Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Trichy
?120, five to six hours, 12 daily
Vellore
?47, two hours, every 15 minutes
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Gingee (Senji)
With three separate hilltop citadels and a 6km perimeter of cliffs and thick walls, the ruins
of enormous
Gingee Fort
(Indian/foreigner ?5/100; 9am-5.30pm)
poke out of the Tamil plain,
37km east of Tiruvannamalai, like castles misplaced by the
Lord of the Rings
. It was con-
structed mainly in the 16th century by the Vijayanagars and was later occupied by the
Marathas, Mughals, French and finally the British before being abandoned in the 19th
century.
Today the main road from Tiruvannamalai towards Puducherry slices through the fort,
just before Gingee town. Of the three citadels, the easiest to reach, Krishnagiri, rises north
of the road. To the south are the highest of the three, Rajagiri, and the most distant and
least interesting, Chakklidurg.
Remains of numerous buildings stand in the lower parts of the site, especially at the
foot of Rajagiri, where the main landmark of the old palace area is the white, restored,
seven-storey Kalyana Mahal (Marriage Hall). Just east of the palace area is an 18th-cen-
tury mosque, and southeast of that is the large, abandoned, 16th-century Venkataramana
Temple.
It's a good hike to the top of Krishnagiri and even more so to the top of Rajagiri (more
than 150m above the plain) and you need half a day to cover both hills. Start early and
bring water.
Gingee is on the Tiruvannamalai- Puducherry bus route, with buses from Tiruvan-
namalai (?20, 1½ hours) running about every half-hour. Get off at the fort to save a trip
back out from Gingee town.
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Puducherry (Pondicherry)
0413 / POP 241,773
