Coconuts

As I told last week I was in Coimbatore and around there. It was a work trip, but I am not going to discuss that, only that in 5 working days we had 21 sales meetings and every day it was about 100 km of driving so the whole trip was uuuf very tiring.

Again lets move into the important things. Before we even started the busines part of the trip we stopped by V's friend's place to say hello. For me it was again sooo interesting to see another Indian home and also the guy owned a coconut plantation and took us there in the evening. Here goes, this is the plantation, unfortunately the sun was just going down as we got there:

One of his employees climbed the tree and cut down some nuts and for the first time in my life I drank the coconut water straight from the nut, which of course resulted in me being totally covered with it, but the experience was totally worth it. And I am used to having food all over, like all over my right hand when I eat and so on :D

In the daytime the coconut plantations look like this. We drove to Pollachi where is supposed to be the best coco nuts in India, so thats why this post is devoted to coconuts. Nomnom every day we drank/ate few of those, they're supposed to be good for the body to tolerate the heat.

After few days I started to make difference between the tastes of them and when it water was good and when not so good. I had tried once before in my life to drink the coconut fresh, but then I felt kinda indifferent towards it, but now I really tried good ones and started to like it.

And then the eating part, to my amazement the "nut" is not so nutty at this stage, instead it is kinda jellowy, but still it really varies nut to nut and tastes differently.

This is the hotel room where I spent 7 nights in Coimbatore. Uff it really felt like home, almost the nicest place I have lived in India, and finally A PRIVATE ROOM! Oh joy! In the meanwhile, Egmore didn't have electricity for 6 days, since electricity bill was not payed for 10 months. So on Sunday when I arrived back to Chennai at 2 AM I was unwelcomed by a flat very very hot, full of mosquitos and pitchblack darkness. Grr.. next night I stayed in Shenoy Nagar (other trainee house, where I spent my first night in India, I really feel homey there) and then yesterday after V yelled at the aiesecers 4 hours later the electricity was back on:)

This is a little Ganesh protecting the hotel.

Broadbond internet.

Typical streetviews in Coimbatore

Also with cows, but this one is not the best representation, since normally they always have one horn painted red and other one painted blue. People spend so much time decorating animals, cars, trucks, vans, pavements. But not food. Food doesn't come with a nice presentation here, it is literally just thrown on a banana leaf.

And made in a kitchen looking like that. (This picture I took secretly, muhahaha, but I won't say which hotel's kitchen it is, just a hint is that it is in Erode)

Erode poor area street view (probably not seen in Google maps street view)

And then.... on Saturday we took a trip with V to a mountain station called Ooty. Uuuf finalmente I see nature in India, lush, beautiful forests and mountains! No comments needed, picture is worth more than 1000 words.

Ooty is famous for its teas, so below aren tea plantations

And mountain village:

And find 5 differences! (Magic)

And my personal fav: the bamboo forest

Did I alreday mention that we did the 200 km trip up and down the 2600 m mountain on a motorbike :D was sooo cool, but after 5,5 hours on the bike I could barely walk in the evening. I was even considering to buy a motorbike in Chennai, since in Coimbatore the traffic was so much more easygoing and haha V said that oh my god they even follow lanes here!

And on some village on the road there was also a Hindu celebration, zoom into this pic :D

Kancheepuram and elefant

Last week I spent travelling around Coimbatore and other places around, but that will be topic for the next post. BUT important things first, I was supposed to put an elephant pic for Märss, so here it is:

This an elephant next to a temple in Kancheepuram where me and Ivette went few weeks ago. Its a small town near Chennai and has many many temples. This elephant blessed me, I gave it 5 rupees and for that it hit me on the head with its trunk, unfortunately there is no picture of exactly that moment. At first I was so shocked I thought that the elephant ate the money and I was already ready to protest out loud (thinking about cows, dogs, cats and monkeys eating garbage), but then I saw hot it secretly sokutas (put) the money from its trunk into the hands of its tamer.

Inside the temple area there was this strange place where stones where put ontop of each other and of course I thought that this is supposed to be for some wish to be granted or whatever and picked some stones and made my own pile and some lady came even to help, I guess she was expecting to get payed for taking rocks from some other people's pile and putting them to a new one... :D what a business idea

And even straner thing on the tree, don't know what it could represent..

Hello mandala!

This is a typical river going through a city in India, this one was is Kancheepuram, similar ones in Chennai as well, just bigger and deeper.

Then we went to a next temple and it was just time to open it up and these were the people waiting desperately for the doors to open.

  

And when the doors did open then they literally ran into it, well first it was a struggle like whereever in India, no one is willing to let anyone else go first, just elbows into the other person and thats the way to go.

 Inside of the temple were all kind of figures and things and monks allover. The feeling inside was somehow sacret, since it was dark and there were some fires next to the statues and insense and monks and drums and uff.. I felt chills inside, even though it was not cold..

And then this monk blessed me again and...

... gave me my first bindhi in India. There is a rumor that many young Indian men want to be monks in a Hindu temple because they are allowed to smoke cannabis freely :D (to help them in their spiritual journeys of course) dunno how true it is, but some of the monks were very young indeed.

Then when exiting the temple there were women there who put milk on peoples palm to drink it from there. I also took it and drank it, was sweet and lil taste of nutmeg. Yes I know, to take that milk in 30 degrees heat, but we did many high bakteria risk things that day, ate in so strange places etc, but everything was good, I guess the temples have antibakteria aura.

Then after visiting smth like four temples the auto riksha driver took us to a typical silk factory, since Kancheepuram is famos for its silk sarees

And this one had also gold stand in it. It takes 3 weeks to make silk for one saree.

 Just a streetview of Kancheepuram, poor sacred cow...

I just remembered one thing that happened about 1,5 months ago when I spent 12 hours in Dubai airport. So there I was, just waking up from a small 3 hour nap on a laydown chair after being awake around 30 hours. Next to me was this Indian guy also just waking up. I was eating an apple and reading Gunnar Aarma's book "India". So the guy started asking where and why I was going etc. It turned out that he was just returning from Chennai and on his way to South Africa where he worked. We had a very fruitful conversation about everything, but mostly about religion. He was a very religious Christian whose father is a Hindu priest (haha) and he was very surprised to hear I wasn´t religious at all. I told him immideatly not to try to convert me and basically he agreed with my idea that there is divinity inside every person. But what was the strangest thing was that after we had had this interesting discussion for about an hour and just as he set himself to leave he asked if he could pray for me. So he did. He said things that really got to me. He told me that I had been very sad for some time, because I had lost someone important from my life. Also he wished safety and good health for me in India and that I would find myself a religion (without labelling it he added quicky as I turned my eyes on him) and a life partner. Wow the last was so cool, so cool was that he said it in a gender neutral way :)

Weekend in Mahabalipuram

One month in India, in the tropical Chennai and I finally get to the beach! MMMM and in bikinies!

This kind of clean clean and nice nice beach

 

Usually beches around here look like this: this is Marina Beach in Chennai and no one ever wears bikinies there, it would be like headline news if someone did... all Indians swim with their clothes, women go in in their saris and salwars, uff so damn strange. For me this is not enjoying the beach, but they are happy as ever.

Anyhow, so me and Ivette from Mexico went to Mahabalipuram for a weekend of beach and fun and peace and it was sooooo cool. Even we got first things for free in India (and she has been here already 8 months..). I bought an elefant towel/table cloth/sheet from a lady selling on the beach and before she left she gave us as present these lil bracelets saying "Two people wear, two people happy" :)

And here is what Ivette found randomly from the shore. In Mahabalipuram there are underwater temples, that are visible only when the tide is low. Unfortunately we only saw this small fragment of the temples. But that lucky Mexican duck now has it in her home.

This picture below is supposed to represent two things (ok three, but lets not split the hair here). Firstly, it is the elefant sheet that I bought on the beach (200 rupees, about 3,2 eur hahaha and its HUGE). The lady first asked for 400, I said nono we are student I can pay one hundred, so we finally agreed on 200, because Ivette said that she can borrow me 100 more, so I could get it (hahah soooo goood bargaining :D) I'm lil braging, but yes, I am actually very good in bargaining, I usually get half the price off and Ivette said she will keep close to me, because I always get away with these thigns :D 

So and the second thing this picture is supposed to represent is that you can get everything in India in baby size. As you can see the TicTac container can contain like 8 pieces and the shampoo is few handfuls. It is because poor people would be able to afford...no wonder if your wage is 32 eur per month..

These cutiespies cows were hanging around in the Mamallapuram (same place, but most places have more than one name) bus station. And this green but is yes the one we took back to Chennai. Mahapalipuram is 50 km from Chennai, but it takes around 3 hours to get there, lets say there is some trafic :D

And this lil guy is a cutiepie puppy who lives on the street where I work, its chained there and I always when passing by talk and play with it. And I am even happy that it is chained, because it is one of the very few dogs who actually have a home and someone to give food and take care.

Aww he is suuuch a sweet lil rascal! 

Because for most dogs this is the sad reality:

Oh and here is an add from Egmore train station, every day I laugh about it. So after the banishing baldness treatment, you'll walk out with not only new hair, but new glasses, new mustache, straight back AND whiter skin! What a bargain!I'll call now..044 645022...

Lil bit more about the food, this is Kothu Parotha, nom nom, try when you get the chance. And the eating with hands has really grown on me, food tastes differently and especially when its also served on the banana leaf! 

OK, this gravy was kind of unusual :D

And the best food is in ugly places..

... and looks also not very nice.. but the taste was a m a z i n g !

I have said many times that there are monkey's running around on the streets, so here they are: this guy is just checking out the shool's sports's place

These ones are searhing for lunch (sic! the sign!)

And the monkey's are very advanced in opening plastic bags :D

:)

And something very typical, all religions at once :D