Thursday 24 December 2009

A Short trip to Mamallapuram

A short trip to Mamallapuram


Our friends decided to visit Mamallapuram one day, since it has been more than 5 years that we went out together anywhere, though we meet occasionally during weekends. Since we decided to go anyway, we decided to catch a glimpse of the sunrise in Mamallapuram. This means we will have to start as early as 4:30am in the morning – I know, many of you reading it as mid night.

So we started off on Sunday morning at 4:45 – yes only 15 minutes later than what we planned – from Annanagar so we could reach Mamallapuram by about 6:00am. Now that should be apt for catching the sunrise.

With a short break of about 10 minutes after crossing the toll plaza, for having some coffee, we were able to reach Mamallapuram by around 6:00am – AS PLANNED!!!

But little did we realize that the short rainfall the previous night would have created so much dark clouds, that the sunrise was completely covered. Though it had become bright, there was no sight of the sun waking up. I am sure this is some sort of tit-for-tat. Usually it is we who never watch the sun rise, now that we want to watch, it denied us, by being under the blankets . Nevertheless Saravanan decided to take some video of the early morning scene of the Bay of Bengal.

Around 6:30, we decided to go through to the shore temple. The entry is allowed from 6:30am onwards. We got the tickets and went to the temple to take some snaps of the temple. Though we were disappointed that we were unable to catch the sunrise, we were able to get some decent photos of the temple with the sun moved slightly upwards. The view was fantastic with sun still rising. After spending about a hour and half, we went to the lighthouse and explored the places there for over a hour.

That made the morning for us. With partial success we headed back to Chennai after having a king’s breakfast at the Motel Mamalla at around 10:30am – why wouldn’t we? We were famished by then. Well let us plan for a return when we know for sure that there won’t be any clouds. That’s not a problem at all, since it is going to only a couple of months – MAYBE!! 