Chettinad

Chettinad is a rural, semi-arid region in Tamil Nadu, consisting of about 75 villages. They have essentially been created by the Chettiar, a number of families that became extremely wealthy through trading and money lending in other Asian countries. Their wealth declined after World War II, resulting from countries like India and Burma becoming independent from Britain. Their former wealth can be seen in many old mansions made from the finest materials from all over the world (Italian marble, Belgian tiles, Burmese teak etc).

Many of these old mansions are now in ruins but some are still maintained by the families and I was able to stay in two of them that have been converted to hotels.

Chettinad is very rural, mostly villages with land in between. I really enjoyed hiking around at different times of the day, always seeing friendly smiles and waving. There were also a lot of birds, including really cool kingfishers, parrots etc.

After some searching in the savannah/forest, I was lucky to find this ancient sacred grove temple, dedicated to Ayannar. It doesn’t have any fancy buildings but is a carefully chosen area where villagers present offerings in the form of terra cotta figures. It was quite magical to suddenly find this enchanted space. It reminded me a bit of some of the Studio Ghibli films.

Local farmers markets are always beautiful.

Last but not least – Chettinad is famous for its cuisine which is somewhat different from other parts of Tamil Nadu. I really enjoyed a cooking demonstration at the famous Bangala in Karaikudi and maybe even cracked the secret to the mushroom Chettinad dish at the a2b restaurants in New Jersey 🙂