Chennai has its own Hop on – Hop off tours in two routes. One between Chennai & Mamallapuram (aka Mahabalipuram) and the other one around the city.

Hop on - Hop off Tour Bus

The Yellow A/c buses are between the tourism complex and Mamallapuram and the Blue A/c buses (run by TNSTC) are running between High Court, Marina, Valluvar Kottam and Ripon Building with 15 stops.

The Stake holders of these Yellow buses are some of the Prominent Hoteliers & Travel Operators.

One could also do an ONLINE BOOKING HERE and save time visiting the Tamil Nadu Tourism Offices.

Owing to the popular Chennai climate, thankfully the buses are Air-conditioned and unlike its famous counterparts at London, Munich, Paris its not open top. And they have a professional Guide in each bus.

For other options head directly here to the TTDC homepage.

Though this was not a favourite subject of mine during my school days, the interest on Chennai aka Madras’s history is high and continuing.

Came across this sign board which traces the history about a particular shrine, hillock in Chennai.

Yes, its about St.Thomas Mount.

A friend of mine, Harini is organizing a Heritage walk in Fort St. George, it being one of the oldest monuments here in the city.

Inspired by one of Mr.S.Muthiah’s lecture on Madras, the plan is to organize a walk around Fort.St.George, one of the earliest symbols of the British era in India. She has been in touch with Dr. Suresh, an eminent archaeologist in Chennai and he has agreed to guide a small group (minimum 15 people) on this walk around the fort.
(more…)

I have been mulling over what to write about, to keep the interest and continuity going and I think I found the topic. It is said that there are about 40 – 50 statues of famous event and people that are all around Chennai. I am not aware of where they are, and most of the time, I keep standing and gazing at the statue hoping that it would just start talking and tell me who they are supposed to be. Yep, I am clueless in most cases as to what these statues represent. There is supposed to be a plank that explains it all, but most of these statues are bang in the centre of busy intersections, that i’d be risking my life trying to get to the status to read it.

I thought I’ll risk it for you all. My journey for the next couple of weeks is to go hunt down all the status and landmarks of chennai and post them here. If anyone wants to join, they are more than welcome to.

Here is all starts, with the statue of Kannagi..
(more…)

Some of you may know Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan. He used to write here at Chennai Metblogs. For the select group of metbloggers, he was captain of the team. For photography enthusiasts over at flickr, he is known as Ravages.

Now Chandrachoodan is encouraging us to join him on a photowalk through some of the city’s most scenic locations. The walk begins from the famous Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore. It starts at 9 am on Sunday (tomorrow). If you are keen on photographing the city with Chandrachoodan along your side, please be there.

Further details are here.

I dont know how many of you know these places but if you drive by ECR and after Mayaajaal there is an entire line of small roads that lead to the beach.

Most of these small roads end with big bungalows and houses that are owned by rich people, cine stars and politicians and i guess they hardly come out of their houses since the doors are locked all of the time and there is not a soul around to see in these places.
(more…)

Took me a while to get my thoughts in order about all the events I had attended/heard about, and give a precis of what exactly happened during Madras Week 2007. Most events were interesting, some were repeats, while a few were outstanding. Be warned, you’re in for a long post.

In the beginning, it was a gathering of a few like-minded friends who cared a great deal about the city. Then, it grew to a series of meetings. More came to know of what transpired during these sessions, and signaled their interest to join. In 2006, it exploded into existence as one of the most happening occasions – and now it is the premier event of Chennai, eclipsing all else in August to the point of exclusion, with more than 60 events happening all over the city, put together by a number of organizations and Chennai-lovers. Le Madras Week, 2007.
(more…)

Ever since you put up this hoarding, I’ve been dying to tell you:
If you use anything niche, you must get it right. Evidently, researching the right way to wear a madisar did not figure in your ad budget. By the way, what is a sari like this doing on an ad like that?

A year ago, I was wondering, in ignorance, at the mystery of some things.

A year later, much of the mystery remains, yet some of that sarcasm vanishes.

Despite the holiday crowd and all, a month ago, I went to visit Saravana Stores on a Saturday afternoon with no particular list or agenda other than idle curiosity. The place has some eight floors, a basement that may or may not have been counted in the eight, and hundreds of employees. Also two huge elevators that can hold at least fifteen people but for our Indian practice of attempting to squeeze more out of everything. So yeah, you might find yourself being flooded by breath while you are breathless. Packed like sardines is the expression I think…
(more…)

We are not talking about the local provision store hoarding foodgrains nor about the staple habit of buying kilo upon kilo of the ration store sugar and passing it on to all the families one knows. We are referring to the rectangular, coloured, lit, huge, coloured, fancy, huge boards that cover any view of the sky from a sixty degree angle.

When was the last time you went past Loyola College onto Mahalingapuram? The Loyola campus has always been the hoarding host and for years now we have been seeing those boards get classier and bigger. Now, I bet, from the Loyola gate upto the curve near the next junction (towards Mahalingapuram), there is barely a two-inch gap between hoardings. Hoarding hoardings if you like. And with the trafiic bottleneck that happens there every evening, someone’s been making sure people get their weight’s (yes, I know the word is ‘wait’ but please indulge wordplayers just this once wokay) worth.

I always thought that hoarding points were the Gemini Flyover and the Thousand Lights stretch of Mount Road and the Kotturpuram Bridge. But now, hoarding free points must be looked for I guess. A friend of mine, on a recent visit to Chennai, took one look at the hoardings near the Curzons junction and said, I’d forgotten that this was how I remembered Mount Road. Cryptic remark yes, but you know, the hoardings were what he remembered.

Isn’t it very distracting to look at the striking hoardings while driving? There are some regulations about the hoardings, which I shall check with ad men Vinod and CC. Meanwhile, tell me, do you find the many hoardings annoying?