Coimbatore, India

[Laxtonto 12202]

Looks like I am now heading to teach in a faculty exchange program in Coimbatore, India in July to teach 2 sections of a graduate supply chain summer course.

What do you guys know? Where should I go visit while I am there?

I am staying in an on-campus recently built hotel for visiting faculty and will have my own driver. I will have 2 Wednesdays and 2 full weekends "off" while I am there.

I am up for any suggestions or ideas.

[52-80 19274]

there's a river, and its full of shit

[texasdago 7589]

If you squint at the monitor, instead of going to Coimbatore, India you are now going to Coimbatorre, Italy.  Buon viaggio!

Edited June 14, 2023 by texasdago

[sidis 9832]

i google image searched the city and these were the first two images that came up.

 

i'm certain you will enjoy it.

[irishtexan 11530]

23 minutes ago, sidis said:

i google image searched the city and these were the first two images that came up.

 

i'm certain you will enjoy it.

I mean, that's pretty much India

[Brisketexan 105478]

I mean.... I bet you can find some good Indian food there.

[dieucla98 2942]

4 hours ago, irishtexan said:

I mean, that's pretty much India

Been all over India and you could convince me that pic is from any number of cities in that country.

If you've never been, get ready, it's an assault on your senses - sometimes in a good way, sometimes not.

Kerala is pretty, Goa is fun - those are kind of close. As is the airport with the cheap flights to the Maldives (Thiruvananthapuram).

Edited June 14, 2023 by dieucla98

[austingirl 2192]

I went there for work a few years back, and spent two weeks in Bangalore a few years later to. I'll write up this post assuming you haven't been to India before, so sorry if I'm wrong and telling you stuff you already know. Also, please tell me you already have a visa. I have a horror story about getting mine, but it was a 5-year business visa which may be different from what you need.

Definitely visit a temple or two - one of my favorite Indian souvenirs is a copy of the Bhagavad Gita in the local dialect that I got at a temple in Bangalore (In Bangalore it's Kannada and in Coimbatore it's Tamil, not Hindi, btw). I didn't go to a temple in Coimbatore itself but I'm sure any of the bigger ones will have a good gift shop. 

My absolute favorite part of the Coimbatore trip was a side trip to Ooty. You should definitely go there for one of your open weekends. It's a gorgeous resort town way up in the Niligiri Mountains, about 85 km (52 miles) outside of Coimbatore. In January, this meant that the temperature was about 30 degrees cooler than it was in the city. I have lots of pics.

We took a charter bus, and including the one pit stop we made, it took 5 hours to get there. I cannot overstate how much the combo of bad roads and traffic will slow you down, but if you're in a car it might go faster. The drive is beautiful, though: 

If you stop somewhere along the way, do not leave any windows open when you get out of your car - at this rest stop, I watched an enterprising monkey climb into a parked car and steal a bag of Cheetos. And speaking of rest stops, ask your driver to stop somewhere that has a "Western toilet" - a regular Indian toilet is usually just a hole, like an outhouse. Bring your own tissues in case there's no toilet paper and definitely bring your own hand sanitizer.

The other stop we made on the way there was at this woman's coconut stand. It was set up a ways out of the city on a quieter part of the road. She'll cut the top off of a fresh coconut and carve out the meat (which you can eat if you want) and then stick a straw in it so you can drink the fresh coconut milk. This was the one time I didn't follow the guidelines to not eat cold/fresh food that hadn't been heated, and I have no regrets. Didn't have any stomach issues and the coconut tasted amazing.

Here you can see a tea field in the back of the photo. The tea from Ooty is known for being some of the best in the country.

One day we walked about 3 km down this road from our hotel to a tea shop and had masala chai. They served it in these little metal cups that stung your fingers at first, till the tea cooled a bit, but it was delicious.

A few other random things and tips for India travel in general.

• Coimbatore itself is pretty conservative compared to bigger places like Bangalore, but I'm assuming you're a guy so this may not be something that affects you - the social standards for women there are much different than for men. You won't see any women drinking alcohol in public in Coimbatore, for example. And don't expect there to be alcohol at social gatherings. I wasn't expecting this but the Europeans I was with had prepared and brought their own booze. One night, after a big company meeting, we all hung out at this one guy's hotel room and were joined by our male Indian coworkers. Several of whom had brought weed. But none of the Indian women ever hung out with us after hours. 
• Definitely try to do some shopping at the Coimbatore mall, and pick up some pashminas for the women in your life. Or for yourself, if that's how you roll. They're super expensive by Indian terms but not so much by American/European terms. I have two hand-woven cashmere pashminas that cost about $60 each. They had a really cool weaving exhibit when we were there and you could watch them make a pashmina right there. 
• My Indian coworkers would not let us women go anywhere by ourselves in the mall. As a guy you should be fine;  just keep an eye out for pickpockets and whatnot.
• You will need to take your shoes off to go inside a temple. There will likely be a little old lady at the entrance who'll take your shoes; be sure to have some cash to tip her with when you pick your shoes up as you leave.
• Many tourist attractions have different entry costs for India citizens vs non-citizens. They're not checking passports or anything - if you aren't visibly Indian you'll pay the bigger fee.
• Also, many of the tourist attractions have rules about taking pics inside. Sometimes they aren't allowed at all, and sometimes you have to pay an additional fee for the privilege. I made the mistake of taking an unsanctioned photo inside the sultan's palace in Mysore and was quickly corrected by a large, armed Indian man who worked there.  
• I don't know if this happens to guys too, but my coworker and I (both very pale white girls) were asked countless times to be in photos at various tourist attractions. Sometimes it was with one or two people, and sometimes with whole families. I don't know if it was because we are white, or girls, or both.

Hope this helps! If I think of anything else, I'll post. Overall, it'll be a great trip. I'd love to go back to India for non-work purposes and take my family.

Edited June 14, 2023 by austingirl

[austingirl 2192]

Oh, which airport are you flying into and out of from the US? As far as I know there aren't any direct flights from the US to Coimbatore so you'll likely fly into Mumbai or Hyderabad and then transfer. When you book your flights, give yourself at least 4-5 hours, at the absolute minimum, to transfer. My other Indian horror story involves not having enough time to transfer from the domestic to international terminals at the Mumbai airport when I was flying home from Coimbatore.

[irishtexan 11530]

I once saw a guy take a shit right outside of a mansion that had a gold-flaked roof in Delhi. That pretty much perfectly encapsulated my one experience in India. Didn't go to Coimbatore. 

[futureman 22562]

I saw Slumdog Millionaire.  Happy to answer any India questions you might have. 

[Laxtonto 12202]

 

No real travel issues, Delhi at 2am local time as the international point of entry wasn’t too bad. Hardest part was retagging my bag from international to domestic.

 

Haven’t gone too far from campus yet and have my first set of classes tomorrow to teach. I’m off Wednesday so I might try the mall then….

[Laxtonto 12202]

Also as a side note, my schedule got changed a little so I can got to VIT in Mumbai to do some glad handing/recruiting so I now have a full day in Mumbai.

One of my about to graduate doc students is from there so I will probably have a driver as well. Only drawback is that I have a 2am fight out of Mumbai to AMS, so it can’t be too far or crazy of a spot…

[Texzilla58 4745]

I once saw a guy take a shit right outside of a mansion that had a gold-flaked roof in Delhi. That pretty much perfectly encapsulated my one experience in India. Didn't go to Coimbatore. 

Wow it’s just like San Francisco!

[Sam Lin 3564]

On 6/14/2023 at 12:40 PM, austingirl said:

The other stop we made on the way there was at this woman's coconut stand. It was set up a ways out of the city on a quieter part of the road. She'll cut the top off of a fresh coconut and carve out the meat (which you can eat if you want) and then stick a straw in it so you can drink the fresh coconut milk. This was the one time I didn't follow the guidelines to not eat cold/fresh food that hadn't been heated, and I have no regrets. Didn't have any stomach issues and the coconut tasted amazing.

Fun trivia fact, coconut water in the unopened shell is sterile, and has been used directly as IV solution in cases of extreme emergency. You will never get sick from a fresh coconut unless the knife or scraping tools weren't clean, and very unlikely even in those cases as the water is generally leaking outward when the knife cuts, flushing contaminants away from the remaining liquid.

[Laxtonto 12202]

 

 

[Laxtonto 12202]

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Laxtonto

[Laxtonto 12202]

[Txzen 498]

I've only been once - in Hyderabad for business a few days and then a short excursion to make good use of the jet lag. Traveled a lot in my life - Mexico, behind the Iron Curtain in the early 80s, rural China 20 years ago. Nothing was quite like India. 

Truly some beautiful places to see, and yes absolutely maddening and simultaneously beautiful chaos. Cattle in the marketplace. 

Probably my main issue was that unlike any other trip, I really felt preyed upon. Maybe it was because I was a single traveler, and I do like to engage with people. I also like to walk all over with my camera and do as much street photography as I can. I found the Indians to be almost uniformly pleasant. But so many were just using the same script - 'Where are you from? Why are you here? What do you do? Oh, interesting, I teach at such and such school, we are having an art show today to help the students...', all in order to get you to go to a store where they get some sort of finders fee for bringing you in. I don't blame them, and don't hate them for it, so there were just so many of those interactions - 5-10 of them an hour - that I had to routinely shoo people away or be a bid rude to make them quit. It's incessant and it doesn't matter if you are near a tourist area or away from it. Also, the veil of pleasantry drops the minute you say no, and more than a few times the interaction turned somewhat angry. Never felt in any danger (at all) but those constant interactions really got old.

That said, saw some amazing things, and had some of the best food I've ever had (and didn't really have any stomach issues). But the abject poverty and the totality of the pollution is something which I've never experienced before. It's not just the poor children, it's the poor children picking through garbage that gets you. Hard to unsee. 

Since you're down south, maybe try changing geographic areas to explore? Each seems like it's own country. I did a quick stay in Rajasthan - specifically Udaipur, but some of the neighboring towns (Jodhpur, Jaipur) look amazing as well. Udaipur was simply beautiful. I found it pretty easy to take domestic airlines, at the time IndiGo was cheap, clean and modern. Now, getting a taxi once you exit the airport was an exercise in fuckery, though...

[Hornbeliever 718]

Went to Mumbai, New Delhi, Calcutta, and Agra.

Fascinating all around.  I’ve traveled to over half the countries in the Americas and India is so much poorer than any slum in Central or South America, it isn’t comparable.  And Calcutta is somehow far and away worse than the other three cities.  And yes, I saw many people take shits in ditches or the coast line.  

But also always felt very safe…safer than downtown Austin or any other place in America (country small towns included).  There is a peace to the poverty there that is hard to understand.

Also hooked up for a few days with a red-headed Australian singer that was the jazz lounge singer at the Oberoi Hotel so that was a nice treat.