Team-BHP - Weekend trip - Temple, Park and Rajasthani food

Velachery-Kottivakam-Kotturpuram-Mahalingapuram-AnnaNagar-Velachery

It was Sunday. I had got my car serviced on Saturday. No drivers available to pick and drop for the service and I and wifey did the up/dn in the morning - traveling by MTC. The MTC experience to Ekkatuthangal on D70 was good. We should all be doing more of it I felt. Good for all. Wifey/Mom/Dad and little Neha were all at home and the weekend was running out. We still had 0.5 days of the weekend left. Mom/Dad are to leave us tonight back to Coimbatore. Lets show them around city, I thought. It will be refreshing for all.

Hour 1:
We started at 3:30 pm from Velachery and took the Taramani Link Road from the Vijay Nagar Circle. This road is slated for 4Laning December of this year, but as of today its far from done. Some areas are tarred and is better than earlier, but the tarring is not end-to-end. There is a road-divider just about 200 m from the Vijay Nagar Circle side and is placed horribly and it stretches just for 100 m. God knows why its there. The stretch beyond TCS, and throught the church and the mosque is in bad condition. There is a signal just before the American school. My advice is to take the left from here to connect to the Ascendas road. The Ascendas road is excellent. One can connect straight into the Tidel Park Signal. Next through the crowded Tiruvanmiyur signal and into ECR. We reached Kottivakam at 3:50 pm. We had a great time/chat with wife's grandfather's nephew/wife/kid with tea/snacks. We had a heated argument about Barbeque Nation and their strict timings and 3-day prior booking etc, if its needed or not, Non-professionalism of carpenters/wood-work undertakers, eat-out places in Chennai, etc.

Hour 2:

At 5:00 pm we moved on from there into the city again. On our way back the route is different to reach the Tiruvanmiyur signal, but benefits all I believe. Well before the bend of the Tiruvanmiyur bus-depot/market, one can take a left (its sort of a forced left), then a right, then the second left and then a right to reach the Tiruvanmiyur signal. I took a left from here to reach Tidel Park, then moved on to the best road in Chennai city, the canal bank road. This road has the over-head local train running alongside and it has atleast three stations (Thiruvanmiyur, Indira Nagar, Kasturba Nagar.) At the end of this road I took the left to reach Cancer institute. The road narrows down a bit as we go past IIT. Here we encounter a signal and we take a right here. This road is also a good one. We go thru Kottur and into Kotturpuram after flying past the Adyar river, from the top of this bridge one can see the boats from the boat club plying. Just after the bridge on the right-side is a public park. We used to visit this park regularly during our Splendor days. Neha said lets go to the park. SIL was to get out of office (she is a doc) only 9 pm and we had lots of time. And Neha asked me to take a U turn by not going over the Cenotaph-TurnBull new flyover but going below it and taking a U. We reached the park and Neha was off. There is quite some parking available inside. This park had rusted and broken slides/swings/see-saws but we were pleasantly surprised that new ones had been installed. Neha played for just 10 min and she said she was bored. Times are changing, priorities are shifting, kid's growing I thought. As we came out we all took a vow, that we shall never visit that park again :)

Hour 3:

Now the road one has to take to reach Mount road from this park is to actually take a left, cross-over the Adyar bridge and reach Kottur, dont take the U just after one has crossed the bridge but I would suggest to drive 100 m further down and look for the U mark on the divider. Please use this. Why? If you take the U immediately after the bridge it could cause a traffic jam as I witnessed then. So, now we are again at the Kotturpuram Public Park. Now, take the small over-bridge (TurnBull-Cenotaph bridge - which was inaugurated recently by the CM and was in the news since they spent ~30L Rs just for the inauguration ceremony.) and now one is very close to Mount road (Anna-Salai.) Once on Mount road we decided to go to the Ayappan temple in Kodambakkam. We usually take the couple of flyovers over T.Nagar and Usman-Road to reach the temple. However today we were now close to Anand Hotel on the Pondy-Bazar-Rd-Mount-Rd junction. We went further till the famous Gemini(Anna)-flyover. Please do not go over the Anna-flyover if you want to take Nungambakkam High-Road or (Uttamar Gandhi road - the M.G.Road equivalent in Tamil.) Watch out for a left 50 m before the flyover starts. Take that left and at the next signal take a right. Now one can see the Anna-Flyover on the right-side. Take a left and you are on NH road. This road houses the Ayakar bhavan. We took the left at the first signal on this road to go to Valluvar kottam, thinking we could reach the temple by taking a right at the Usman road. But we could not. We had to go over the Kodambakkam bridge and clearing Liberty till the next signal and then take a U turn, back over the railway over-bridge and then left and we reached Mahalingapuram temple. It was very calm and quite. Excellent feeling. All lamps lit. We had an excellent darshan. It was 6:45 pm. All the roads in this hour was good. What do we do next?

Please do not ask for pictures. I had taken my camera, but since it was a quick visit and many places and I was driving, I could not click. Wifey - when she knew I had the camera with me, she said had she known she would have clicked.

Will continue on the other hours soon...

Ok. As expected no replies/queries and no comments as "please. dont keep me waiting, anxiously awaiting the full TL", "I am tuned" etc :)

So here I am completing the other Hours.

Hour 4

We could either go to Ampa mall after crossing thru Loyala college and the underpass into Nelson Manikkam Road. However, we thought we should reach a restaurant early atleast by 8 pm. Anyway, 30 min in the mall should give us a good peek/feel. We had been to Express Avenue end of Aug and it would be good to see how this one was. I am not a big fan of malls and have not gone to Ampa so far. However to our surprise we found that there is no left to get into the mall. We would have to take a U at the Anna Arch and then return. We saw loads of people getting in and out of the mall and overflowing into the narrow Nelson-Manikkam road / P.H.Road junction. I am not game to get through all that. We went through the Arch and left at the round-tana and straight till Rajasthani Dhaba, which is on the same building / next-building of Adyar Anand Bhavan. A2B is in the Gnd Floor. And Rajasthani Dhaba is on the top floor. But still we had atleast 30 min for 8 pm dinner. SIL would leave only at 8 from her clinic.

Hour 5

We walked thru till the signal, crossed over and went to Hi-Style for some window shopping. Its 7:45 pm and we walk back to the Rajasthani Dhaba. Seat for 7! They ask us to wait. We get our seats. SIL, her hubby, hubby's cousin's hubby (surprise visitor) walks in as well. We all get on a 6 seater area with couple of additional chairs. One special thali (for me :)), two saada thali, 10 phulkas, 2 sabzis. Wow, missi-roti, bajra roti, unlimited phulkas, aloo-prantha, kadi, bhindi, aloo-mutter, dal, rice, papad, abu-ghatta, jal-jeera, maal-puha. Wow, wow, wow!!! 680 bucks for 8 people. Good value for money.
Spl thali - 150/-, saada thali - 100/- They have recently started selling clothing as well on the side of the counter.

Hour 6:
We are all down. Chatting for 15 min in small groups. Match-fixing, SEZ, car-travel, MR life, easiest route from there to Velachery etc... We part our ways.

After crossing the two flyovers, Mahalingapuram & Pothy's we are on Mount Road and right from Raj Bhavan and into Velachery. Quite some crowd on Sunday night 10 pm. Old timers - I consider myself to be one now, since I have crossed a decade in Chennai - might find it odd. Sunday's was to be the most peaceful, but Chennai has started reminding me of Mumbai and its getting crowded.

Hour 7
In the confines of our home. Checking mails, zapping channels. Stop and off to sleep.

All and all and interesting day out. 52 km, 7 hrs.