Extremes of chennai – Photowalk on 8th of May 2011

All ready set go for the next day and I went to bed. I came out of my dream and then slowly opened by eyes after hearing the loud bang of my alarm. Soon with great enthusiasm in the morning I went to wake up my sister. Within half an hour of time, both of us were ready to start our journey for the day. I had fully charged my android mobile, in which I had already set the maverick destination to Talanguppam the previous day by feeding in the latitude and longitude of the place accurately.

The first destination was around 28 kms from my home. We started from adyar sharp at 4:00AM as planned and took the beach road after taking a U turn around the corporation grounds. We stopped the bike near the Napier’s bridge and took few snaps.

I switched on the GPS on my mobile when we reached beach station and took the suryanarayana road to reach royapuram. Then we continued on the state highway 114 to reach Kasimedu. As soon as we took the surya narayana road from beach station, we could find trucks lined up in a queue. When we reached Kasimedu, we gotta feel that we were very near to the sea. It was around 4:20 AM when we reached Kasimedu after crossing the Chennai Harbour. Trucks aligned in a never ending queue were waiting for the Harbour gate to be opened. We could actually hear the sound of waves. At a place where we could find a gap in between the trucks in queue, we peeped out to see the shore. To my surprise, the sea was just 5 meters away from the shore.It was then My sister asked me, what if a Tsunami strikes now? It was then we really understood the magnificence of the nature and its unlimited mercy over us.

Then we crossed the Tiruvottriyur and then continued on SH 114. The road was full of ups and downs. The road was absolutely dark and we could hardly find any lamps. I stopped my vehicle near a temple on the road and pulled out my mobile to see where exactly we were and to know the target distance. It showed the distance as 6 km and I confirmed we were on track. I asked my sister whether to proceed or to wait until the sky becomes a bit bright. She was keen on capturing the sun rise at Talanguppam. So we proceeded on the same road. After traveling for another 2 kms, we found a board reading “Thazhanguppam” and an arrow pointing upwards. It was then I understood the real meaning of the place. People screw up the meaning by their horrible spelling when they transliterate in English. Then we started to proceed on the same road.

2 more kms, we could find the waves of the sea gushing on the stones and the rocks. The sky slowly became brighter and we decided to park the vehicle and capture the dawn here. The scenery is so beautiful and the whole place is silent except for the sound of waves. My cousin sister is ready with her DSLR and I had my cannon powershot(I know its chota compared to the DSLR). slowly the whole sky became red and the sun started playing hide and seek amongst the clouds. We started taking photos and it is then we understood nature is to be perceived(natural) and capturing it as a photo can never get you the real feel of it. Some sort of happiness started blossoming within us. I don’t have words to explain the total scenery!!!!



We then proceeded further to reach the beach of Thazhanguppam. After reaching the beach, I parked my vehicle in one of the houses there and ensured it was safe. Then we moved towards the beach and saw the beautiful vanishing piers taking us into the sea. We clicked as many pictures as we could until we felt it is sufficient enough, so that we get couple of good ones from the pool of photos. We then met some of the police officers on duty there and they asked us where from we were coming. Then the police officer started explaining about the movies that were shot at that spot.

After spending half an hour there, we started our way back to marina. On the way we snapped couple of photos of war memorial, marina, vivekananda house, Santhome church and reached mylapore.

We had a nice breakfast in Saravana bhavan and headed to Mylapore temple. Then after spending couple of minutes, we headed to Mamallapuram via ECR. We took some photographs of Tiruvanmiyur beach, Pattipulam beach and the beautiful ECR road,Tiger caves before we reached Mamallapuram. A day’s time is not enough to see mamallapuram. As our theme is different we didn’t spend much time there. By this time, the glucose and the energy bars that we carried ran out of stock. Eventually we had to rely on the road side shops selling tender coconuts, water melon and ice apples to keep us safe from getting dehydrated.

Around 2:00 o clock in the afternoon, we started our journey back from Mamallapuram to Adyar. On our way back, I asked my sister if she has enough patience to go to one more place and then I suggested about “Dakshin chitra”. Dakshin chitra is situated on the ECR road next to MGM traveling from Adyar. If you wanna see/know the traditions and culture of south india, this is the place for you. We reached dakshin chitra around 2:30PM. We thoroughly enjoyed the puppet shows that depicted the story of vali,sugrivan and hanuman from ramayana and some of the live pottery makings and weaving of silk sarees here.

We took couple of pictures and started our way back to home as we ran out of energy. We had planned to start to broken bridge near besant nagar after taking a nap for an hour or two. But never knew that the nap would extend to a sleep. All together the total trip was around 200 kms. I think, I found a nice way to spend time on a week end.