Chennai, India

Chennai,india

In the northeastern corner of Tamil Nadu on the Bay of Bengal, CHENNAI (still commonly referred to by its former British name, Madras) is India's fourth largest city, with a population nudging six and a half million. Hot, fast, congested and noisy, it's the major transportation hub of the south, and most travellers stay just long enough to book a ticket for somewhere else. The attractions of the city itself are sparse, though it does boast fine specimens of Raj architecture, pilgrimage sites connected with the apostle Doubting Thomas, superb Chola bronzes at its state museum, and classical music and dance performances.

As capital of Tamil Nadu, Chennai is, like Mumbai and Kolkata (Calcutta), a comparatively modern creation. It was founded by the British East India Company in 1639; a fortified trading post, completed on St George's Day in 1640, was named Fort St George. By 1700, the British had acquired neighbouring territory including Triplicane and Egmore, while over the course of the next century, as capital of the Madras Presidency, the city mushroomed to include many surrounding villages.

The city's renaissance began after Independence, when it became the centre of the Tamil movie industry, and a hotbed of Dravidiannationalism. Rechristened Chennai in 1997, the metropolis has boomed since the Indian economy opened up to foreign investment. The flip side of this rapid growth is that Chennai's infrastructure has been stretched to breaking point: poverty, oppressive heat and pollution are more likely to be your lasting impressions than the conspicuous affluence of the city's modern marble shopping malls.

Central Chennai is sandwiched between the Cooum and Adyar rivers, and crossed diagonally by the city's main thoroughfare, Anna Salai, the modern, commercial heart of the metropolis. To the east, this gives way to the atmospheric old Muslim quarters of Triplicane and a long straight Marina where fishermen mend nets and set small boats out to sea, and hordes of Indian tourists hitch up saris and trousers for a quick paddle. South of here, near the coast, Mylapore, inhabited in the 1500s by the Portuguese, boasts Kapalishvara Temple and San Thome Cathedral, both tourist attractions and places of pilgrimage.

Mumbai

Mumbai

Ever since the Suez Canal opened in 1869, the principal gateway to the Indian Subcontinent has been MUMBAI(Bombay). Many travellers regard time spent here as a rite of passage to be survived rather than savoured. But as the powerhouse of Indian business, industry and trade, and the source of its most seductive media images, the Maharashtrian capital can be a compelling place to kill time. Whether or not you find the experience enjoyable, however, will depend largely on how well you handle the heat, humidity, hassle, traffic fumes, relentless crowds and appalling poverty of India's most dynamic, Westernized city.

First impressions tend to be dominated by Mumbai's chronic shortage of space. Crammed onto a narrow spit of land that curls from the swamp-ridden coast into the Arabian Sea, the city has, in less than five hundred years metamorphosed from an aboriginal fishing settlement into a megalopolis of over sixteen million people – the biggest urban sprawl on the planet.

While it would be misleading to downplay its difficulties, Mumbai isn't always an ordeal. Once you've overcome the major hurdle of finding somewhere to stay, you may begin to enjoy its frenzied pace and crowded, cosmopolitan feel. The defining landmark is the Gateway of India. A five-minute walk north, the Prince of Wales Museum should be your next priority, for its flamboyant architecture as much as the art treasures inside. Up the road, the commercial hub of the city, Fort, is great for aimless wandering, with old-fashioned cafés, department stores and street stalls crammed between its Victorian piles. For a sense of why the city's founding fathers declared it Urbs Prima in Indis, press further north still to visit the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerely the Victoria Terminus, the high-water mark of Raj architecture.

Possibilities for an escape from the crowds include: an evening stroll along Marine Drive, bounding the western edge of the downtown area; the Muslim tomb of Haji Ali; and Elephanta, a rock-cut cave on an island in Mumbai harbour.