Traveling is good
Coimbatore also known as Kovai is a major developing smart city in the Tamil Nadu located on the banks of the Noyyal River amidst Western Ghats. It is often referred to as the ‘Manchester of South India’ due to its cotton production, garment and textile industries. Coimbatore is also called as the “Pump City” as it supplies country’s large requirements of motors and pumps.
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Cloud 9 after initial hiccups has come up well with semi urban setting with villas and cottages with Khabrar Hill on the northern side and Jim Corbett like hunting forest on the southern slopes with thick jungle of oak, cedar, pine and rhododendron trees whose red flowers make excellent rejuvenating syrupy juice, frequented by the leopards and the tigers.
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Driving through Rishikesh in darkness, we could not see much except the twinkling diyas after Arti on the banks of Ganga. Though it was pitch dark, it was impossible to miss well lit billboard of the Bull’s Retreat ahead of Shivpuri village and we were warmly greeted by courteous Mohinder and staff of Retreat who shifted quickly our baggage to two rooms alloted to us.
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I lived with my maternal uncle in remote farm near Bilaspur in mud huts with no electricity or basic sanitation with ‘minimalist’ facilities. Any…
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They left every thing on me- planning entire route, night halts, bookings,
sight seeing, servicing of the Neerja’s diesel SUV up to the extent searching out 4
dumped sleeping bags from old cupboards for emergency. The final tight itenary
schedule was got finalised after endless mobile talks, smsing and emails, kind
courtesy Maj Gen Nawnit Kumar, SM Commandant, High Altitude Warfare
School(HAWS) ,Gulmarg and Lt Gen Bobby Mathews ,AVSM**, VSM ,the Colonel
of the Regiment (COR).
They joyously agreed on my Lansdowne suggestion and persuaded me to arrange for some good accommodation. I must thank our family friend Gen Mohan Bhandari, who graciously agreed to do the needful. . On instructions from my daughter from New York, I had given a bath to ‘Happy’ 0n 1 Oct- a day before our impending holiday.
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Incidentally, when we left our home for hills, there was sadly red alert on one TV channel announcing heavy rains and land slides in Uttrakhand in the next 48 hours. While my wife wanted to cancel the trip, I and Neerja pursuaded her to take a chance. Throughout our stay, the sky remained heavely overcasted with high probability of rains. Though I love rains and more than that the smell of hot pakoras and steaming mugs of tea, along with refreshing breeze and lurking fears of land slides. Luckily there were no rains till we arrived back home with renewed synergy.
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