India (Frommer's, 4th Edition) (168 page)

CENTRAL CHENNAI
At the heart of Chennai, Anna Salai is the city’s major business-lined artery. North of Anna Salai is Egmore, where you will find Chennai’s top museum, and to the west, Nungambakkam, an upmarket residential area that is home to an increasing number of hotels and businesses, as well as Khader Nawaz Khan Road, where you will find the densest concentration of Chennai’s boutique and high-street stores. Best to hop onto auto-rickshaws to get around this congested part of the city.

The
Government Museum and National Gallery
(Pantheon Rd.;
044/2819-3238;
admission to Pantheon Complex Rs 250; camera fee extra; Sat–Thurs 9:30am–5pm) is considered one of the finest receptacles of 10th- and 13th-century bronze sculpture in the country, including the Chola Nataraj—sculptures of Shiva dancing in a ring of cosmic fire, these are almost as definitive of India as the Taj Mahal. The museum, a complex of six buildings and 46 galleries, is a definite stop if you’re at all interested in Indian art as there are also 11th- and 12th-century handicrafts and Rajasthani, Mughal, and Deccan paintings. One of the buildings in this complex is the beautifully renovated
Museum Theatre,
where you can sometimes catch a dance or a music performance. While in Egmore, pop into
St. Andrew’s Kirk
(off Periyar E.V.R. High Rd., northeast of Egmore Station, Egmore;
044/2561-2608;
daily 9am–5pm)—inspired by London’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. Andrew’s steeple rises 50m (164 ft.) into the air; you can climb this to reach a small balcony for a good city view. Alternatively, head south to Khader Nawaz Khan Road for some retail therapy.

NORTHERN CHENNAI
A tour to admire George Town’s grand architectural colonial heritage—the main reason to venture north—can mostly be covered on foot (heat allowing)—best on a Sunday when traffic is at a minimum.

Set aside a few hours to visit
Fort St. George
(Kamaraj Rd.)—the first bastion of British power in India, constructed in 1640. The cluster of gray and white colonial buildings with pillared neoclassical facades now houses the Tamil Nadu State Legislature and the Secretariat. Visit its
Fort Museum
(
044/2567-1127;
admission Rs 100; Sat–Thurs 10am–5pm; still camera without flash allowed with permission from tourist office; video camera extra fee) to see the collection of portraiture, oil paintings, sketches, vintage photographs, silverware and etchings that reveal the nature of colonial life in early Madras. In the compound you will also find Asia’s oldest existing Anglican church,
St. Mary’s
(daily 9:30am–5pm), incidentally where Yale University’s founder, Gov. Elihu Yale, was married. The church has numerous 17th- and 18th-century gravestones—look for the Latin memorial to Mrs. Elizabeth Baker (1652), believed to be the oldest British inscription in India.

Just north of the fort is the red-sandstone
High Court
(Mon–Sat 10am–5pm), built in the mid–19th century in the Indo-Saracenic style, and still in use today. Guided tours of the building take in the various courtrooms, many of which are remarkably decorated. Busy
George Town,
bounded by Rajaji Salai and N.S.C. Bose Road, was once known as “Black Town,” a racist appellation for a settlement occupied by East India Company textile workers who came from Andhra Pradesh in the mid-1600s (the name “Chennai,” incidentally, is derived from the name given to the area by the dyers and weavers who lived here: Chennapatnam). Today, George Town is a bustling collection of streets that should be explored on foot—but again, not a good idea in the middle of the day.

Tip:
Fans of the iconic
Enfield Bullet,
a contemporary classic due to its looks rather than performance, may know that it is manufactured in a Chennai factory (18km/11 miles north of Anna Salai); you can arrange for a 90-minute tour of the factory, a highly recommended experience for motorbike enthusiasts or anyone with a yen for the nostalgic (
044/4204-3300;
www.royalenfield.com
; Rs 500; Mon–Fri 9:30am–5:30pm). Ironically there are no Enfield tours of Tamil Nadu.

DAY TRIP TO THE SACRED CITY OF KANCHIPURAM

All of Kanchipuram’s roads lead to
goparums,
the unmistakable temple gateways that tower over you as you prepare to enter the sacred temples. This 2,000-year-old city of “a thousand temples”—also called Kanchi—is best seen as a day trip out of Chennai, or en route to Mamallapuram, and is (along with Srirangam’s temples, and the main temples in Thanjavore and Madurai) the top temple destination in the state. With a rich heritage, it’s famous as a seat of both Shaivaite and Vaishnavite devotion as well as for its exquisite silk saris. It was here that the Dravidian style really had its roots, and the sheer profusion of temples makes this an ideal place to get a feel for how South Indian temple architecture has developed over the centuries. The oldest structure in town is
Kailasnath Temple
(Putleri St.; 1.5km/3⁄4 mile out of the town center; daily 6am–12:30pm and 4–8pm), entered via a small gateway. Built by the same Pallava king responsible for Mamallapuram’s Shore Temple, Kailasnath shows signs of evolution from its seaside forebear; it’s also less overwhelming than many of the more grandiose Tamil temples.

The 57m (187-ft.) whitewashed
goparum
marking the entrance to the 9th-century Shaivite
Ekambareswara Temple
(Puthupalayam St.; 6am–12:30pm and 4–8pm; non-Hindus not allowed in sanctum), Kanchi’s largest, was added as late as the 16th century. Through a passageway, visitors enter a courtyard and the “thousand-pillared” hall (though the number of pillars has dwindled significantly over the years). Within the temple, a mango tree believed to be 2,500 years old apparently yields four different varieties of the fruit. Legend has it that it was here Shiva and Parvati were married, and that Parvati fashioned a lingam (phallic symbol)
of earth, one of the five sacred Hindu elements. As a test of her devotion, Shiva sent a flood through the town that destroyed everything in its path except the lingam, which she protected from the deluge with her body. (
Tip:
Be on the lookout for touts who will aggressively try to get a donation out of you at this temple.)

Dedicated to
Shakti,
which celebrates creation’s female aspect, the 14th-century
Kamakshi Amman Temple
(Mangadu; daily 6am–12:30pm and 4–8:30pm) was built by the Cholas. Apparently, the tank there is so sacred that demons sent to bathe were cleansed of their malevolent ways and the goddess Kamakshi (a form of Parvati) is thanked for luring and marrying Shiva in Kanchipuram (every Feb or March the lover deities are carried here on massive chariots—a temple festival you will see almost everywhere at certain times of the year). Other worthwhile temples include
Vaikunta Perumal Temple
and
Varadaraja Temple,
both of which are dedicated to Vishnu.