The journey from Thrissur in Kerala to Coimbatore takes about 4 hours. The train passes through several stations, and travels through a stunning mountain range that separates Kerala from Tamil Nadu- the end of the Western Ghats, a world heritage listed natural wonder.
As usual, I travelled with an unreserved ticket, and didn’t see a conductor at all during my trip. I have an unfortunate, unavoidable habit of falling asleep while travelling: I sat on my window seat, had my arm over my backpack and slept. Being a seasoned public transport sleeper, I always make sure to put at least one earbud headphone in and set an alarm for 10 minutes before my scheduled arrival time, to make sure I don’t miss my stop! So, I woke up to my alarm a few minutes out of Coimbatore, and hopped off.
Trying to get from the station home was a nightmare- the taxi guys in Coimbatore are very difficult to negotiate with. The group was trying to charge me 3 times what I had paid to get to the station four days earlier- apparently the cost of petrol had risen significantly since last I was there (it hadn’t). Eventually a rickshaw wallah wandered over and offered to undercut what the taxi guys were trying to charge me by about 100 rupees ($2), so I just went with him.
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