Chennai or Mysore?

Neither city is right for a beach vacation, but Chennai at least has a sea. Marina Beach and Elliot's Beach are lively places for evening walks, snacks and kite-flying, though the heavy surf keeps people paddling no deeper than their knees. Proper swimming means driving south to the resort beaches around Kovalam and Mahabalipuram.

Mysore is about 250km from any coast, and its reservoir and river are for looking at, not for swimming. In either city the realistic place to swim is a hotel pool.

The two cities share the same breakfast of idli, dosa and filter coffee, but Chennai takes it much further. Beyond the tiffin halls and banana-leaf meals of Mylapore and T. Nagar, it has fiery Chettinad meat dishes, regional biryanis, coastal fish curries and evening bajji stalls along the sand.

Mysore cooks simple vegetarian food very well. Its buttery dosas and Karnataka banana-leaf lunches are a pleasure, and Mysore pak is worth tracking down. Once you have explored those and wandered Devaraja Market, though, there is little more to find.

Mysore has the more coherent set of sights, and they sit close together. The Wodeyar palace lit up at night, the Jaganmohan collection of Ravi Varma paintings, St Philomena's and the temple on Chamundi Hill all fit into two or three days. Dasara shows the old royal capital at its grandest.

Chennai's sights are just as rich but more scattered. They include the gopuram of Kapaleeshwarar above its tank, the Chola bronzes in Egmore, and British Madras at Fort St George and in the red Indo-Saracenic buildings of George Town. Seeing them means crossing a big city rather than strolling a compact centre.

Both cities go to bed early, and neither will satisfy someone planning big nights out. Chennai has a little more: hotel lounges and a few licensed pubs in Nungambakkam, Alwarpet and along the East Coast Road fill with young professionals at weekends. In Mysore, evenings mean the palace lights, the market and dinner, followed by a hotel bar, and most people save a proper night out for Bengaluru.

This is where Mysore pulls well ahead. About two hours away, Bandipur, Nagarhole and Kabini offer jeep safaris through forests with tigers, leopards, wild elephants and gaur. Closer in, you can row past nesting storks and basking crocodiles at Ranganathittu, or climb Chamundi Hill's stone steps at dawn.

Chennai's flat coastal plain offers quieter pleasures: blackbuck in Guindy, waders on the Pallikaranai marsh, winter pelicans and flamingos at Vedanthangal and Pulicat, and turtle walks on the beach at night. There are no hills, and the humidity limits outdoor plans to the early morning.

Both cities have strong day trips, but they come in different shapes. Chennai's list rests on two major sites: the Pallava carvings of Mahabalipuram down the coast and the temple city of Kanchipuram inland. Its other trips, such as Pondicherry or Vellore, are long enough to need an overnight stay.

Mysore has a cluster of shorter outings. Tipu Sultan's island fortress at Srirangapatna is about half an hour away and the Hoysala jewel at Somnathpur about an hour, while the giant Jain statue at Shravanabelagola, the sand-buried temples of Talakad and Melukote are a little further. From either city, a car with a driver makes these trips much easier.

Mysore is the easier city with children. It is calmer and milder, with a shady old royal zoo, a rail museum with carriages to climb into, musical fountains at Brindavan Gardens and boating on Karanji Lake, all a short ride apart.

Chennai has good outings too, including the large zoo at Vandalur, the planetarium, and pony rides and balloons on Elliot's Beach in the evening. But heat, long distances and few pavements wear children out quickly, so a hotel pool and a hired driver become close to essential.

Getting around is roughly as easy, or as hard, in either city, but for different reasons. Chennai has an air-conditioned metro and suburban lines linking the airport and Central station. Even so, the city is so spread out that most trips still end up in an auto-rickshaw or an app cab stuck in traffic.

Mysore has no metro, but it barely needs one. The area around the palace, Sayyaji Rao Road and the market is walkable, uneven pavements aside, and the zoo, Chamundi Hill and Brindavan Gardens are short rides away.

Chennai is the bigger shopping trip. T. Nagar's multi-storey sari emporia and jewellers draw wedding shoppers from across the south, and long-established silk houses stock Kanchipuram weaves in every colour. Mylapore adds brass lamps, temple jewellery and music shops.

Mysore is smaller and more specialised, built around its own crafts: heavy, gold-bordered Mysore silk, sandalwood soap and carvings, hand-rolled incense, rosewood inlay and gold-leaf paintings. Buy these from government emporia to avoid fakes.

Both cities are very cheap, with inexpensive vegetarian meals, rickshaw rides and modest entry fees. What differs is where the money goes when you spend more. In Chennai it is the business hotels aimed at corporate travellers, and alcohol. In Mysore it is a stay in a converted royal palace, a long yoga course or a safari lodge in the forests.

Chennai is one of the great centres of Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. During Margazhi, the Music Academy and the sabhas of Mylapore and T. Nagar run concerts from morning to night, many of the morning ones free. The rest of the year still offers regular recitals, dance at Kalakshetra and Tamil theatre.

Mysore has an honoured veena tradition from the Wodeyar court, but visitors see it mostly at Dasara, when the palace grounds host nightly performances. At other times expect only occasional recitals and Kannada repertory theatre.

Mysore is the place to come for a stay built around yoga. As the birthplace of Ashtanga, it draws students for weeks or months to Gokulam, where days begin on the mat before dawn and continue slowly with chanting classes, coconut water and Ayurvedic oil treatments.

Chennai's yoga roots are just as deep, and Mylapore and Adyar have studios teaching in that lineage. The city itself, though, is tiring. Calm is found in the shaded grounds of the Theosophical Society or at a resort spa on the East Coast Road.