Friday, January 2, 2009

Vacation Report...continued

Happy New Year, wonderful readers!

DH and I had a nice, enjoyable time at a friend's home in Philadelphia. Call me a wuss for not daring to venture out into the freezing cold! The fact is, I was all up for ushering in the New Year in sub-zero temperatures, but the consensus was to watch the ball drop on TV, over glasses of champagne...so that's what we did.

Now, back to our Vacation Report...

After 8 hours of driving with only one stop, my parents, younger brother, DH and I reached Coimbatore. It is a city in mid-west Tamil Nadu, with milder weather than Tuticorin. We have some family and friends there. It is also 2 hours from Ooty, one of the most popular hill stations in Tamil Nadu. I attended college at Coimbatore, so it was great to see the city again. There were new stores, more traffic and congestion...but no other changes I could notice.
My parents have a vacation home in Coimbatore. Here's one of the houses in the community...gotta love the pretty colors!
The community had a club house and a pool...so I was able to squeeze in some swimming (the pool was highly chlorinated and I had forgotten my goggles, so my eyes were burning and bloodshot by the time I was done!). I had decided to lay off running for a couple more weeks and let my leg heal.


Local vegetable vendor, selling fresh vegetables and greens right at your doorstep every morning...what could be more convenient?
We had a hectic time at Coimbatore, visiting relatives and friends.

Here's my nephew posing for the camera...

We celebrated DH's birthday with lunch at Velu's Biryani Restaurant. The place was packed. Food is served on a banana leaf, in keeping with tradition...the banana leaf is supposed to impart fresh flavor to the food. We had mutton biryani, fish fry, mutton chops, chicken gravy...
and brain fry...how about that?

My older brother, sister-in-law and 5-year old niece joined us a day later. It was quite an exciting family reunion.
We drove to Mudhumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, a 4-hour drive from Coimbatore.

The road to Mudhumalai was filled with lovely scenery...

wild animals...


and some domestic animals.

We didn't see any wildlife at Mudhumalai except a very frightened porcupine. But the stay was relaxing...
and fun...

We went on a lovely hike...

...where again, we came across no wildlife...
...but we did see the skeleton of a bison...

a bear cave (or so we were told)


and few enormous anthills.On the elephant ride...

We were also entertained by monkeys.

Here's a sociable fella...

...and a shy and retiring one.

We stayed to watch the elephants being bathed...


...and fed.

We were sorry to leave Mudhumalai.

Back to Tuticorin and mom's delicious curries...


...and juicy West Indian cherries.

In spite of my brothers' protests, I shamelessly clicked pics, like a tourist.

A busy road...

an auto stand (autos are popular means of local transportation)


A fireworks store


A public telephone booth, offering...

We stayed at my parents' farm house in a nearby village for a couple of days, where we enjoyed swimming in the huge well.

Luckily, this snake was spotted and stopped before he could slither down the well and join us! Look carefully at this pic...can you spot the hidden image?

No? It's a peacock on a palmyra tree (Indian equivalent of the partridge in a pear tree)

On to Santhapuram, a picturesque little village where my maternal grandmother lives. We call it our holiday home. My brothers, cousins and I have spent several summers there.

The rare, out-of-season jackfruit...

And before we knew it, our vacation was over.

After a 4-hour delay at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris...
...we're back!!!

5 comments:

BeachRunner said...

That is AWESOME! Great pics. Thanks for sharing. Welcome back.

lauren said...

wonderful pictures. brain fry? whoa - what does that taste like!?!

and that ant hill (mountain) is HUGE - scary!

Heather said...

Looks like you had an amazing trip. Glad you made it back safely!

I Run for Fun said...

Lauren, The brain fry was delicious...just sounds gross!

Cindy said...

i really enjoyed looking at your pics! thanks for posting them!