A whistle-stop tour of Tamil Nadu in pictures to commemorate Tamil New Years Day 2013 and this varied, beautiful and fascinating state that is my home!
I’ll start this off with a classic sunrise-at-the-beach in the capital, Chennai – India’s 4th largest city with a population of 4.6 million.
A quick stop at the historic town of Mylapore to admire the Gopuram (gate) (and the traffic!) of the 2000 year old Kapaleeshwarar Temple, before we head south along the Coromandel Coast…
A few hours drive south along the exhilarating East Coast Road, we reach the relatively younger (400 years) scene of Danish trade with the Tamil kingdoms – the fort and trading town of Tranquebar. The Danes were quite serious about protecting their trade interests from other marauding Europeans – the Dutch, French, Portugese and English…all of whom left their mark on this coastline!
Driving on, half-way down the Coromandel Coast, we reach a fabled point, the apex of the Cauvery River Delta – Point Calimere. There is a tranquil, beautiful bird and deer sanctuary, best visited in the winter months…
Still heading south, we now branch off the coast and explore the green and fertile Cauvery delta regions – the Cauvery is Tamil Nadu’s life-giver, making the state India’s chief producer of rice.
We head back to the coast for a quick stop at the historic island temple town of Rameswaram, and pay obeisance to the monkey-god Hanuman at Dhanushkodi, where Rama returned victorious with his queen Sita, after defeating the demon king of Lanka. There used to be a railway line here connecting India and Sri Lanka that got destroyed in a freak storm in the 1960s.
So much to explore! Having seen much of the coast, we take a train to to the north-western corner of the state, and 8000 feet up to the hill-resort of Ooty…a different world altogether!
The city of Ooty and the surrounding hill-side towns all survive on tea grown in the breath-taking tea plantations that cover the slopes here.
For our final stop we head to the Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary, and to our luck see some wild elephants!
Time to hit the road again and head back to Chennai and all its noise, life and confusion!
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