Roadies

June 15, 2008 in chennai
Tags: beach, bike, chennai, ECR, kovallam, pit stop, pondy, sunset, thunderbird

Yesterday I happened to discover a part of Chennai, which changed (not completely thou ) my perception about the city. I happened to meet a college friend who is now working in one of the top Indian IT companies based at Chennai. Soon after we met, I started listing all complaints that I had against the city. He promised me that we would make sure that he would change this sad image of the city to a certain extent.
It was around 5 o clock in the evening, and we hit the roads of Chennai on a Royal Enfield Thunderbird. A cloudy sky, a cool breeze, cleaner roads… Chennai changed itself completely in no time. We were on Old Mahabalipuram Road, a lane with all glassy buildings and posh high rise complexes, which are home to most IT companies.
The next destination for us was Besant Nagar Beach. I found it to be better than Marina both in terms of cleanliness and crowd. This place draws a lot of young and happening crowd and I could finally found people to “check-out”.
Though it was real nice to be there, we planned not to spend much time at one place. We went to a nearby “Fruit Shop” (popular juice shops, at most parts of Chennai) picked up good healthy drinks and then went to Kalaskhetra, a place for Dance,craft and other Art forms; something which I could compare with Shantiniketan.
The next part of the journey was something I didn’t expect, it took barely half an hour and we found ourselves detached from the city traffic. A nice winding road, with a left turn every half a kilometer leading to some beach or the other, like Pebble Beach, Juhu Beach and many more. Popular as ECR – East Coast Road connects Chennai to Mammalapuram (Mahabalipuram) and Pondicherry. It’s lined with number of beach resorts and restaurants for people to relax during weekends after a hectic run through the week.
Then we went to a beautiful village called Kovallam, right when it was beating the dusk. It was again a scenic beauty to cherish. View of sun set, never ending sea, sand, breeze and the cruise bike (reaching 3-digit speeds every other second) really made my day.
Then we drove a little further ahead till we realised that the fuel is reaching the reserve mark, we decided to get back to the usual crowd but with a fresh mind and a more positive opinion about the city. We just made one stop in between to pick up some snacks at an F1 based eatery called Pit-Stop. Even that wasn’t too bad either
No matter how much the city sweats, smells and eats curd rice, it also host places with such scenic beauties that one can literally unwind.