Mammalla Puram / Mahabalipuram / Mahabs

Mahabalipuram

UNESCO Link: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/249

The Challenge: http://gounesco.in/ A  travel challenge which takes you to all the UNESCO world heritage sites across India over the period of one full year. 

Travel Group: 

• Anuradha Goyal ( http://anuradhagoyal.blogspot.in/) & 
• Sriram ( @bhsriram on twitter) 

Getting There: (From Chennai) : 

• SETC Bus from Koyambedu, 
• or any bus that you can find on the ECR [East Coast Road] going to Mahabalipuram

Staying/Boarding Options Used:  www.Couchsurfing.org  Robert Kennedy Sava .


Food: Multi-Cuisine @ the Bob-Marle-Cafe 


Getting Around: 

• Rented Self driven Moped 
• @ ₹150 for Four Hours (200 Per Day) [Petrol not included] , 
• Place to be rented 
• Othavadi St (Picture included in the blog)

The Real Chow! :

Our journey started with taking a bus to Mahabalipuram from Chennai [2 Hours]

We couch surfed with Robert who let us keep our luggage at his place & let us freshen up a this place. 

Tried in vain to hire an auto to get around the place.  As usual as it is in India, the auto-walla-anna, quoted a princely sum of ₹600 for a 3 hour ride around town totaling no more than... may be 15 Km.

Just then we noticed a place that advertised "Moped's on rent", found out the price which was pretty decent (Details Above)

From the Othavadi St, we headed off to the southern most of the monuments , The Rathas and continued northward in completing the group of monuments :

• Rathas / Monolethic Temples
• Mandapas / Cave Temples
• Structural Temples (Shore Temple) 

It took us about 4 hours to complete all of these. 

We went back to our CS host for dinner @ this restaurant which was PRETTY EXPENSIVE (₹950 for 1 Beer + 1 Starter + 2 Entrees + 1 Staple [Rice] ) by Indian standards .

We wrapped up the trip after dinner and went back to the ECR to hitch on a Volvo to Chidambaram.