Marina beach is the second longest beach in the world. Marina beach is in Chennai, capital of Tamilnadu. It is the major tourist?s attraction in Chennai. The beach is clearly visible from the main road and you have to walk less than 1km to reach the shore.
The beach is situated in the heart of the city and easily reachable from anywhere in Chennai. I am not a resident of Chennai but I have never returned home without playing in this beach whenever I was there. It is always a pleasure being there in evenings. I like this beach a lot mainly because I am residing in a place where there are no any water bodies near. The buses are available from parry?s corner and also from the new bus stand in Koyambedu and from all the local bus stands. The main thing is there is no any entry fee and so you can see all kinds of people of different social status being happy here. In the proximity you have Anna square and MGR square. Anna and MGR are two great unforgettable leaders and also the chief ministers of Tamilnadu.
In the morning, you can see people of all ages jogging in the road near the beach and doing exercise and as the day proceeds the beach becomes empty because of the extreme hot conditions of Chennai but even though you can see young lovers sitting and chatting here and there, as if they don?t mind about the temperature and the hot climate and their love is inert to all these cheap disturbances. And the best time to visit this beach is in the evening. From 4.00 pm onwards the people from all around Chennai will gather there to have a relaxed evening. Families, friends groups, newly married couples, lovers of all ages, lovers of loneliness, tourists peoples, school students all will be there in evening.
The view of the sunset in the evening is really something that one should not miss. Your eyes are blessed to watch the beauty of the beach as the light goes and darkness starts to spread the clear sky with a moon(in a full moon night) in the sky meeting the unreachable land at a point through this beach. The joy of playing with the waves in the beach cannot be expressed in words, it can only be felt.
Apart from the natural beauty of the beach it has a very little more to entertain. There are few games for kids and you can go for a ride in horse. You have lot of stalls on the way on the sand spread through which you reach the waters. You get all kind of food over there. On two sides of the path you can get Sea foods, ice creams, bajji, chat items, sugarcane juice and many more. The thing that I surprised to see is when I saw there people selling drinking water at a price of 0.25 paisa/glass. The specialty of this water is that this water is taken from the pits dig in the sand near the beach but unlike sea water which is salty this water is sweet but comes with a fish smell. I think the sand acts as a filter which filters the salt and leaves pure drinking water. In the proximity you have a swimming pool maintained by the government and they charge some minimal amount for taking bath and it is very useful because after playing in sea water it is necessary to take bath in pure water to avoid the itching sensation in your body.
Other than food stalls, you can find souvenir shops in the same path where they sell toys for kids, chains and other gift articles made out of sea fossils, and many more goods which is very cheap cost and also quality. I would advice not to buy anything from these shops.
One cannot forget the disturbances created by the children selling sundal, murukku, kadalai etc., near the shore. They will not leave you till you buy what they sell. But all these children have a pathetic background. These children are hired for some Rs. 3000-Rs.5000 and these kids have to work and repay the amount and then only they can go back to their parents. Now if you get a chance to visit this beach in day time you can find a van in the beach which serves as the mobile school for these kids with one teacher in each bus. As in the day time these kids have less work the government has started this mobile school near the beach to educate these students so that these kids can have their free basic education here when they are free. I think this is a good thought that no government has done ever. Who knows an Abdul kalaam may be selling sundal and murukku there.
But one thing that I don’t like in this beach is the cleanliness, it is too bad and you can’t sit anywhere confidently because any s.h.i.t may be there. People who visit this beach are completely responsible for this because they throws the empty wrappers, papers and wastes randomly where ever they like to.So plz let us make this beach blue and clean.