UNPACKING WELLNESS IN INDIA
Episode 20
Location: Radisson Blu Temple Bay, Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu
Explore it here
If your hotel is about location, location, location, this is where to stay when you visit India’s most breathtaking, dynamic, monumental, open-air medieval sculptures. The hotel campus runs from the village outskirts to the Bay of Bengal. Its swimming pool (the longest in India, an area of 27,000 square feet) meanders past restaurants (terrific lunch buffet of local dishes), bar (whimsical wall-filling fish-themed frieze), spa with skillful Ayurvedic masseurs … and eventually arrives at lawns and a beachside café serving locally-caught fish under the stars. Here, overlooking the sea, are the best rooms – I like the upstairs ones with deep balconies. Golf buggies ferry those who don’t enjoy the stroll from the entrance.
That’s R&R taken care off. To the wellness-infusing sculptures. The Pallava rulers’ heyday was the 7th-8th centuries, when Kanchipuram was their political and sacred capital, Mamallapuram their port. At both, they built and decorated to impress. Here at Mamallapuram village, you need to gear up your imagination to transform today’s laid-back lanes with cafes, momento-sellers and granite stone carvers into an international medieval port-city brimful with trade, people and noise.
From the hotel, stroll through the village to enjoy mesmerizing experiences of oversized bejewelled Hindu gods cut into the living rock, as fresh as the day they received their final chisel. I always start at Krishna Mandapa and Arjuna’s Penance, two magnificent friezes that face out to sea declaiming Pallava power and faith to arriving shiploads. Then I wander the hillside to seek out lots more, never missing the baroque hilltop drama of Goddess Durga slaying the demon buffalo Asura. For still more, it’s a tuk tuk ride south to the Pancha Ratha and the Shore temple (try to spot the early Ganesh image here…..) or a short car ride north to the Tiger Cave site (four things to see here), best enjoyed as the sun rises over the Bay.
There are outings, too: to the Pallava’s political and sacred capital Kanchipuram, to Gingee fort, to Chennai the state capital of Tamil Nadu. And, of course, to some of the nearest and best of the 38,615 soaring, glorious, deliciously-decorated granite temples of Tamil Nadu, perhaps catching a procession or festival.
It’s just not possible to have too many temples. There, now you have my own requirement for wellness!
Must-do wellness experience: Quiet sunrise moments at a village sculpture Radisson Blu buzz phrase: 'Did you try that great café on the corner…?'
Ideas for unpacking your kind of slow-down wellness at Radisson Blu Temple Bay
Ideas for unpacking your kind of slow-down wellness at Radisson Blu Temple Bay
See Durga in all her brilliant power, sent by the other gods to slay the demon they could not. At Mamallapuram, each bold composition is masterly in design and execution. Mamallapuram is not a walk through; it requires time.
When you visit Kancheepuram, the seemingly silent temple courtyards are in fact seething with life - twisting, dancing and leaping gods in granite, and drama stories in miraculously surviving wall-paintings.
Always look up in a temple! Here, in a back lane temple in Kanchipuram, ceiling paintings include this white elephant carrying a royal party. They and their escorts wear spectacular headdresses, the latest Pallava fashion.
Get involved in temple life. Each one has a round of pujas, rituals and festivals, requiring all sorts of paraphernalia made of wood, brass, metal, bamboo, grasses and papier mache, with saris to wrap, dress or just decorate them. They can be centuries old or brand new like this jolly Nandi, Shiva's vehicle.
See women swathed in their best and brightest handwoven silk saris to visit the temple, perhaps ones woven in Kanchipurum or Thanjavur. Then seek out a store and buy some for yourself - all part of wellness!
Episode 20: Radisson Blu Temple Bay, Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu
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It really is time to start planning your Unpacking Wellness experience for 2022!
How shall we want to travel?
We are emerging into a more cautious world, one where we perhaps want to move more slowly, be in control of our interaction with other people, avoid crowds, be outside as much as possible. I am here to help you achieve this in the Himalaya, on the Deccan Plateau, along the coast, in forests, desert and villages.
If you have not traveled with me in a group before ....
Please know that we experience great sights in the best possible way, with lots of add-on encounters and visits to off-beat places. We meet conservationists, curators, craftsmen and musicians, we walk with naturalists, we cook with local chefs. In sum, we imbibe the essence of each area thanks to my four decades of studying and visiting India - and making great friends who I share with you.
For private travel ....
I work with you to create your tailor-made trip to any corner of India, to any budget, for all interests and special needs, for families and parties of friends, for business groups and for honeymoon couples - India is ideal for everyone!