Though not the perfect time, we decided to explore Chennai & neighbouring places. So, places were searched from Google, wiki, and many other blogs and finally few of the hand picked ones were selected. The hand picked one included few places from Chennai, Mahabalipuram & Puducherry(Pondicherry). Since our journey started from Bangalore, the plan was to leave Bangalore by Friday early morning. Visit Pulicat Bird Sanctuary, and later stay in Chennai. The next day, it was planned to visit the sight-seeing places in and around Chennai & by afternoon leave to Mahabalipuram, and visit the few prominent places there .The stay for second day wasn't decided and we were hopeful of travelling to Pondicherry for stay.The third day, was to explore Pondy and return to Bangalore by night !
Day 1 : Pulicat & Chennai :
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| A flamingo bird model at entrance of Pulicat Bird Santuary |
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| Pulicat Bird sanctuary snaps |
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| Time to catch some fish !! A stork searching for some fish in nearby lake . |
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| A stork all set to fly in the air ! |
The pulicat bird sanctuary comes on the way to Satish Dhavan Space Centre, Shriharikota. In fact, the space centre is just 6km from the Bird sanctuary. As it was close by, we decided to visit it. Since it was a restricted area, we had to get permission for entering and also, mobile phones, cameras werent allowed inside the space centre.
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| A demo PSLV launch vehicle at Satish Dhawan Space Centre |
Then we headed to the Nelapattu bird sanctuary. This one is quite away from the main East Coast Road, and the roads from the ECR to the sanctuary arent pretty good. After paying an entrance ticket of Rs 2/ person, Rs 50 for car & Rs 50 for camera, we entered the sanctuary. It was annoying to see that the person entrance ticket was much less than that of the car & camera tickets. Even this one had a information centre, pretty similar to the one in Pulicat. But this one had many birds than Pulicat. The Nelapattu bird Sanctuary is famous for the breeding of birds. There is a huge lake filled with water where the birds breed upon the trees, surrounded by huge watch towers. Its said that if visited in the month of Dec-Jan, one can see the small chicks of these migratory birds. But the time we visited, the chicks had grown up and it was quite difficult to differentiate between the chicks & the grown ones.
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| Nelapattu bird sanctuary snapshots |
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| A tree providing resting place to many pelicans at Nelapattu bird sanctuary |
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| A pelican flying over ! |
Done with bird-watching we headed to Chennai City. Its a 1 hour drive from Nelapattu bird Sanctuary. Since it was already evening, the sun was about to set, we decided to head to the Marina beach. Though not a place for watching sun-set, the beach was pleasant & cool. There is a MGR memorial located right next to the Marina beach. The entrance of this memorial is quite huge with a huge bronze Pegasus. In the night, the whole memorial looks beautiful.
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| A illuminted-night view of the huge entrance at MGR Memorial,Chennai . |
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| Pegasus at the MGR Memorial,Chennai |
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| MGR Memorial,Chennai. |
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| Garden at MGR memorial, Chennai |
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| Illuminated view of Truimph of Labour , at Marina Beach ,Chennai |
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| A small illuminated waterfall model at Marina Beach , Chennai |
Day 2: Chennai & Mahabalipuram :
The day began. After having breakfast, we vacated the room and headed to the Guindy National Park.We were there by 08:45 a.m. and were the first one to enter the park! Guindy national park has 2 parks : one meant for Snakes & crocodiles and the other the normal park. Though its not as big as other national parks, its quite good and clean & worth a visit.
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| Guindy National Park entrance . |
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| Group of Marsh Crocodiles lying down lazily @ Guindy National Park |
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| A yawning Gharial @ Guindy National Park, Chennai |
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| Ring Necked parrot @ guindy National Park |
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| Well maintained childrens park at Guindy National Park |
After heading out of the Guindy national park,we headed to a much bigger version of the same :Arignar Anna Zoological Park. This one is quite big when compared to Guindy. It boasted of variety of wild animals including lion,tiger,panther,white tiger, bear, bison, etc. One good thing about this park is that bicycles are provided with a nominal fee of Rs 10-20 . Since,the park is spread over a huge area, taking bicycles will be a better option. At the entrance there is a double check, where one will be checked for eatables and mobile phones. (One has to either keep his phone in the vehicle or get a ticket even for the mobile phones.!)
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| Arignar Anna Zoological Garden ,Chennai |
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| A waterfall model at Arignar Anna Zoological Park |
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| White stork @ Arignar Anna Zoological Park ,Chennai |
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| White tiger trying to catch somehing |
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| A relaxed white tiger , posing for visitor @ Arignar Anna Zoological Park |
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| A common Otter at Arignar Zoo , Chennai |
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| A Giraffe at Arignar Zoo ,Chenai |
Covering 2 parks,made us quite tired. Our next destination was VGP golden beach, but we had to skip for some unavoidable reasons.
Next we headed to Mahabalipuram. From Arignar zoo, Mahablipuram is a 45 minutes drive.There are a lot of places to visit in Mahabalipuram. We visited a few of them as we were lagging behind in our schedule. On our way from Chennai to Mahabalipuram,there is a small cave called the Tiger cave.
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| Map of all Mahabalipuram tourist places |
From tiger cave, one can visit the Krishnas butter ball. Its a huge stone in the shape of butter located on a inclined stone-hill. Next to it is a small temple. Also,there is a wall with huge carvings and a small cave like structure located nearby. A good thing about Mahabalipuram is that all places are located very close by. Next we headed to the Pancha rathas. Its a place with 5 rathas dedicated to Draupadi and the 5 Pandavas. Also there are 2 huge carvings of Lion & an Elephant.
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| A stone resembling and called as Krishnas butter ball, Mahabalipuram |
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| Krishnas butter ball from a distance . |
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| Carvings on the wall near to Arjunas Penance |
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| The Pancha Rathas ,Mahabalipuram |
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| Nakula-Sahadev Ratha ,One of the five Pancha Rathas , Mahablipuram |
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| Dharmaraja Ratha , One of the five Pancha Rathas , Mahablipuram |
From Pancha rathas, we headed to Shore temple. Its one among the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram.The place has murtis of lord Vishnu. Shore temple has a beach located next to it, with huge stones on the back of temple, in-order to protect the temple from rough sea waves.
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| The Shore temple, Mahabalipuram |
Next we headed to the Lighthouse & Mahisha Marthini caves. Both are situated side-by-side. Thought lighthouse has to be climbed by steps,it is worth a visit as you would get the aerial view of entire Mahabalipuram area from here.
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| Mahabalipuram Lighthouse . |
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| A view of the nearby Mahisha Marthini Cave from lighthouse. |
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| The shore temple, as seen from the top of the lighthouse . |
By then,we had covered almost all places of Mahabalipuram. It was already 07:00 p.m, so, we headed to Puducherry. Puducherry is a 1 hour drive from Mahabalipuram, along the East Coast Road.
We reached Puducherry by around 08:30 p.m and called it off for the day.
Day 3 : Puducherry(Pondicherry) :
The day began quite early for me,as I wanted to witness the beautiful sun-rise along the Bay of Bengal. So,I reached the Gandhi beach nearby and waited for the sun-rise. Alas ! the sun-rise was itself magnificent ! Along with me, there were many other tourists and localities who had come to witness the magnificent sun-rise !
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| Sunrise at Pondicherry beach |
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| Sunrise at Gandhi beach ,Puducherry |
The places to visit inside Puducherry arent too much to boast about. When in Puducherry one can visit the Aurobindo Ashram, a Ganesh Temple located next to it, Gandhi Statue & Gandhi beach, Puducherry Museum, Auroville beach & Paradise Isle. Auroville beach is a calm beach where one can get into the water. Puducherry, though considered a tourist place, does not boast of many sight-seeing places . But is a place for practising Yoga and shopping.
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| Gandhi Statue , Puducherry |
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| Beautiful Auroville beach , Puducherry |
The 3-day tour ended and evening,we headed back to Bangalore. The trip was all fun and all the places were worth mentioning.
