Kaliappa Hotel Coimbatore

When we decided to zero in on ooty and kodai for our very recent tour,we did some mapping and found that coimbatore was the ideal location to start our tour since it was in middle of ooty and kodai. We were about 8 of us and we needed a minivan for tour so we again started hunting on google for a suitable car rental company, who had a good airconditioned tempo traveller. We found Kannan Tours & Travels Pvt Ltd as one of the leading ...

... in there. We went back to the Raja and asked for our money back, which they finally and reluctantly gave, and we moved into the Ruby Palace, had a nice meal at a vegetarian restaurant, and had a good night's sleep.

We are now spending the day in Coimbatore, relaxing while we wait for our overnight train to Trivandrum in the far south. My next blog will be from there in a day or two. Hope all well with you.

... me a long time to figure out why the specify that biys must wear shoes, but then I realized that people don't always wear shoes in India.

Rule #2: Everything is done with your hands. I eat with my hands and I clean with my hands. I am now very successful at eating rice and chutney with my hands and not spilling it down the front of me. I can also successfully clean my dishes my just some soap in my hands ...

We spent 2.5 weeks in Podanur, near Coimbatore , volunteering with Families for Children (FFC). FFC is a private, not for profit organization, operating homes in Bangladesh and India for destitute women and children. FFC was founded by in 1971 by Sandra Simpson from Montreal. If you are interested in learning more about FFC, you can check out their website at http://www.familiesforchildren.ca/. Rajiv and I spent the first couple of ...

... plantations, passing through small villages, small huts and large farmers' houses. As you climb higher you pass cocoa farms, vanilla farms, pepper plantations and rice paddies. In one of the small villages along the way, we stopped for lunch at a place the driver knew. It was just off the road and we walked in and sat in the front room. There were locals there so we figured it must be alright, and not just a tourist trap. A few minutes pass and the driver comes in with a policeman ...

... we arrived in Madikeri, set on grabbing a small room in a guesthouse and exploring a bit on our way down into Kerala, I decided to give Honey Valley one last try and as it worked out, they had one room left available for the night and the bus to where the jeep would pick us up was to leave in 15 minutes...I looked at Julie and said "you wanna go?!?" (she smiled and nodded the 'why not?' look) so i returned to the phone and replied "we will be there ...

... half hour rickshaw ride since arriving in India; rickshaws are like turbo-boosted green and yellow golf carts and ours was PIMPED OUT!! We had a sound system that would put my honda's CD player to shame, complete with blue flashing lights across the display panel. The dashboard was decorated with bobble-headed figures of the elephant god, Ganesh, and the rearview mirror was covered in colorful streamers that all flapped in the wind; our driver was surely not going to ...

... bus! Once at the top we watched the locals make offerings to their Hindu Gods and the local monkeys try to terrorise the locals with their offerings of fruit and food. This was really funny to witness. Especially when one monkey turned up with a TV ...

... to earn money. However, the satellite townships are an atrocious idea (specifically when government sponsored), no matter where in the world they are located, as the government will essentially be building cities, complete with infrastructure etc and expecting people to abandon their current homes and rush into them overnight. They're designed to cater to IT folk as well, so any farmers being displaced by the BMIC won't be able to afford to live in the city and find new ...

... and just as I thought, the head yogi greeted us as we arrived. He ran through the basic principles of yoga with us and then took us to a dome shaped structure to meditate. I can't say anything special happened to me at that point, but I did seem to become completely relaxed. It was a nice touch. When we got back to the house, we were invited to take some rest, and then were served a veritable feast of Suchee's mother's home cooking. After stuffing our faces ...