Beachside in Mamallapuram

Mike – We arrived in Chennai in the morning after an all-night bus ride from Trichy. The private bus company decided that rather fighting the traffic and dropping us off at the Central Bus Station in Chennai, he’d beat the traffic and drop us off at the outskirts of the city, near the airport. We proceeded to ask a rickshaw driver what it would cost and how long it would take to get into the central core: five hundred rupees and two hours drive-time, minimum. It was at this point that we realized that Chennai was not for us, and we decided on an alternate course of action: Pay the rickshaw driver to take us 80 kilometres south of Chennai to a small beach-town called Mammallapuram, population of 12,000 people, and the best surf spot in Southern India.
This turned out to be the best choice we’ve made thus far this trip.

I felt kind of guilty. Here we are, supposedly roughing it in India, braving the chaos through the fog of uncertainty, deciphering new cultures amongst the myriad of unfamiliar languages and customs, and we end up in a backpackers enclave drinking cheap beer and listening to the Beatles while eating five dollar freshly-caught lobster at beach-side. Not bad, not bad.

It was special in the fact that there were no major chains, no resorts, and the co-existence of local culture. It was definitely a vacation-spot, but the accommodations were rather simple, and the local vibe remained quite genuine. The beach-front was loaded with small restaurants, stone-carving workshops, and used bookstores. It was quite geared towards tourists, but I never felt as if people were desperate for my business. Most of the time, the proprietors were just happy to chat.

As with many of the coastal communities we’ve come across, fishing is still a huge part of their economy. Many of the younger adults would fish from 4am until 10am, and then surf in the afternoons. That was their day-to-day.

Teg- It was rather easy for us to make Mammallapuram a 4-night stay – our longest yet! The town, small and quiet, the people, extremely friendly, food, great, and weather, SUPERB! We stayed at this beachside (extremely cheap) lodge which really, was all we needed. You know, I could complain about the mosquitoes, lack of hot water, electricity out from 7am to 9am – which meant no fans taming the sweat lol - but it all got easily brushed aside because all the surroundings made up for it. A minute walk and we’d be at a beach that seemed to be all our own! Well, minus all the fisherman boats beached.

Amongst the beach lazing hours (yes, we both got sunburnt) and the seafood chewing times, there were two events in Mammallapuram in which I think are worth mentioning.
Our second day in, and all we’re thinking about is getting to the little shop with the motorbikes and mopeds! We figured we could cruise in and around the town, check out all the cool sites without the hassle of finding rickshaw after rickshaw. BEST CHOICE EVER!! This was soo much fun!! It was actually much safer than you would expect because for one, we couldn’t go faster than 50 km/h, and two, on the highways that we did drive on, its just common knowledge that bikers drive on the shoulder of the highway, allowing all big things to fly past by. The bike owner’s best advice: ‘Drive on the left’. hahaha

That day we rode out about 8km North of town to this place called the Crocodile Bank. This place definitely surpassed my expectations! Right on the edge of the two-lane highway is this little sign for the place, making the place seem like it would be quite small and rather uneventful. Wrong. We get through the gate only to stumble upon gated pond after gated pond full of different types of crocs from all around the world. One pond (these aren’t big ponds by the way) had 430 cros lying around. It was madness!

Next we headed back through town, South towards the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Five Rathas and the Shore Temple. This ended up being a rather disappointing part of our day because the entry fee for foreigners was 250 Rps (same price as the Taj Mahal) so we decided to look at it all through the gates instead. Ya so we’ve become cheap-asses what can I say haha!
Great view of the Shore Temple, free of charge.

It wasn’t hard for us to turn away from these entrances because we had our bikes waiting for us anyways. We instead spent the rest of the afternoon cruisin’ further south till we found an extremely remote beach where we hung out for a bit before making our way back to town, and then the bike shop.

So the next memorable event was on our last full day in the town. After constantly walking back and forth everyday past this massage and yoga spot, we could no longer resist it. We booked afternoon massages! Ohhh what a treat we were in for! So we both go in, anticipating great massages based on the title – an 1 hour rejuvenating massage. Sometimes life throws you curve balls lol. I’m just going to sum it up: No clothes is mandatory (this includes undies). No towels onsite. Female to female, male to male. To sum it up: Mike got his bag touched by a short shirtless brown guy that resembled Randy off the Trailer Park Boys lol. We were both asked to come again tomorrow.