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