Sadras Beach

A weathered 17th-18th century Dutch East India Company fort at Sadras (Sadurangapattinam) on the Coromandel coast, with brick ramparts, sea-facing bastions and a small Dutch cemetery of carved tombstones. It is an ASI-protected ruin standing quietly by the Bay of Bengal.

Five monolithic 7th-century Pallava temples, each hewn from a single granite boulder and named for the Pandava brothers and Draupadi; a highlight of Mahabalipuram's UNESCO ensemble.

The Bay of Bengal shoreline running alongside Mahabalipuram's monuments and fishing hamlets. Come for sunrise, colourful fishing boats and simple seafood shacks by the sand.

An early-1900s working lighthouse on the Mamallapuram hill, standing beside the ancient Olakkannesvara temple, the Pallava-era "Old Lighthouse." Climbing it opens sweeping views over the coast and the monument town.

A ruined early-8th-century Pallava structural Shiva temple perched on the hilltop above the Mahishasuramardini cave, long known as the 'Old Lighthouse' of Mamallapuram and commanding sweeping views over the town and Bay of Bengal.

A specialised institution at Mamallapuram that trains sthapatis (temple architects) and stone sculptors in the traditional Shilpa Shastra, keeping alive the craft that produced the town's Pallava monuments. Visitors can watch students carving granite deities and reliefs by hand.

A late-7th-century Pallava rock-cut mandapa on the Mamallapuram hill, famed for its dynamic relief of the goddess Durga slaying the buffalo-demon Mahishasura and, on the facing wall, a serene reclining Vishnu, with the later Olakkannesvara temple perched on the rock above.

A rock-cut mandapa at Mamallapuram whose great mid-7th-century Pallava bas-relief shows Krishna raising Mount Govardhana on one hand to shelter the cowherds and their cattle from the storm.

The living Vishnu temple in Mamallapuram town, one of the 108 Divya Desams, where the deity Sthalasayana Perumal is worshipped in a reclining, ground-resting form and which tradition links to the Alvar saint Bhutathazhwar.

A set of outlying monolithic chariot-shrines carved from single boulders, sculpted like the more famous Pancha Rathas but set apart to the north near a tank. Part of the UNESCO Group of Monuments, they show the same 7th-century Pallava rock-cutting tradition in a less-visited setting.

The largest cave temple at Mamallapuram, a spacious but deliberately unfinished late-7th-century Pallava rock-cut mandapa popularly named for the five Pandava brothers of the Mahabharata.

The flagship of Mahabalipuram's UNESCO ensemble: an early-8th-century Pallava structural granite temple rising right beside the Bay of Bengal, built under Narasimhavarman II (Rajasimha).