My father had been saying for years that he wanted to see the old stone temples of the Tamil coast. Mahabalipuram was supposed to be a short stop before Chennai. It became the entire reason for the trip.
We woke before dawn and walked to the Shore Temple as the fishermen were pushing out their boats. The light moved up the carved towers like a tide. Our guide, Meenakshi, explained that the stones had stood through fourteen centuries of salt wind.
We spent the afternoon on the rock carvings and the Rathas, and the evening at a small seafood place where the owners remembered my father from a trip decades ago. Two days was barely enough. We are already planning the return.
