Semmozhi Poonga
Botanical garden of century-old trees, bonsai and orchids on the site of a famed drive-in restaurant.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Semmozhi Poonga in Chennai starts at an old tree trunk and asks who the ground beneath it really belonged to. It goes back to April 1962, when a hotelier opened the city's first drive-in restaurant here on sub-leased land, with families eating dosa in their cars under the rain trees. Along the way you'll meet the long-serving waiters, the colonial-era garden society, and the state that wanted its land back. Best heard standing beside one of the garden's older trunks.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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