Places to visit nearby destination - Mahabalipuram
Covelong Just 19 kilometres from Mahabalipuram is situated
the picturesque beach resort of Covelong, a quiet
fishing village with the remains of a fort. Facilities
for windsurfing, swimming and water sports are
available here. If you are in Mahabalipuram, don’t
miss out on a visit to this place.
Crocodile Bank The Crocodile bank is situated barely 14 km from
Mahabalipuram on the Chennai-Mahabalipuram road.
Set up by an American named Romulus Whitaker in
1976, the number of crocodiles in the bank grew
in its first 15 years from just 15 to over 5,000.
Located nearby is a snake farm where anti-venom
is produced for treating snakebites.
Kanchipuram A 65-kilometre stretch of
sun-scorched road connects Mahabalipuram to the
fabled city of a thousand temples, Kanchipuram.
There are 650 stone inscriptions in Kanchipuram
belonging to different dynasties. The temples
here reflect the maturity and efflorescence of
Pallava art and the ornate and often imposing
embellishments were produced later by the Chola,
Vijayanagara and Chalukyan kings. There is a solemn
grandeur, a grandiosity of vision and ornamental
excess in the temples here. A disembodied otherworldly
stillness impregnates their vast inner domains
where time is a captive fugitive. The Ekambaranathar
temple, the Kailasanatha temple, Sri Varadaraja
temple, Sri Vaikuntaperumal temple… the names
stretch endlessly. The city itself is dedicated
to the presiding deity, Sri Kamakshi (one with
eyes of love) at the Kamakshi temple. In Sanskrit,
the word Kanchi denotes girdle, and poets have
allegorically characterized the city as a girdle
to the earth. And so it was. A seat of learning that attracted
scholars from far-flung corners of the globe.
But what has now girdled the earth is the gold-embroidered
Kanchipuram silk sari that has been for centuries
a prized possession of the South Indian woman.
Shops dealing with silk and cotton saris and material
line the main street of the town and for a demonstration
of the skills of the Kanchi weavers, visit the
Weaver’s Service Centre on Railway Station Road
Kanchipuram is the only city in South India to
have played such a dominant, decisive and continuous
role in the history of the peninsula. At one time,
it was the hub of the empire, of pomp and panoply.
Today, it is a small place that time has forgotten.
Royalty abandoned it long ago and history shifted
its allegiance to other more dramatic arenas.
And in the quiet interregnum of the centuries
when life thundered by elsewhere, the ancient
city, wrapped in nostalgia, too proud to change
with the times, withdrew from the mainstream.
To become what it is today. An Arcadian fastness
of beauty. A dreamy detachment and a quaint medievalism,
the lasting impression of which one consigns to
memory.
Muttukadu An ideal place for water sports, Muttukadu is
21 km from Mahabalipuram. The Tamil Nadu Tourism
Development Corporation (TTDC) has a boathouse
here. Visitors can enjoy boating, canoeing, kayaking,
and windsurfing. The Dakshina Chitra of Madras
Craft Foundation here has replica of an old agricultural
house of Tamil Nadu, replica of Kanchipuram weavers
house and replicas of ancient houses presenting
the lifestyle of South India.
Vedanthangal Located 53 km from Mahabalipuram, Vedanthangal
is one of the oldest bird sanctuaries in India.
The sheer number of birds that visit this sanctuary
is amazing. It is said that almost 1,00,000 avian
species of varied shapes, sizes and hues—including
storks, egrets, cormorants, darter, and flamingos—visit
this sanctuary between October and March.
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