A Day in Coimbatore: The Manchester of India

When Spending a day in Coimbatore, one can’t help noticing the spinning mills and textile mills dotting the city and it’s outskirts, which lend Coimbatore its title: The Manchester of India.
It is the second largest city in Tamil Nadu and home to 100s of textile mills. Giving the feel of a regular commercial city with narrow roads, Jayalalitha posters & cutouts, and small bakery shops (atleast one in each lane) selling a wide variety of fresh chips (same as Hot Chips shops in Bangalore) along with cakes and other sweets. Coimbatore is a non touristy blend of an industrial town with rich cultural heritage.

My hunch is Coimbatore doesn’t get many tourists on its own and rather it serves as a hub for people to go to other places like Ooty and Kodaikanal which are not connected by the Indian aircraft network. Thus this post is about spending your transit day in Coimbatore. It equally caters to someone who is in Coimbatore on business/work and wants to get a slice of the city.
If you are also traveling to Kodaikanal and Ooty, you might like to see my posts on top 5 things to do in Kodaikanal and 5 Must have experiences in Ooty.

This post covers

• How to reach and connectivity with major tourist destinations
• Weather and the best time to visit
• Places to see and Experiences
• Going around
• Where to Eat
• Where to stay
• Shopping
• Experiencing culture 

How to reach:

Coimbatore is connected with all the major cities in India, South East Asia and Middle east through air. It is also a major rail hub in Tamil Nadu with day and overnight trains running from most of the major tourist destinations.
Ooty, Kodaikanal and Munnar are the major tourist hubs in to experience the beauty, fresh air and mountain climes of the Nilgiris.
Coimbatore  – Ooty: 86 kms and takes about 3hrs by road. The roads are reasonably good. Getting out of the Coimbatore city itself takes about 30 – 45minutes if one starts at around 9am/10am. The roads become winding mountain roads as one gets closer to Ooty.
Coimbatore – Kodaikanal: 173 kms and takes about 4.5hrs by road.
Coimbatore – Munnar: 157 kms and takes about 4.5hrs by road.

Weather and the best time to visit

Since Coimbatore is in the tropics and not at a high altitude the weather is quite hot (35ºC to 38ºC/ 22ºC to 26ºC ) during late spring and summers (March to June). June to August are the monsoon months and not a recommended time to visit due to heavy rainfall.

Best time to visit is from September to February (dry and cool).

Places to see and Experiences

• Kovai Katrulam Falls (if you can plan to leave your hotel by 9am after breakfast and some packed lunch). We reached Coimbatore at 4:30am in the morning directly from Dubai. We had taken a rental car (read here to know more about Renting a car for self drive in India) for traveling around Tamil Nadu. With the exhaustion of travel, edgy kids and minimal sleep we decided it give it a miss. These falls close at 3:30pm and are at a 1.5hr driving distance from Vivanta by Taj, Surya where we were staying.
• Adiyogi Shiv Statue (The first Yogi Shiv, also meant as the Originator of Yoga)
  • Recognised as the largest bust statue in the world by Guinness World Records,  this statue is 34.3 mt tall statue. The height of the statue, 112 ft (34 m), symbolizes the 112 possibilities to attain moksha that are mentioned in yogic culture and the 112 chakras in the human system
    

    Adiyogi Shiv Statue

  • Inaugurated as recently as February 2017, in a very short span of time it has topped the charts on Tripadvisor things to do in Coimbatore. It is definitely a sight to behold and nothing more than that.
  • Located at the foothills of Velliangiri mountains (which are part of Western Ghats), it is an imposing steel structure which forms an introduction to the Isha Yoga Center complex. There is an entry fee of Rs30 per car/ taxi and there is ample parking available right next to the statue.
  • A small temple with a shivling in front of the statue completes the experience for the religiously oriented. At 7mins walking distance, there is Dhyanalingam (within the Isha Yoga Center Complex) which is essentially a large meditation hall surrounded by a park. Best visited during morning or evening, the path from the medication hall to the temple has a small bridge flanked by lotus ponds on both the sides.
  • Mobile phones and footwear are not allowed inside the Dhyanalinga temple. There is ample space for both and secure lockers at the entrance of the temple where one can keep the belongings. It is very well managed. Although with small children you can always choose to skip this too.
    
    

    Entrance to Isha Yoga Center

  • There are regular bullock cart rides that take tourists and devotees from Adiyogi statue to the Isha Yoga Center complex at a minimal charge
    

    Bullock cart rides to ferry devotees

• Textile Museum (also known as Kasthuri Srinivasan Trust Art Gallery)
  • This museum brings to life the chronological portrayal of textiles
  • Divided into rooms, where each room focuses on one part of the textile industry (global history of textiles, textiles as a craft and tradition in India, history of textiles in India including some from the Indus Valley civilization period etc)
  • The museum opens at 10am in the morning and closes at 5pm in the evening. Since it is very close to the city center, a quick trip can be made anytime during the day. 45minutes to an hour is sufficient for making the most of this museum.
  • For more information you can visit here
• Marudhamalai Hill Temple
  
  • It is a 12th century hill temple, dedicated to Lord Murugan (son of Shiv and Parvati) and is considered as the seventh house of Lord Murugan (also called Kartikeya in North India)
  • The religious fervour apart, since its located on a 600ft tall granite hillock (part of the Western Ghats), the view of Coimbatore from the temple is breathtaking.
  • One can clearly see the stone structure that the temple must have been back in 12th century extended with the current temple. The sanctum sanctorum continues to be in the old stone structure. Some of the carvings on the temple are almost 900years old.
    

    Marudhamalai Temple

    

    Coimbatore city view from Marudhamalai temple

    

    Stone structure on the right with extended temple

    

    Embossed and Carved main door to the temple

    

    Temple Gopuram

Going around

We had hired a self driving car option from Zoomcar. You can read here all about hiring a self drive car in India. If you do not intend to drive, Ola cabs is easily available for a point to point cab service as well as outstation cabs in case you need to cab it to reach another place outside of Coimbatore.

You will need to install the Ola cabs app in your phone and will need internet connection to be able to book it. Payment can be made in cash to the driver once the trip is completed. All the details of your trip and payment due will reflect in the app.

Where to Eat
We restricted ourselves to the vegetarian restaurants in Coimbatore. Surprisingly they were amongst the top 5 restaurants in Coimbatore as per Tripadvisor too.

• Sree Annapoorna
• Shree Anandhaas
• Siruvani water (which is sourced from the Siruvani river or at least so we are told) is bottled by the name of Siruvani and is the local mineral water brand
• Latitude at Vivanta by Taj is where we had our breakfast both the days. One of the special idli we tasted there was Ramasseri Idli. A Kerala delicacy, it is an extremely soft and melt in the mouth idli. Made from the same three ingredients (rice, urad dal and methi Dana) but different proportion, fermented for longer and then steamed in a special earthen container from Palakkad, Kerala.
  

  Ramasseri Idli

Where to stay

We stayed at Vivanta by Taj on our onward journey (on our way to Ooty and Kodaikanal) at Aloft on our way back to Dubai (for just one night).
At Vivanta by Taj, you can expect brilliant hospitality and amazing food and you can read my review of the hotel (especially with kids) here.

Aloft is 10-15minutes from the airport and is a perfect simple business hotel with a fitness center and a restaurant (along with room service). Having driven almost 5 hours and with a flight to catch at 4:00am in the morning, we were in no mood to step out of the hotel. So we ordered dinner and milk for kids from the hotel’s room service.

Shopping

Coimbatore is famous for its textiles (goes without saying) and following are some of the things you can shop for in there:

• Kanchipuram Silk Sarees
  There are many branded stores there like Nallis and Pothys which have been selling silk sarees for generations
• Jewellery
  All of south India is a good place to buy gold jewellery due to its purity of gold and beautiful designs. You can choose from any of the well known jewellers like Joyalukkas, Malabar Gold and Diamond and the like.