Signature Crest Serviced Apartment Coimbatore

... across in my life.

The next day, the driver Aravindan from Kannan Tours & Travels Pvt Ltd took us for a local trip of coimbatore. He took us to Isha Yoga centre where they had a dhyanalingam installed and also to a waterfall nearby Kovai Kutrallam. From there we visited Perur temple and Marudhamalai Murugan temple. Came back to Jenny's for a wonderful dinner and rest in the comfy room.

Will be starting off to ooty tomorrow

... really opened my eyes to what it is like down here. I know that the north is different than the south, and hopefully I will be able to explore the north at some point, but for now, my perspective of the Tamil Nadu and Kerala have changed.

I was thinking that everywhere down here was a little uncivilized, for lack of better words. The place that I went shopping in my first days was very dirty ...

When coming up with a name for a particular blog it can come from a number of inspirations. This one I think emerged on the rather arduous bus journey to Ooty. Dean and I deal with life's little incidences in different ways and he came up with this little ditty, as we started to ascend the hairpin bends, after the crazy plains and bumpy potholes, the driver slammed through on our way. "Ooty tooty fruity, Ooty tooty fruity...." to the tune of "Ohhhh Hokey Cokey..." sang Dean as ...

... if it doesn't rain. On our river walks we saw leopard tracks, a dead rat & porcupine, loads of monkeys and I got attacked by leeches (twice), yucky blood drawing tenacious little buggers. At the night there's loads of gloworms and fire flies and something small and furry visited our room and dumped on our bed on the last night! Our room 'the honeymoon cottage' was nice but rustic to say the least. A bit little like the mountain ...

... and it was a kick ass house, marble floors and stairs,europrean kitchen, large bedrooms, verandas, flat widescreen tv with surround sound system and 2 pure-bred cocker spaniels thrown in for good measure. It was a newly built house (built on wide expanses of now defunct and dried up paddy fields) and was a long way away from the corregated shantys of Vellore. The dinner made by the woman(except for Paula!). As expected - Taaasty stuff, as we say back in the ...

... arranged for Ali to take us to a spice plantation for a tour. Ali also offers to take us for an elephant ride. We drive to Spring Valley Spice plantation and garden and we get a tour from someone we'll call Shroeter (because we can't remember his real name and it sounds something like that). Basically, he has a huge plantation out behind his house, but has samplings of everything around the house. He shows us cardamom, banana, cocoa, coffee (and beans drying on the roof. They pay the ...

... only thing I could think about was a tv show I'd seen a while back about circus elephants that rampaged when they'd had enough of being beaten and tortured. As I wobbled back and forth, I realized that I was perched precariously on nothing more than a wooden board with a cushion and a small, loose chain barrier to keep me from falling off. My legs were dangling over the side so basically I could have slipped and fallen out. Had the animal charged, I could have been trampled ...

... up to Coonoor and passing on blind curves. I still get hooked into the drama of the driving when I'm in a taxi. A couple of times today I made myself watch the scenery. In Coimbatore I noticed the most beautiful colored saris. Really spectacular. Tried to get photos but the car was zooming through traffic, so.... Yesterday on the ride from Alleppey to Cochin ...

... a huge rock that sticks out of the ground) to see a view of Bangalore. On our way back down, we stopped into a second building that is a part of all Hindu temples whose name I don't remember right now, but it translates into 'nine planets'. There is a huge square table that fills up the room, with eight sculptures of the Gods of the most auspicious planets spread evenly on the perimeter of the table. A central sculpture (the ninth) represents the sun. You walk around the table (to the ...

... India. A place that was likely to have as much in common with Scotland as chalk has with cheese. We arrived in Mumbai refreshed if a little tired, and looked out a restaurant seeking some liquid refreshment. We sat down at a table, and waited for the waiter to come and take our order. "2 Kingfisher's please" He shook his head and walked away. I paused for a second, and then shouted after him, "Oh, can we have two cups of coffee then?" But he'd gone into the ...