The Tapioca Diaries

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What is it with ‘non-veg’ restaurants and sleazy rowdy men? Why is it that if an un-escorted girl enters a ‘non-veg’ restaurant post 6pm, then SHE is what’s being served! At least in India.

Well appetites apart, Coimbatore Railway Station has a variety of lodges and accommodation for nearly every type of traveler. I, being one of the lesser value ones, chose a single-occupancy (very fancy word for a not-so-fancy place) room at Raja Lodge, just behind KR Restaurant (a landmark here), for Rs 300/- per night. If I must rate it then I’d give it a 1.5 on 10.

Actually, it depends, if you’re an Indian sportsman then it’s a 6.5, but if not then it’s 1.5. I think every Indian sportsman has stayed in conditions far far worse and even appreciated some of those. We’ve traveled for competitions unreserved in foul smelling general compartments, slept on baggage instead of beds, and bathed in bathrooms with taps for showers and curtains for doors (with holes in them too). So this place is really not that bad…in comparison.

But what was great, even for non-Indian non-sportsmen, was where I stayed in Ooty. Montauban Guest House – once the residence of a French designer called Ettines (after whom the road that the guest house is on is called Ettines Road) who lived in Ooty in the 1920s (Sorry, but that’s about all the history I can deal with for one place) – is my favourite place to stay. After staying there for 6 nights (I could have stayed there for 6 months) at Rs 650/- per night, I have decided to dedicate a few good words to the place.

Its manicured gardens and lawns gives it, and therefore you, a very cared-for air. And although you won’t find on-call butler-suave room-service, if, with kindness, you approach them for any task, it will be diligently and efficiently done ASAP. The rooms are cozy and non-musty smelling – not a spec of dust to be found. They come with proper beds (clean blankets and all), drinking water, tissue, soap, a writing table (with a chair and that’s worth a mention in this country) and a sideboard with plenty of drawers. I love drawers, you never know what you find in them. Oh, and the bathroom is huge and spacious, and tiled, and clean, and western style – with a working flush!!!

I have, now reached the fag end of my tapioca journey, and my jeans have turned from blue to brown. But if you do happen to book a room in one of these lodges opposite the Coimbatore railway station, always try for the top-most floors. You get less peeping-toms, that way.

Dinner was at KR Restaurant, where a sign hiding behind a couple of bicycles reads “Please safe your own vehicles yourself”, and where you will frequently find customers wiping their freshly washed hands and mouth on the curtain that separates the washroom from the restaurant, and where ‘calli flower masala dosas’ are on the menu, and where, if you’re as lucky as I was, you might get to witness your waiter scratching his private parts while he waits to take your order.

If I may say so, it was almost as if he was trying to pick out something rather troublesome quite deeply buried in there. I’m not sure if he was quite so successful, though.

And, if all that hasn’t tempted you enough to step right in, then I’ll also add, that the food wasn’t bad. Do not try the Chinese. It is, and I’m not saying this sarcastically, the best restaurant on that block. 3 on 10.

But during my 6 days in Ooty, I ate at very few restaurants – I’m not as adventurous with food as I am with accommodation, I’m afraid. One which I consistently ate at is Kurunjis – a tiny outdoor restaurant on the main road about 100 meters from Charing Cross Junction – serves clean, yum, cheap and hygienic food, with very courteous waiters. 10 on 10. Another nice place (I have heard) is Shinkows (Chinese).

In Conoor, where my Tapioca friends were staying in their cozy and comfy homestay, I ate at a Chinese restaurant called Dragon something. For one thing the waiter was a young Mongloid-featured lad with a very funky hairdo. That was enough to pull me in. Mongloid men with funky hairdos are one of my all-time favourite dishes. And although he wasn’t on the menu, the food we did order, was quite good; better than the supposedly French restaurant called La Belle Vie where the waiter actually apologized for bringing the dish late because he’d “dropped it” on the way. That’s 3.5 on 10 for the Belle and 6.5 for the Dragon. We topped that with ice cream and hot chocolate from the café coffee day next door and that was excellent 8.5 for CCD.

So, two crisp Rava Roast Dosas, one itchy waiter, one filthy curtain and a safety sign later (of course minus the calli flower dosa) I walked back to my little concrete cave and called it a night.

In the morning I caught my train back to Bombay which started its journey 2 hours behind schedule and changed two engines en-route making us a total of 6 hours late by the time we got into Bombay. Welcome to India.

Conoor Homestay : Phillip: [phone]

Ooty Montauban : Kathy: 04232442602/ [phone]

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Comments

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[ajbvision]

Hi Tanaz
I enjoy your style of writing; like the way you bring humour into the most despicable of circumstances. :)