Day 27: Chennai & Mamallapuram

We arrived in Chennai station on time and a little sore from the hard sleeper bunks.

Chennai railway station

Babu was there to meet us with the bus. We breakfasted at a South Indian restaurant which had branches around the world including in Malaysia and London. The onion dosa was delicious. I still had not seen roti canai or paratha in India yet.

Onion dosa

We drove through Chennai along wide straight roads with street lights all along. There was a beach, the world's 2nd largest. It was early so the beach was still quiet. But it was already dirty with rubbish scattered everywhere. Chennai was the headquarters of the British administration at one point. There were many large colonial style buildings. There were also many universities including the first one for women, Queen Mary.

We arrived in Mamallapuram before 10am. We'll be staying as the Mamalla Heritage hotel for the next 2 nights, our first 2-nighter in a week where we have enough time to do hotel laundry. First thing I did was sort out my clothes for laundry. This was followed by a swim in the very nice hotel pool with Lex and Stine. There was a shower room and no staring boys.

We have no programme for the rest of the day. Lunch was a very good vegetarian thali at the hotel.

Very good vegetarian thali at the Mamalla Heritage Hotel

We went for a walk along the beach looking out onto the Bay of Bengal. The waves were high and the water silty and sandy. There were a number of beachside restaurants and we had fresh lime soda. I've been having a lot of fresh lime sodas and they are good.

Beach at Mamallapuram

Dinner was at l'attitude, a newly opened posh restaurant with impeccable service. It's owned and run by Indian-Canadians. The fish starters were delicious and I enjoyed the spicy chicken drumsticks. But there was little choice for a vegetarian in the Rs600 fixed menu.