India Trip Blog: Chennai & Bangalore in December 2025 (South India)
In December 2025, we embarked on a trip to India. Our plan was to visit Chennai and Bangalore—two major cities in South India. Chennai in particular gets extremely hot during summer, so we felt December would be a much better time to visit.
As someone who has grown up in India for most part of my life, I have a good understanding of how India operates. I’d like to think I know how people interact, the local food, and the general daily public interactions, which helps a lot whenever we visit. People are very friendly in general, the food is absolutely amazing, and the beautiful culture India offers is unforgettable. The music, the colors, and the clothing all add to the unique experience that the land has to offer.
Our trip was mainly to visit family and friends, but we also took time out to do some shopping and sightseeing along the way. This blog will be slightly different from the other blogs on our website because we will be removing the parts of our vacation that involved visiting family and friends and mainly focusing on the tourist time we spent in India.
We flew directly to Bangalore, spent some time with family, and then we all visited Chennai together. We took a train from Bangalore to Chennai. There are primarily two trains that connect the cities: Vande Bharat and Shatabdi Express. For our train ride, we took Vande Bharat. The journey is about 4 to 5 hours. The train station was certainly not the cleanest train station we’ve seen, but it was not too bad either. The train ride itself was beautiful. You can also book meals for your train ride ahead of time, and bottles of water and coffee are served on board.
Getting Around Chennai (and Why Uber Was Frustrating)
In Chennai, we used Uber to get around. Unfortunately, Uber in Chennai was very frustrating. Most of the drivers demand extra money outside of what the app was telling us to pay. We had to report a few of the drivers to Uber because it became a recurring issue.
Chennai was a short visit for us, and we had our extended family along with us during that time. One of the most memorable places we visited was Santhome Cathedral Basilica in Mylapore.
It is a beautiful cathedral, and on the far side of the cathedral there is a small museum where you can see some of the history of the church and the place. One thing to note: footwear was not allowed when walking through the museum because the museum connects to another small underground chapel.
Saint Thomas Mount and a Christmas Fair Surprise
After exploring the Santhome Cathedral, we went to Saint Thomas Mount. Since this was a Christmas time, there was a Christmas fair happening right outside the church. There were all kinds of vendors at the fair—from small food stalls to Christmas candles to homemade Indian spices. We found small businesses running their shops at this Christmas market, and in order to support them, we decided to have lunch there. We also bought a Christmas candle, some millet cookies for Opal, and tried some of the quail eggs.
After the market, we headed towards the main church. Keep in mind there are a few stairs you need to climb, and it is not handicap accessible. Once we reached the top of the mount, there is a beautiful cross overlooking the city, and we were able to get some pictures. There is also a small chapel that depicts the ways in which different apostles were executed.
Right around the chapel, there is a museum that talks about the history of the place, the mission of St. Thomas, and an underground area that shows different relics from different saints. Once we finished taking a look at all of this, we entered the main church. The church has different sections to it, and unlike other cathedrals and churches, we noticed different isolated sections within the main church, which we thought was very interesting. After fully enjoying this historic site, it was time to head back.
A Quick Stop at Marina Beach
Our stay in Chennai was very short, and the next day we were already heading back to Bangalore. However, on the way, we saw Marina Beach, which is quite famous in the area. The beach also has many vendors along the beachside. We could not fully explore Marina Beach because of our limited time, but I would highly recommend giving it a try if you ever visit Chennai.
Back to Bangalore by Train (and a Luggage Tip to Know)
One our way back to Bangalore, we took the train again. As mentioned earlier, make sure you book your meals for the train ride ahead of time. Water and coffee are also served on board.
One important thing to note is that there are a lot of people at the train station who offer to help you carry your luggage to the trains from the entrance of the station. When we went, some of them demanded excessive amounts of money to help with luggage. Be careful, because we noticed that some will grab your luggage, put it into a cart, and start moving before you even approve the charge. They do this in the hopes that you won’t have time to react, and once your luggage has already been carried a good portion of the way, it becomes harder to back out. Just be mindful of this if you are going to the train station with luggage.
Bangalore: Parks, Museums, Shopping, and Local Food
Once in Bangalore, our goal was to do a lot of shopping and enjoy the local foods. Before getting into shopping and food, I want to share a few places to visit if you are in Bangalore, especially if you’re planning a with kids.
Bangalore has beautiful parks right in the center of everything. Cubbon Park and Lal Bagh are two beautiful parks that you should visit and spend some time in. Sometimes they also have beautiful flower shows in these parks. If you are traveling with children, Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum and Namma Bengaluru Aquarium are must-visits in Bangalore. There’s a lot to learn and enjoy in these two places, and they are very close to each other.
While in Bangalore, we mostly used Uber to get around everywhere. Uber was very reliable and we were able to find cars at all times. Unlike Chennai, we had no issues with drivers demanding extra money.
We stayed in Marriott apartments in UB City, which included breakfast in the mornings. The rooms were very spacious and even had some welcome treats in them. To and from the airport was booked through the hotel, and they sent a luxurious van for our ride.
Shopping in Bangalore: Sarees, Lehengas, and More
Now going back to shopping: most of our shopping was done in Commercial Street, Jayanagar 4th Block, and Gandhi Bazaar. In these locations, we were able to purchase a lot of Indian ethnic wear such as beautiful sarees, cheddars, and lehengas for women and excellent sherwanis for men.
The art of making Indian wear is absolutely a delight to watch, and in one of the stores we were able to catch a small glimpse of it.
In these shopping areas, you can also find very intricate Indian footwear, handbags, and other fashion accessories. The colors, the fabric, the design, and the bling are absolutely breathtaking. Every time I visit India, one of the things I always make time for is shopping. Even on this trip, I decided to get myself a couple lehengas and a few sarees.
Bangalore Food: Street Eats, Bakeries, and Sweet Treats
Bangalore Food: Street Eats, Bakeries, and Sweet Treats The next thing Bangalore will never disappoint you with is the food. There is so much to talk about when it comes to food in India—let alone Bangalore. From crispy and flavorful masala dosa to sheek kabobs, there’s a wide variety of foods in between. A perfect Indian masala chai with samosas is a delight as an evening snack, and there are lots of bakeries with different varieties of Indian snacks and cakes.
One such famous bakery is Thom’s Bakery, close to Commercial Street.
One of the best places to go for street-side food and snacks is VV Puram Chat Street in South Bangalore. You will find every kind of street food you can think of in one street. Just be careful not to drink water from street vendors. Always purchase bottled water and eat foods that are cooked and not raw. This is a precaution to make sure you don’t fall sick.
Some of the must-try foods are Indian chats, idli and vada with sambar, filter coffee (a special type of coffee in India), golgappa, samosas, biryani, chicken kabobs, gobi manchurian, chilli chicken, vada pav, and pav bhaji. Although the last two dishes are North India, you can get these in South India too.
Some of these dishes might be a tad bit spicy for people who do not handle spice very well. But if you’re okay with a little bit of spice, you will certainly enjoy these foods. They are not extremely spicy—I would categorize them as more flavorful and spicy.
And if you have a sweet tooth, India does not disappoint you with sweet delicacies. From gulab jamun to rasmalai, every Indian sweet is worth trying. You can also find street vendors cutting open tender coconuts and squeezing sugarcane for sugarcane juice, which can be very refreshing.
Architecture, Stores, Spa Time, and Henna
There are a lot of churches, temples, and other buildings with very interesting architecture around Bangalore. Unlike gas stations in the US, you do not get alcohol served at any of the gas stations. Kiran has a funny story about this, where he and his friends spent a long time walking to the gas station only to find out that alcohol is not available in gas stations in India! We went to a store called Tonique, which had drinks from across the world.
I also took time to visit the spa as a family and get our manicure and pedicure done. It was absolutely refreshing.
If you’re interested in getting beautiful designs on your hands with henna/mehandi, you should definitely try it out. The design on your hand will last about a week or so. Just watching them dry out on your hands so fast with such precision is a beautiful sight.
Closing Thoughts
As someone who grew up most of their life in India, every time I visit India it’s more of an emotional reconnection with family and friends and not so much tourism. However, I do know a lot of details about Bangalore. I know the ins and outs, I know the people, the language, the culture—above all, the place.
Like I said earlier, this blog is slightly different where we do not have an outlined itinerary day by day like we have in our other blogs. But if you are ever thinking of visiting Bangalore, reach out to me and I can give you more nitty gritty details about Bangalore.
