Trip to Udupi - Part 1

I went to Udupi with my parents. We went in a taxi to Coimbatore Railway station. It was very early in the morning. It wasn't that cold. As the station was very crowded, I wondered how can we get to the platform. As we had to go through a subway to get to our platform, I thought that we went under a railway track as after we came out, I saw a railway track. Then, we boarded our train, 'Mangalore-Coimbatore Intercity Express". The train crossed several cities such as 

Palghat, Thunnur, Kozhikode etc. During the travel in the train, I saw many rivers, bridges and the Arabian sea. I also saw many rice crops, a lotus pond and lots of wind pollinated flowers. 

It was very humid when the train was crossing Kerala. After the train plunged out of the Kozhikode station, I could smell fish and it was very disgusting. I quickly covered my nose. I heard many people speaking 'Malayalam' in the train. I started having conversation with a young college girl who was sitting next to me. She was a very pleasant Muslim girl. She had covered her head with a piece of cloth. She told me that she is studying medicine in a college in Puducherry. The train rattled it's rails like a drum and moved in speed. I went on asking questions to my parents. The Muslim girl seemed to admire me for that. She asked me, "Which school do you go to?" I said, "Harisha Gurukul". She asked me, "Where is it?" I said, "I home school". She got surprised and smiled at me softly. She asked my mom if my parents were teachers. My mom called ourselves as learners of life and explained to her all the wonderful things about home schooling and why we homeschool. She told my mom that I am very intelligent and sweet. Later, during the conversation, she told she might pursue dermatology or pediatrics. I discussed with her all about planets, Ceres and the latest discoveries of NASA. She was amused to hear all that. The train puffed through the western coasts of South India and crossed many crowded stations. I could see lots of Muslims standing in the stations. The men were wearing long white robes and women were wearing long black robes. My dad said that the culture traces back to Arabs from Arabia using coastal Kerala and Karnataka as trading ports for spices.

Read Further about Spice Trade here.