1

There are some temple towns nearby, like Tirupati or Chidambaram. Pondicherry is also not too far. If you are considering flying, that opens up a lot of places. Hyderabd, for instance. For hiking, find a flight to Coimbatore and then go up to the Nilgiris. More walking than hiking, but outdoorsy.

2

Another vote for Pondicherry. In your trip to Pondicherry you can also combine it with Auroville, which is a green lung not far from Pondi.

If you ant to visit a hill station, you can also try Yercaud: relatively quiet and tranquil.

3

In addition to Pondicherry, I'd suggest these places:

• Gingee (an amazing fort) and Tiruvannamalai (an impressive temple) can be combined on the same trip. In Tiruvannamalai you can walk up the hill.
• Thanjavur (a great temple).

Tommi

4

Thank you all. After today (after visting Mamallapuram) I would like to add that I would like to avoid Touristy places (either local or foreign tourist).

5

Gingee is definitely worth a visit, though I'm not sure that you'll find too many places to stay around there: personally, I visited as a day-trip from Pondicherry. It's a lovely fort, and visiting it will involve a lot of hiking, as the old ruins and defenses of the fort are scattered around the hills. There were very few tourists of any sort when I visited.

Another interesting place to visit is Vellore (the easiest way to get there from Madras is to catch a train to Katpadi station). Vellore has a nice fort and a few temples, in addition to a very famous hospital. Arcot is about 20km away, and has a collection of things to see from it's glory days in the 18th century. Vellore has few tourists (though plenty of hospital patients) and Arcot has absolutely none.

Vijayawada and Bangalore could both be visited on long weekends out of Madras is you get your trains right. If Pondicherry sounds too touristy for you, consider heading further south to the area around Karaikal - there's an old Danish colony here (I can never remember the name, I think it's something like Tranquebar) which is interesting and very quiet and relaxed.

6

I was thinking about going to Coonoor, or somewhere in the Nigirihills (not Ooty though) for one of the weekend. Another weekend down to Pondichery and another place a bit further (one of the sugestions mentioned above), and one weekend to Kerala.

Any tips around Nigirihills and Kerala (especially the later one, as it has to fit within a Fr-Su trip)

Thanks again for all your interesting options!

7

chennai - night train to cochin
alleppey houseboat trip
kovalam beach
back to chennnai by flight (trivandrum apt)

or chennai to madurai by train
trichy and thanjavur visit
pondichery visit
back to chennai