Chennai

Ten-odd kilometres of sand fronting the city, though the currents are strong enough that entering the sea is banned. After sunset the sand fills with strolling families, corn-roasting stalls and children flying kites.

A Shiva temple in Mylapore whose eastern gopuram is covered edge to edge with gods and saints. During the Panguni festival in March or April, a procession carries the images of 63 saints around the streets that ring the temple.

The fort the British East India Company raised in 1644 now houses the state assembly and secretariat. St Mary's Church inside, consecrated in 1680, is the oldest Anglican church east of Suez, and the fort museum takes Friday off.

A church said to stand over the tomb of the apostle Thomas, rebuilt in white neo-Gothic in 1896. An underground passage on the museum side behind the nave leads down to the tomb chapel.

An Egmore museum opened in 1851, whose bronze gallery gathers Chola pieces including the dancing Shiva, Nataraja. The red Indo-Saracenic Museum Theatre stands on the same grounds.

About 60 kilometres south, Pallava kings left rock-cut temples and reliefs along the coast. The Shore Temple stands right at the water and photographs well with the morning sun behind it; the vast relief called Arjuna's Penance is in the heart of town.

A heritage village museum by the sea on East Coast Road, where old houses from several South Indian states were taken apart and rebuilt as they were. Potters and weavers work inside them, and Tuesday is the closing day.

The Besant Nagar beach, a good deal quieter than the Marina. At one end stands the white memorial to Karl Schmidt, a Dutch sailor who died saving someone from drowning, and cafes and stalls gather across the road.

Deep in the Theosophical Society woods by the Adyar estuary, a banyan spreads its branches wide in every direction. The original trunk fell in a storm, but the prop roots dropped from the branches have kept the tree alive.

A temple town about 70 kilometres southwest, with silk-sari looms in lane after lane. The temples usually close around midday and reopen late in the afternoon, so the Kailasanathar and the rest are seen in the morning.

A Vishnu temple in Triplicane, held to date back to Pallava times in the 8th century. The main image is Krishna as a charioteer, unusual for his moustache. On Vaikunta Ekadasi in December or January the queue runs through the night.

A round building facing Marina Beach, put up in 1842 to store ice shipped in from America. Vivekananda stayed here for some days in 1897, and it is now an exhibition in his honour. The thick walls of the old ice store still keep the inside cool.

Chennai's biggest shopping district, its main roads packed with multi-storey silk sari emporiums and jewellers. Before festivals, Ranganathan Street gets so crowded that shoulders touch. The Pondy Bazaar side, now a pedestrian plaza, is easier going.

A small hill by the airport, where tradition says the Apostle Thomas was martyred. A church now stands on top where a Portuguese missionary first built a small oratory in 1523. From the railing outside, landing planes pass at eye level.

A long brackish lagoon up the shore from Chennai, where flocks of flamingos land in the shallows in winter. The lakeside village keeps a 17th-century Dutch traders' cemetery. Local fishermen will take you out on the water for a fee.

A reptile conservation centre founded in 1976 in seaside woods off the East Coast Road, home to many kinds of crocodile, turtle and snake. Behind the pond railings, dozens of crocodiles lie heaped together. Drivers heading to Mahabalipuram often pull in here.

The beach at Kovalam, a fishing village south of Chennai, where steady waves support several surf schools. In the morning fishermen drag their boats up the sand and sell the catch right there. The water is clearer than at the city beaches.

North Chennai's big fishing harbour, where auctions start on the quay as soon as boats land at dawn. It is loud with shouting traders and cracking ice, and the ground is wet. It is over within hours of sunrise, so go very early.