A Romantic walk with Nature; The Beaches of Chennai

Chennai; The Capital of Tamil Nadu is expanded along Sea shore of Bay of Bengal, dotted with dozens of romantic beaches. It is worth to see the rising Sun at beaches of Chennai and amazing to start the day at Beaches. Each sun rise is unique and beautiful, and the best part may be that the beach is calm and quiet at that early hour. This blog is all dedicated to a Romantic walk along Beaches of Chennai, where I experienced the calmness and purity of nature at beaches of Chennai. The beaches are always a great place to relax and unwind, look at the wild ocean and feel the sand under your feet.

A View of Marina Beach-Chennai

Marina Beach

Marina Beach: Border of Bay of Bengal. The Eastern Coast of India is the longest beach of India and the second longest beach of the world. It  stretches to a length of 13 km. The average width of the beach is 300 m and the width at the widest stretch is 437 m.Marina is a bordering the Bay of Bengal. The beach path is known as Kamarajar Salai. The entire stretch of Marina Beach features numerous statues and monuments. 

Marina Beach-Chennai

Coastal Horse Riding Guards -At Marina Beach-Chennai

Visitors at Marina Beach-Chennai

Marina Beach is one of the most crowded beaches in the country and attracts about 30,000 visitors a day during weekdays and 50,000 visitors a day during the weekends and on holidays.Marina Beach boasts the claim that the city Madras (old name of Chennai) was developed from here. Historical monuments like St.George Fort constructed during British rule stand as evidence to this fact. 

Enjoying the calmness at Marina Beach-Chennai

Most of the Heritage buildings, government Institutions, historic and stately buildings like University of Madras, Vivekananda House, and Police Headquarters etc are along the road of his beach. 

There are statues like Triumph of labor statue, Gandhi statue, Kannagi statue and many others. The Light house is another attraction which was recently opened for public.

Marina Beach

Various stalls of food items including murukku, sundal, ice-cream and other South-Indian snacks are located in its vicinity to curb the cravings of the foodies. Eating bhajjis by the beach in Chennai is not a food experience, but rather a ritual that is not to be missed!

Night Food Stalls at Marina Bech

History of Marina Beach

Before the 16th century, the changing landscape of the coast was too premature to transform itself into the sandy beach that is seen today. In 1640, when Fort St. George was built, the sea lay very close to its walls, lapping waves onto its ramparts. It was later, with the setting-up of the harbor, that the shore starts accumulating sand thereby distancing itself from the sea.

It is said that Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, a British official, was captivated by the serene coast during his visit in 1870s. Later, upon his return as Governor General of Madras in 1881, he built a promenade along the beach with extensive layering, thereby modifying the landscape. The beach was thus given a face lift and an Italian Madras Marina name meaning harbor

Elliot's Beach

Elliot’s Beach is located in Besant Nagar. It forms the end-point of the Marina Beach shore. It is named after Edward Elliot, Governor of Madras. This beach is one of the neatest beaches of Chennai city, is also called as Besant Nagar Beach. Besant Nagar beach is less polluted and one can see a decent crowd when compared to other beaches of Chennai.  This beach is also famous as the night beach as it is the most preferred spot for the youths to gather and enjoy in the evening.

It is a nice, calm and clean beach. One should not walk a lot to reach shore or to touch water. The parapet wall that separates the beach area and road is a good place to sit if you do not want to walk in sand and to see water. Besant Nagar (Elliot’s Beach) is less polluted and one can see a decent crowd when compared to other beaches of Chennai. 

Elliot's Beach-Chennai

 The beach boasts of the famous landmark called the Karl Schmidt Memorial, a gate-like structure made from bricks. Legend says that this landmark was built in the memory of a Dutch sailor who lost his life while saving a girl from drowning.

Another point of attraction of Elliot’s Beach is the Ashtalakshmi temple near the beach, built on the sand. Besides this, the Church of our Lady of Health, Madonna, is also positioned on the beach to welcome people of all faiths.

A Fisher Man with his Nets--At Elliot's Beach-Chennai

The beach is a prominent hang-out zone for most of the college-going crowd in Chennai. On weekends, it becomes quite an experience to find parking space on the beach roads. The beach also has found importance with families, who now no longer travel to the famous Marina Beach.

Fisher Man busy in repairing his fishing Net-Elliot's Beach

The best part of this beach is that there are number of Eat out places near to the beach right from Murugan Idli shop offering south Indian Idli dosa to Barista offering café, papa john’s pizza, cascade restaurant serving continental food.

Covelong Beach

This Beach was my third beach of Chennai, which I visited. Covelong Beach is a fishing town situated at a distance of 40 km from Chennai city, en route to Mahabalipuram. It is stretching along the Coromandal coast. Covelong Beach is one of the few places in the East Coast where wind surfing takes place. There is a surf school with resort in the beach.

Covelong has glorious history. Once upon a time it was a busy port town, developed by Saadat Ali Nawab of Carnatic region. Later in 1746, it was occupied by French General. But a few years later the town faced decay and destruction when Robert Clive occupied it in 1752. Now Covelong has awakened up from its ruins, and today this place is well-known for its fishing activities. Another major attraction of this place is the fine beaches. 

Food Shops at Elliot's Beach

The soft gentle breeze, the beautiful sandy beaches, the calm and soothing atmosphere, and the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal has turned this sleeping place into a paradise at Eastern Coast of India.

This ends my Romantic Walk with Nature at Beaches of Chennai. Romance is certainly in the air at beaches. Apart from the scenic sunrises and sunsets, the beach has a complete package of eateries, shopping stalls, bars and a quaint walking stretch. Take your love to the beach, spend some time with the waves by the shore, sip some coffee together and enrich the special bond.

Written (with help of Wikipedia and materials available on net). Photographed and posted by Engr Maqbool Akram.

A Walk with Nature Chennai’s Snake and Guindy national park.

Before a tour of Chennai, I searched on Google the most attractive places of Chennai City. Within a blink of eye the result was on my desk top, one of those was Chennai’s Snake (Reptile Zoo) and Guindy Children’s park.

Chennai Snake Park

I started my first day by visiting The Guindy Children’s park and Chennai Snake Park (Reptile Zoo).It is India's first reptile park, situated in heart of main city near IIT-Madras. The entry fees of Guindy national park is Rs. 20.00 per person Adults,Rs.10.00 per person Children, and Rs 20.00 per still camera, 100.0 per video camera .

The Guindy Children’s park and Chennai Snake Park are located in the same campus but have separate entrances. First, I entered in Chennai’s Snake Park.

Snake Park (Reptile Zoo).Entered the world of magnificent reptiles at Guindy Snake Park. It is home of wide range of snakes such as adders, pythons, vipers, cobras and other reptiles. The Snake Park is maintained very well. The park has a collection of snakes that live in land, and also the ones that live in water. In addition, the park had crocodiles and turtles. 

A Python in Chennai Snake Park

There, I found large collection of stuffed snakes coiled around pillars. There was one enclosure that was filled with close to 25 crocodiles. Apart from snakes and crocs, there were Star Turtles, Indian monitor lizard and chameleons in the endangered category. 

There is a small auditorium with a ceiling-mounted projector, wall-mounted screen and a touch-screen kiosk for conducting classes for visiting students. There are also facilities for projecting from the kiosk to the wall-mounted screen. 

Guards at Snake Park

The park has a museum of preserved specimens of reptiles and amphibians and a library with a stock of books and journals on reptiles and related subjects. The park also demonstrates venom extraction from snakes. 

Guindy Children’s park.Guindy National Park was established in the year of 1976.Which has a 2.70 km² protected area. The park is an extension of the grounds surrounding Raj Bhavan, formerly known as the 'Guindy Lodge', the official residence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu. It extends deep inside the governor's estate, enclosing beautiful forests, scrub lands, lakes and streams.

Guindy National park has a very unique history : In the early 1670s, a garden space was carved out of the Guindy forest and a residence called the Guindy Lodge was built by Governor William Langhorne (1672–1678), which had helped make St Thomas Mount a salubrious place for rest and recreation.

The remaining of the forest area was a game reserve, and owned by Gilbert Roderick's, a British citizen. When Gilbert Roderick died, in 1821 the Tamil Nadu government purchased it and the surrounding wooded property for a sum of Rs. 35,000/.

The place was declared as reserved forests in 1910. Spotted deer were introduced into the park probably after 1945. Between 1961 and 1977, about 172 ha of the forest, primarily from the Raj Bhavan, was transferred to various government departments in order to build educational institutions and memorials.

In 1958, a portion of the forest area was transferred to the Union Education Ministry for establishing the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru allotted a portion of the Guindy forest as a park for children. In 1958, it was handed over to the Forest department.

For the nature lovers like me it was a treat to their eyes. The Guindy Children’s park is more like a zoo than a national park! Most of the animals and birds are kept inside cages, just like a zoo. On entering the park, I found there lot of school excursions, but not felt crowded as the place was big enough to accommodate all.

 This was a quite huge and covered a wider variety of flora and fauna. The park was filled with animals and birds of most kinds. One can find a variety of monkeys, Antelope, Black buck, Chital, dears, sambar, hyena, jackal, grey pelican, cormorant, cockatiel, peacocks, emu, parrots. 

One can also find a few salt water crocodiles. There is a huge enclosure for birds and it is filled with colorful variety of birds. The park has a collection of over 120 species of birds such as the spotted billed or Grey Pelicans, the painted Stork, grey heron, raptors and sea-eagles, name a few.

It was a very romantic feeling in roaming the lanes and pathways lined with trees giving a scenic moment to walk through life. Walk together through the lanes and pathways, sit, relax and unwind amidst the solitude of the wild, bird watching, sitting under huge green canopies providing shade and cool the place.

There was a canteen just outside this park and some snacks are  and many coconut water selling stalls along the way.

At the end of a trip of nature in “Chennai’s Snake and Guindy national park”, my camera was full of wonderful memories, what I experienced the jungle right in the heart of a metropolitan city like Chennai, where you could breathe fresh air and enjoy the music of the dancing trees!