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Mahabalipuram is renowned for its skilled stone carvers, who are frequently commissioned to create sculptures for new temples around the world. Dozens of stone carving shops were spread throughout the town and many would let us watch them chisel away at their stones.
The first sights we visited were rock-cut temples called the Five Rathas. These temples were unique to anything we have seen because they were entirely carved out of stone. Standing in front of them you could almost imagine the stone workers slowly chipping away at the solid rock.
Standing gallantly among the Five Rathas is a life size stone sculpture of an elephant. Lonely Planet said it is “regarded as one of the most perfectly sculptured elephants in India”. Not sure if this is true or not, but standing next to a life size stone elephant was pretty cool.
After visiting the Rathas we headed for the town’s most well known temple, the Shore Temple. Like the Five Rathas the temple is carved entirely out of stone. It sits on the beach just steps from the shore. Its two main spires are dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. The carvings here were not as plentiful as the Rathas, but the effect of having the temple right on the beach was impressive.
Mahabalipuram also has a large park with a surprising number of interesting sights. The most popular of which is the butter ball. It’s an enormous boulder which appears to be balancing precariously on a hill in the middle of the park. Nervous that it would one day roll over a group of unsuspecting park-goers, the government tried to pull it down with an elephant. Apparently it didn’t even budge. It has since been deemed unmovable and become a popular spot to congregate and play. There is even a slide on the rock which has been worn away through the years by local children and caused many mothers aggravation over the re-sewing of ripped trousers.
While admiring the butter ball we kept getting approached by local children who wanted to know our names and where we were from. Two boys who were brave enough to introduce themselves took it one step further and asked if we could take a picture of them. As soon as we agreed family members started flying in from the left and right and before we knew it we had a good old fashioned family photo.
There were many interesting carvings throughout the park and a few paved paths wound through them all. Late in the afternoon we decided to walk to a lighthouse perched on top of a rocky outcropping at the far end of the park. As we neared the base of the outcropping Katy casually said, “Thank God there aren’t any monkeys around here looking to snatch our bags.” As I was opening my mouth to agree we spotted a bunch of monkeys chilling on the walls and trees not 30 yards ahead of us, what bizarre timing.
We kept our distance, but it was probably unnecessary since they were unmoved by our presence. After only a few minutes we were shooed towards the exit by a whistling park ranger who was closing the park for the day. What an unusual feeling it was to see monkeys playing in the trees over our heads, just as if they were squirrels.
We stayed the night in Mahabalipuram then headed back to Chennai to catch an overnight train to Alleppey in the beautiful state of Kerela.
previous travel blog entry
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