In the morning, I checked out of the hotel, met the driver, and we made the nearly four hour drive from Madurai to Coimbatore. Before we reached the second-largest metro area in Tamil Nadu, I noticed many palm trees, banana trees, vineyards (not ones used for wine, I'm told), and modern windmills.

In the middle of the city was my hotel, The Residency. To my pleasant surprise, this hotel may be vying for #1 in my clean towels/sheets rankings for hotels in India. Man, all this pampering, I'm never going to want to stay at a more "authentic" place again. Or else I have to seek out the authentic places which also put a priority on spotless sanitized linens. Anyway, even better, this hotel has free Wifi! I took advantage, indeed.

For some reason, my driver thought I would be interested in the nearby Hare Krishna temple. But it was not much to look at and I'm all about the architecture. We did not stay long, but I snapped a few photos.

I heard Hare Krishna chant music somewhere (perhaps the ISKCON temple in Delhi?) and it really only takes the chant being repeated three or four times before anyone would have it memorized. I'm not sure of the purpose of the sign, really.

Also, I never knew this, but ISKCON apparently stands for "The International Society for Krishna Consciousness" and I think calling the folk "Hare Krishnas" is the same as calling adherents to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints the "Mormons".

Before my evening excursion, I ordered in room service while enjoying my free wifi. But right after I ordered it, the power went out. Strangely, it looked like it was just a fuse in my room. A fellow from the hotel came in, got on a shaky ladder, opened a ceiling panel above the door, flipped a switch, and the power came on. Dinner was not delayed. The dish was called Mutton Kaliya (Muglai-style mutton with potatoes in an onion gravy) and all I can say is YUM. Despite, or perhaps because of, the bones in the gravy, it was very tasty.

Our next stop was one of my favorite stops of the trip.

In the above photos, you can see the parking lot for the temple, which is where my driver stayed while I wandered around the temple complex.

I made a loop around the whole complex, but it was not very large. There were a few areas with flowers and folk lined up which I assume were sacred places to show devotion to the Hindu god Murugan. Only the hillside was beyond the temple as this is the end of the road.

The hotel breakfast the next morning was decent but I have a feeling the guy who dropped the bread tongs would have put them right back where they were had I not been watching...

I went to another locals' temple. No English. No shoes. No photos allowed (at least on the inside.)

It was a colorful place on the inside. There were surprising artifacts like paintings of decapitations and well-endowed statues. Plenty of people were in and around the temple. I did see another equally-out-of-place-looking white woman checking out the temple as well.

I headed back to the car. Then, I was nearly hassled by a beggar. (A person who was fairly fat for a beggar, incidentally.) I managed to make it into the car and close the door before she spoke to me, though. It has been a surprisingly rare occurrence during my trip so far, which I attribute to the places I am visiting being more for locals and potentially Indian tourists. These are no Taj Mahals.

I never received any sort of itinerary of Coimbatore, so everywhere we went was a surprise. Honestly, I think there was not much of a plan to start with since this is such an uncommon city for a Western tourist to visit. I think I overheard my driver asking the hotel staff for advice on what to see here. Where we ended up was usually a nice surprise, like the eveningtime hilltop temple from the previous night. The next place we went was also pleasant, but was not a temple at all!

We drove into the foothills of the Velliangiri mountains near Coimbatore and into a little forest clearing where my driver mentioned there was a nice hike to a waterfall. In the area, there were a handful of people and a van. I paid for a ride (my driver stayed in the parking lot) then I hopped into the back of the van onto some very worn seats. I was one of the first arrivals for that trip, so I waited while the back of the van filled up with other visitors.

I admit I was a little nervous until more women and finally a family climbed in the back of the van as well. Then off we went for a short drive through the forest to the trail base.

After the ten or so of us exited, there were people waiting to get back on, so it looks like this van makes a regular loop. Good to know.

At the head of the trail was this sign:

The hike was very pretty and not very strenuous, which is good because a fair number of folk were wearing traditional saris or long garments.

The tumbling waterfall was pretty to look at, but that did not appear to be the main reason people came. The pool downstream from the waterfall was a popular spot for bathing. Quite a few people were doing just that.

There was a little building to wash up in along the side, so this is a common pastime here. The above activity does clarify the rule on the sign about no soap or shampoo. I had been wondering about that.

It did not occur to me to jump in the river. It was mostly fellows and I didn't have a change of clothes anyway (detailed observers will notice that I brought very few outfits with me on this trip.)

My driver was waiting for me, like he always is. When we were driving back down through the forest again, he told me about a nearby ashram that visitors enjoyed and asked if I wanted to check it out. I shrugged and said okay.

We passed a few billboards with a man's face on them as we made our way along the rural roads. The face looked like it was judging me, but perhaps that was because it was so high in the air.

Maybe that was an omen. Because I'm sure I was supposed to get more out of the Isha Yoga center than I did. Now, I like Eastern philosophy. I have done yoga before. I do meditate on occasion. I am generally a fan of this stuff. But something about this place really turned me off. Either that or I was simply exhausted. It is true that I was at the final activity after about two-and-a-half weeks of nonstop travel, if you include Nepal and the Golden Triangle trip I went on immediately preceding this Tamil Nadu trip. And all this while trying to wrap up my year in India (since less than 48 hours after I fly back to Delhi from here, I'm returning to the U.S.) My energy level was pretty depleted.

But... it was kind of a weird place.

My driver dropped me off at the entrance and parked in the dirt parking lot. I peeked inside the complex to try to get an idea of what to expect and was "greeted" by a woman who told me I had to deposit my shoes and valuables at the nearby covered booth before entering.

Sigh.

This time, I had to give them not only my shoes, but my camera and mobile phone as well. I was only allowed to carry a small handbag inside. Also, it meant that lot of expensive stuff was in this worn weaved bag with a little card that had my name and I had only a cheap token with which to re-claim it. Great. I guess I didn't really expect it to be stolen, but, still, that is not how to welcome me to your ashram.

So then I walked into the complex. A building here and there. I walked under one overhang and saw this deeply recessed pool and stairs leading down to it. A bunch of men were swimming in it, frolicking around. I walked further and saw some cool sculpted faces in front of a dome. But of course I couldn't take a photo. I did not immediately see any entrance to the dome, but figured I probably would not be allowed in anyway.

A fair number of families were wandering around, perhaps to check out the place or visit people they knew here. There was one room where apparently you could meditate. I took a peek inside. The room was segregated into male and female and they were sitting people REALLY CLOSE TOGETHER, Islam-style. And it looked like, at the front of this meditation room, stood a lingham.

If you recall my Trichy entry, a lingham is defined as a symbol of divine generative energy, especially a phallus or phallic object worshiped as a symbol of Shiva if you Google it. So basically, a phallic symbol. So in cruder terms... a penis.

There was this weird sculpture on the concrete below my feet of a female figure. The figure was half sunken-into the floor, but it appeared that she was passionately prostrating herself in the direction of the entrance to this room. Facing the phallic object. Basically, I felt they were offering me the chance to be trapped in a room for an undetermined amount of time in extremely close quarters while meditating in front of (prostrating myself to?) male genitalia.

On top of that, my handbag (containing the very few belongings I still had on me) was not allowed in this special room, so I'd have to leave those at the entrance, too. For some reason, not appealing. Appealing would be a calm, welcoming place with lots of space where I could sit for as long or as short as I pleased (kind of like the Lotus temple in Delhi, once you make it inside) without worrying about my belongings.

I kept walking. There were signs to various things, but it wasn't clear what they were, how long they lasted, and if I was welcome there or not. I saw few foreigners. I did see one white fellow sort of dressed like a monk, but he did not say anything to me.

My path was generally around the dome and at some point, I saw a photo of what was inside the dome. Here, I'll show you one of the photos they have on the website, because of course photos are allowed whenever they decide to take photos. (Seriously, every single time that I have been barred from photographing something ever, I find dozens if not hundreds of photographs in an internet search of said thing or place.)

I started to notice that the majority of people there were men. The people in the pool I'd seen earlier were all men, I recalled. Every room seemed to have a lingham in it. Not to mention the prostrating sculpture. I was creeped out and felt like I did not belong there.

On my way out, I stopped at the shoe collection place. I gave them my little number I'd carried around. They brought me back a bag.

THE BAG HAD SOMEONE ELSE'S STUFF IN IT!

Wow. This is really not my place.

I am lucky, very lucky, that they happened to locate my bag after I told them that it was the wrong bag and the person's name on the form was not mine. (It was a different Western women's name, like Katherine or something.) All the bags look alike, so I do not know how they differentiated them, but they did return with my belongings, phew. One would hope they do not do that often.

My driver was surprised to see me, saying that the other people he'd brought had loved the place (yes, including women, he added after I asked) and stayed there for hours.

So, clearly I missed something. Or I was taking the lingham a little too literally. What would have helped, I think, was a guide. But I think I would have had to request one of those in advance.

And maybe I was just having a generally bad day. I went to the hotel's Chinese restaurant called "Chin-Chin" for dinner (after the other place I was looking for turned out not to be open yet) and, wow, it makes you appreciate how much other restaurants make the complex look effortless.

First, there seemed to be a lot of confusion over who was seating me and where I should be seated. Then, as I was ordering, someone else jumped in to take the order. This person made me order the more expensive noodles. He told me he thought "bell peppers" were too spicy, WTF. The water did not taste right. A saw a bug crawl across the table while I waited. My food took for-freaking-ever, I thought they had forgotten about me. When I finally got the meal (thinking, all of the crappy stuff would be made up for with good food) the meal was terrible! The lamb meat was old or going bad or something. Then I get the bill and it is 1,000 rupees. $20! In India! Come on!

Someone at breakfast asked about my bad Chin-Chin experience and hoped breakfast was better. It was, but I did not mention the slightly undercooked omelette.

My flight back to Delhi from Coimbatore was direct, hooray. I said goodbye to my driver, only remembering at the last minute to tip him. He did a great job. He drove safely and always knew where he was going. I never once had to look for him or wait for him unnecessarily and he was very flexible with my plans. I had no idea what he was paid since I paid a lump sum, but I hope my tip was a generous percentage. (I constantly second guess tipping amounts.)

So a funny epilogue to my Isha Yoga center experience is that several months after I returned to the U.S., I was at my parent's house and our next-door neighbor when I grew up was visiting.

I'd known he gone to an ashram somewhere in South India some years back. And I guess it did vaguely occur to me when I was there that it might be the same place, but doubted it was because it would be too much of a coincidence.

It was the same place!

Furthermore, his son had gone as well. And he thinks his son (whom I used to babysit a decade and a half ago) may have been at the Isha Yoga Center at the same time I was visiting! However, my neighbor remarked that, even though he might have been there, he may have been taking a vow of silence at the time.

But I did see a white guy dressed sort of like a monk not saying a word. I wouldn't recognize the kid now (since I only knew him younger than five years old) but it is not impossible that it was him!

How's that for a small world. I only wished I liked the place.

To finish off this entry...