Pulicat (Pazhaverkadu in Tamil) is a historic seashore town in Thiruvallur District of Tamil Nadu. It is about 70km north of Chennai on the barrier island of Sriharikota, which separates Pulicat Lake from the Bay of Bengal.
Most people, including a few from Chennai, would be blissfully unaware of this tiny non-descript town, which is a two-hour drive from the southern metropolis. But these two hours can quickly double if you don’t make an early getaway. You could be left negotiating the gauntlet of Chennai traffic at its peak, which is actually just about any time of the day past six in the morning.
There are a number of approach roads depending on which part of the city you’re in, but ultimately, you need to hit the Guntur-Chennai AH45, which is also NH5 towards Kolkata. We started from near Porur, and took the Chennai bypass road via Ambattur flyover. Once you’re beyond city limits, the drive is pretty effortless. Around 17km after you cross the toll plaza at Puzhal, you need to get off the NH to follow SH56 towards Ponneri, which ultimately leads to Pulicat. There is heavy construction in progress on the national highway, so it is likely that you will have to go up a little further before finding a safe place to make a U-turn and get on to SH56. Once you have made this turn-off, it is impossible to lose your way since Pulicat is where the highway ends. After the wide confines of the national highway, the scenery changes rapidly. Roads become narrower, while traffic density, especially of trucks and zealously driven State Corporation buses, increases. You’ll pass through several villages, and need to be extra cautious as a TVS 50 loaded to the gills with the day’s produce can just materialise out of nowhere.
