurant directly across the lane. It was empty on a weekday afternoon. The owner mentioned it fills completely on weekends by the crowd coming from Chennai and nearby areas.

Rested for a while, then headed out for the evening.

The Monuments at Evening

Mahabalipuram is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Coromandel Coast. The monuments here, carved in the 7th and 8th centuries under the Pallava dynasty, include the Shore Temple, Arjuna's Penance, the Pancha Rathas, and Krishna's Butter Ball. They are spread across a compact area, within walking distance of each other.

Hired a local guide for the visit. The right decision given the history of these monuments, which survived largely because this part of the coast was never reached by the waves of northern invaders that destroyed so many comparable sites elsewhere in North India, is not something the signboards convey fully. The guide did.

The carvings are precise and unhurried, the kind of work that assumes centuries rather than deadlines. After weeks of visiting temples and caves across the country, Mahabalipuram felt like a continuation of the same conversation, just conducted in a different dialect of stone. The evening light added another dimension to the stone surfaces. Shadows deepened the carvings and the temple by the sea stood quietly against the horizon.

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Dinner by the Sea

Had dinner at a restaurant nearby, well managed, good ambience, friendly staff. Back at the homestay and in bed early.

After the meal, the town had already begun to quiet down for the night. Drove back to the homestay. Another day on the road had come to an end.

The guide before leaving had mentioned one thing worth acting on: the morning light at the Shore Temple falls directly on the eastern entrance, lighting the idols from inside.

Come at dawn, he said.