Located on the coast south of Chennai, Dakshina Chitra is a heritage village set aside to preserve the art, architecture, and handicrafts of South India. The preserve contains replica houses from several parts of the south. Artists display and sell their wares and sometimes they demonstrate their crafts. These crafts include pottery, tapestries, and paintings. Dakshina Chitra is the only tourist attraction in all of India with a gift shop. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. It's the only tourist attraction in all of South India with a gift shop.
We spent a good while walking around the compound and inside buildings and taking pictures. I took many pictures of houses, but I have no idea what the types of houses were or to which states they belong. If you know, tell me.
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| One of the replica houses |
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| Looks like a Mexican village on an old western |
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| Pot garden? |
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| Restaurant at MGM |
After visiting Dakshina Chitra, we stopped for lunch at MGM Eastwoods. At this point, you're thinking, "Wow! That must be like the MGM Grand in Vegas, a luxury hotel and casino." Well, no. This MGM has nothing to do with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It's part of an Indian group that operates hotels, theme parks, distilleries, and fast food chains. Adjacent to the hotel is the amusement park Dizzie World - not to be confused with Disney World, unless your a marketer for MGM, in which case you want people to confuse it with Disney World. Unfortunately, we had a National Lampoon's Vacation moment with Dizzie World. "Sorry, park's closed. Cow out front shoulda told you."
Brand confusion notwithstanding, the hotel (beach resort actually) was quite lovely. The restaurant's fabric "walls" we open, so we could see and hear the Indian Ocean.
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