Chennai or Colombo?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Colombo comes closer. In Chennai, Marina Beach and Elliot's Beach are places for walking, eating snacks and flying kites. Locals barely wade in, and safer water means a drive down the East Coast Road towards Mahabalipuram, where the sea is often rough too.

Colombo has Mount Lavinia's broad sand inside the city limits and Negombo's hotel beach an hour north. From December to April the west coast is calm enough to swim. It is still open surf rather than a sheltered bay, though, and a proper beach stay means carrying on south to Bentota.

Both cities eat superbly and cheaply, but Chennai has the deeper tradition. It is the place for Tamil vegetarian cooking: idli and dosa in the tiffin halls of Mylapore and T. Nagar, full meals refilled on a banana leaf, and filter coffee throughout the day, with fiery Chettinad meat dishes as the counterweight.

Colombo's table looks more to the sea and mixes more influences. It offers hoppers with an egg cooked inside, kottu chopped late at night, lagoon crab and the Burgher lamprais parcel. Arrack and toddy also give its meals a drinking side that Chennai mostly lacks.

Chennai gives a visitor more to see. Its temples are among the great sights of the south, from the painted gopuram over the Kapaleeshwarar tank to the Parthasarathy Temple at dawn. The Egmore museum's Chola bronzes are world-class, and Fort St George and the red Indo-Saracenic buildings on the Marina tell the Madras story.

Colombo rewards a day or two. Highlights are the National Museum's royal regalia, the eccentric Gangaramaya, Bawa's Seema Malaka on Beira Lake and the striped mosque in Pettah. Sri Lanka's great ancient sites lie deep inland, beyond a day trip.

Colombo's weekends are the closest either city comes to a night out. Rooftop lounges look out over the ocean, the clubs in Colombo 3 and around Galle Face fill with a local crowd, and the casinos stay open late. Midweek is much quieter, and bars go dry on the monthly Poya full-moon days.

Chennai's licensing rules keep drinking to hotels and a handful of pubs, and these close well before the small hours. Evenings there mean sober crowds on the beach, temple festivals and late dinners rather than a night on the town.

Both sit on flat, hot coastal plain, and the outdoors in both means wetlands and birds rather than hills. Chennai has the more seasonal appeal. In winter, pelicans, storks and flamingos crowd Vedanthangal and Pulicat, volunteers lead olive ridley turtle walks on the beaches at night, and there is small-scale surfing at Kovalam.

Colombo's green spaces are gentler and closer to hand: shade around Beira Lake, birdwatching at the Diyasaru wetland and boat trips on the Muthurajawela marsh. It also works as the starting point for rafting, rainforest and tea country, though none of these is close.

Chennai has the two finer excursions. Mahabalipuram's Pallava shore carvings are about an hour away, and the temple city of Kanchipuram is about two, with DakshinaChitra on the way south.

Colombo's best day is Galle's walled Dutch fort, which you can combine with the Bawa gardens near Bentota or the mask carvers of Ambalangoda. Negombo is a lighter half-day. Kandy, like Pondicherry from Chennai, really calls for an overnight stay.

The two are much alike here. Children are warmly welcomed in both, but heat, traffic and missing pavements wear them out, and neither sea is safe for small swimmers. Chennai has more to fill a day: the large zoo at Vandalur, a planetarium and pony rides on Elliot's Beach. Colombo has the Dehiwala zoo, kites on Galle Face and a coastal train ride, and families tend to treat it as a short stop before the beach resorts.

Both cities are spread out and hard to walk, and the difference is in the transport. Chennai has an air-conditioned metro to the airport and Central station, plus suburban trains towards Mylapore, with app cabs and autos to fill the gaps.

Colombo has no metro. It runs on app-booked tuk-tuks, with the coastal railway as the pleasant way to reach Mount Lavinia. It does have more stretches you can walk, along Galle Face and around Beira Lake.

Chennai offers serious textile shopping. The multi-storey sari emporia and jewellers of T. Nagar draw wedding shoppers from across the south, Kanchipuram silk is sold in every shade, and Mylapore has brass lamps and temple jewellery.

Colombo is smaller in scale but different in feel. Pettah's wholesale streets are worth walking even if you buy nothing, and design-led stores in Colombo 3 and 7 sell handloom and batik. Tea, cinnamon and gems are the souvenirs to take home.

In Chennai, the cheaper of the two, almost the only thing that costs real money is a good hotel. Tiffin breakfasts, banana-leaf meals, filter coffee, autos and the metro cost next to nothing, and temples are free. Alcohol is the other expense worth noting.

Colombo's costs are more spread out. Rice and curry, kottu and tuk-tuks are cheap, but this is the island's priciest city. Seafront hotels, rooftop bars and upmarket seafood restaurants charge close to international rates, imported drink is heavily taxed, and some sights charge foreigners more.

This is where the two differ most. Chennai is the world centre of Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. In the December and January Margazhi season, the Music Academy and the sabhas of Mylapore and T. Nagar run concerts from morning to night, and Kalakshetra stages classical dance through the rest of the year.

Colombo has a few good venues, the Nelum Pokuna and the Lionel Wendt, plus occasional symphony concerts. Its standout is Kandyan dance with drumming, but there is no nightly programme to build a trip around.

Colombo is the better place to unwind, mainly because of Ayurveda. Here it is real local medicine, with warm-oil massage, shirodhara and prescribed courses in the city, and longer residential stays at Beruwala and Bentota.

Chennai's strength is yoga. Studios in Mylapore and Adyar teach in a respected hatha lineage, and massage is cheap. The city itself is draining, though, and real calm means the shaded Theosophical Society grounds or a resort on the East Coast Road.