Hyderabad

One of the most anticipated trips of my life and it all started with a stomach ache. When I woke up from my nap on Saturday afternoon, I was feeling a wee bit under the weather in the gutular region. I lay there on my stomach thinking, 'Ugh, not this again.' For the reader to understand this exclamation, he must first know the circumstances of my last couple of trips (OK, technically it has only been two of the last three trips, but that is not the point). I have a tendency to get sick just before I leave on a trip. This first started when I headed out from Michigan for Montana, Oregon, and finally Washington. Just a day or two before I was supposed to leave, my stomach became quite upset. I felt pretty terrible. I think I actually just sat around watching TV the last couple of days at home as a matter of fact. The problem was that I really didn't do anything to counteract the sickness, I just kind of accepted it. I was sick for probably the first half of the trip or so (due to the fact that I just kept on eating like I had been). The next time I got sick was a day or two before I was to leave for India. It was the same type of stomach ailment, but this time I decided to starve it. I didn't eat anything for a day, and then when I did start eating again it was strictly rice, honey, soy milk, and bananas. This seemed to work because I was pretty much at 100% when I set foot on the plane.

So, again the stomach ailment was upon me. This time a trip to Hyderabad, India loomed in the very near future. I decided to starve it again (after eating supper Saturday night, which turned out to be a bad idea as it made the whole condition worse). So, the next day I ate nothing - this was also the day that we were to leave at 2:30 p.m. In the morning I had to pack, but I was feeling bad enough that I would get up from bed, pack for 5-10 minutes, and then have to lie down for 10 minutes. There was no way I was going to miss this trip, though, and, fortunately, by the time we were ready to leave, I was already feeling a great deal better. We all mounted up in the bus and headed for Bangalore train station, which would be where we would catch our train to Hyderabad. This was going to be my first trip by train in India and, needless to say, I was quite excited. When we got to the train station, I found out that we had an hour and a half to wait for the train to leave, so we all found our seats and I started into my book (The Princess Bride - William Goldman abridgement, which, although I am thankful for some of the stuff he cuts out (from his explanations these particular parts sound quite boring) whenever he comes to a suspenseful part, he always, without fail, spoils it for the reader by telling him what is going to happen next - it is quite frustrating and in order to understand fully, one would probably have to read it for himself (Edit: since I wrote this, I have learned a great deal about William Goldman and S. Morgenstern that has completely changed my views of William Goldman - if you know what I'm talking about, go ahead, laugh at me - if you don't, read The Princess Bride and then come talk to me about it)).

Shortly after finding out that we had to wait for an hour and a half for the train, I found out that once we were done waiting for the train, we would be waiting to arrive in Hyderabad until 5:30 a.m. the next morning! I had looked at a map and seen how far away Hyderabad is from Hosur, but I hadn't thought it would take anywhere near that long to get there by train. Now it all makes sense, since the train probably travels 40 mph tops and it stops at every station for a few minutes (I'm still not sure exactly what the mileage (or kilometerage) is, but I maintain that it doesn't look that far on a map). Fortunately, the train is not a very unpleasant way to travel. The main two complaints that can be had with it are that it smells like body odor (this is mitigated by familiarity) and that one is cooped up in it for however long the journey is (which is true of any mode of transportation). Unfortunately for me, the whole body odor smell was a little more difficult due to current affairs in my gut's realm, but it was by no means unbearable. After the train ride (most of which I slept through), we arrived in Hyderabad and headed to our quarters for this 4-day trip.

We reached our residence around 6 a.m. or so and began to settle in. Our residence for this trip was a Catholic dormitory. I was hoping to take a shower when we got there (because I was rather certain I had begun to contribute to the overall body-odor smell of the train towards the end of the trip), but to my dismay I found out they did not have showers, but rather taps and buckets (which are the traditional Indian implements of bathing, I believe). So, instead of completely foregoing all hygiene, I decided to rinse down my upper body and put on a new shirt. This accomplished, I headed for breakfast. Breakfast this first morning at our new place of living was dosas and coconut chutney (dosas are fermented rice tortillas and I'm not sure what coconut chutney is exactly but I'm guessing it has coconut in it, it looks kind of like baby vomit, and it is a tad bit spicy). This certainly wouldn't have been my first choice for my first meal after attempting to cure my stomach ailment, but it had to do - fortunately, it did not seem to have a negative effect as I felt quite a bit better most of the day.

After breaking the fast, we headed out for what turned out to be the highlight of my day that particularly fine Monday. We headed for Golkonda fort. At this point I was planning on writing about some of the historical background of the fort, but upon thinking about it and realizing that the data I actually remembered was spotty to the point that it would be almost incoherent and furthermore realizing that since the reader is reading this blog on the internet, he must have access to the internet so therefore he should be able to easily look up information about the fort on wikipedia or some such site (which would probably be much more accurate than anything I would write) I decided to forego any explanation of the fort and simply say that it was the awesomest fort I've ever been in. Of course, topping the list of cool forts Steven Oxley has been in is not difficult considering it is about two items long now (the other one being the fort at Camp Au Sable). However, I will direct the reader to the many pictures I took at the fort to help convince him that it is rather awe-inspiring.

I would also like to mention that our guide who took us through the fort was quite comical. He spoke very broken English (which the Indian kids were actually making fun of him for - repeating some of the stuff he would say and laughing). He also took up an amusing habit of repeating everything directly to me after he had given his little presentation to the rest of the group. It was amusing because he would say, "You understand?" and before I could say "Yes," which would have been my answer in every case, he would repeat, verbatim, what he had just said to the rest of the group. Also, at the end of the tour, he mentioned something about "If you enjoy, than maybe you give tips," or something like that, and, of course, he singled me out since I was the only white person in the group and I just happened to have a nice looking camera hanging around my neck (which little did he know I acquired for free). The second time he came up to me specifically, I felt bad, so I gave him the change in my pocket and mumbled something about being the poorest person in the group - I guess I know now what it feels like to be stereotyped.

This brings up another interesting thought. While I've been in India (especially while we've been sight-seeing in Hyderabad) random people will come up to me and ask me where I'm from. I think the most amusing example of this would have to be after the laser show we went to (which I should relate later), I was sitting in the bus with the window open and a guy in a bus next to us leaned out the and window and said, "Excuse me, where is it you are from."

"United States of America," I replied.

"Ah, United States, did you enjoy the show?" he asked.

I gave him a thumbs-up and said, "Yeah, it was great." Not much of a conversation, but when I think about what an American would do if he saw an Indian in an adjoining bus it becomes rather amusing.

After we left the fort, I experienced some real Indian food at the Seventh-day Adventist Union office in Hyderabad. This was the food I had been expecting when I found out I was coming to India. The menu consisted of fried rice, white rice, dahl, chicken, fish, curd, bananas, cake, and vegetable chutney (I passed on the fish and chicken). It is the vegetable chutney I wish to dwell on. In complete honesty, I'm not sure if this was, indeed, vegetable chutney. That is what the lady serving the food told me it was. Furthermore, if I had asked her where it was brewed, she probably would have pointed me to the person who made it and even showed me the ingredients, but I don't think I trust her. If you ask me, the only explanation for the nature of this particular chutney was that it was stewed in the boiling cauldron of the Devil's kitchen, heated by the fiery fires of the deepest depths of the furnace that is hell. It should not have been called vegetable chutney, it should have been called napalm chutney or atomic chutney or sear-the-skin-off-your-tongue chutney, but not vegetable chutney. Needless to say, I found this chutney to be just a tad bit spicy. Even the Indians around me were blowing their noses throughout the meal, so I didn't feel so bad, but this was definitely the spiciest meal I've had while in India. I even had to start scraping the food off my spoon with my teeth so that my lips wouldn't touch the spiciness (and for those of you who know about how I have to eat sandwiches you know what desperate straights I must have been in to attempt to do anything useful with my teeth). I was actually pretty proud of myself because I almost finished the chutney. The ironic part was that the other part of my meal that I didn't finish was the curd, which is supposed to have a tremendous cooling effect. The problem with curd is that I find it to be absolutely disgusting to the point that it almost makes me sick (especially on a weakened stomach), but I am trying to get used to it so I ate a bit here and there.

After lunch, we headed out for Salar Jun museum. This museum is the collection of one man (well, started by one man anyway) and I easily could have spent an entire day there, but we only had a couple of hours, so I only got to see a fraction of it. Fortunately, I believe I did see the most impressive piece in there (I am rather confident since I think it is the most impressive sculpture I've ever seen). This particular sculpture is called Veiled Rebecca I believe and I am completely blanking on the name of the artist, but I definitely suggest the reader check it out on the internet (I may give a link once I get a connection myself - I'm writing this offline (Edit: apparently there are a few different copies of the sculpture, all done by Benzoni - you can see a picture of one of the other ones here).

After the museum, we headed for a laser show. Before the laser show started, there was a park nearby which is on a lake. We went into the park (which had a small admission fee) and hung out there for a while. I went out on the lake on a speedboat with one of the guys from our group and two girls we met there (the speedboats take groups of four or less at a flat rate so this was the most economical). The speedboat (outboard) was quite small so we had to sit as close to the front as possible to reduce drag. It was still pretty fun and we got to see the standing buddha in the middle of the lake close up, which was definitely worth the boat ride price of Rs. 180 (total, for all 4 of us). After the boat ride, we headed over to the laser show, which was quite impressive and intriguing since it featured some information about Hyderabad's history (Golkonda fort even made an appearance). After the laser show, we headed back to the dormitory for food and bed (oh, and I took a manual shower - by manual I mean pouring the water over my head myself). And now we have reached the present time in which I am lying in bed, sleepily trying to summarize the last of my day (if you didn't notice, I lost a little inspiration after the chutney description).