3/15/15
Another busy day. Woke up earlier than I wanted to get ready to head out for another day of adventuring. We had lunch planned with our colleague Vijay at his home and so he sent us a list of places we should visit around his house. So here in India you can rent a car for a day and its normal for the driver to just wait for you when you go look around. Daniel and I luckily got a good guy and he liked to tell us about the different sites as well. We started off with the Slara Jung Museum. This was my first experience with lines for guys and girls. Everywhere you go here there is security checks, bag scans, and usually a pat down. Guys only pat down or wand guys and vice versa. I was waiting for a good 5 minutes for Daniel to clear the line. The museum has varied items from Europe and Asia from manuscripts to furniture. My favorite part was probably the necklaces and anklets for elephants! Super cool and huge! I also peed in a hole here for the first time this trip. :) After that we headed to Charminar- it's like India's arc de triumoph. It literally is in the middle of a round about, you can climb stone circular stairs to get to a viewing point to look out on all the markets around the different streets. Their most famous for their fruit, pearl, and bangle markets. Daniel and I were stopped to take pictures with people again. My friends Brian and Mackenzie were there like 30 minutes after us and they actually took a picture with an Indian baby. Unfortunately they didn't get that on one of their phones. It seems like everyone here loves to shop. Or people come here to shop- not quite sure. I'm just not in it. We didn't walk around the markets as I wasn't really feeling walking around in the crowds. Close to Charminar is a mosque that can hold 3k people. Our driver said on Fridays people block
the streets while praying. Next up was Chompallah Palace. It's an old Palace that has been changed over to be a kind of museum that had a beautiful hall, vintage cars, and other little exhibits to see.
We ended up being closer to Vijay's house than we thought. He ended up riding his motorcycle out to where we were and showing the driver where to go. We passed by water buffalo in the streets, meat being chopped with flies all over it and lots of stall with seemingly the same items. Vijay invited Kris Hill our ex-pat, David and Daniel (from SF), and then Vineeth and Nikunj from the Hyderabad office to his house for lunch. When we arrive he explained that his one house holds up to 30 people with
17 rooms. Its an open courtyard in the middle and they have a terrace/rooftop. They live jointly with the family and so everything is for the overall family good. There is one shared kitchen where all the women cooks. We met his wife and sons, mom and aunties all dressed in Sari's and his boys were so cute! We had fruit, then little appetizer pieces of chicken and something with egg, then Chicken biryani which is a hyderabaddi traditional dish with more chicken and another
egg, and then a pudding type dessert with nuts and lots of calories from what
Nikunj said! Told him that wasn't a smart thing to tell me! I've found that milk is actually a huge thing over here. After that we tried to go to the Fulaknama palace which has been renovated into a hotel but apparently you need to have reservations for tea which we didn't have. Ended up going back and meeting up with everyone for HH. Finally did my expenses then ended up back at KFC after I ordered some Crispy Corn from Paradise next door. Another late night...
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