Coconut Travels: July 20 - Hyderabad Day 1

The last time I saw any of my extended family was 5 years ago. My cousin and my uncle drove us to their apartment after they picked us up from the "Bus Stop". Like I said, in the previous post, it was a mad dash across the city to their apartment for washrooms.

My cousin drives a maruti suzuki alto which is nice, small, and speedy. From what I did see during the quick drive, Hyderabad was a lot bigger than Bangalore and had a lot more shopping malls. However, it also had a lot of Old Hyderbad as I remember mixed in with the new. South Indians are generally darker, and have pudgier features such as noses and pouty lips. Their hair is also naturally curly.

My cousin's apartment is very nice, far nicer than the apartment I'm going to buy in Calgary and for a fraction of the price. He and I chatted a little bit and we decided that we'd relax a little bit before makinig any plans. I should mention that this was the cousin and uncle on my dad's side of the family.

View from my Cousin's Apartment

Down the Street - Modern Hyderabad, Apartment Buildings Everywhere

The Medical Campus in the distance

It's busy everywhere I look

Surrounding Foliage

My family decided that we would go visit my mom's side of the family. Their house is located in the outskirts of Hyderbad (at least it was the outskirts 5 years ago) in a place called Kukatpally. As we drove through the horrible traffic (far worse than Delhi and Bangalore), we inched closer to Kukatpally, which was now a bustling Medical and Shopping district. It had completely transformed into a commercial area and I had a hard time recognizing the area. We arrived at my grandparents place and talked about a lot of things with the fam there.

At some point it was decided to go see my dad's lot in another district here in Hyderbad which he invested in some 15 odd years ago. The place hadn't developed at all; I guess it was too far in the outskirts for anyone to consider developing it. The interesting thing however is that people were living on this barren land and there were even hindu temples built on our plot space. My cousin then explained to me that these "settlements" are run and owned by the land mafia and that we could no longer hold onto this land. If we tried challening them for it, apparently we'd dissapear and the police, being corrupt and all wouldn't do anything about it.

We headed back to my grand parents place and we went for a walk. I had coconut water and some really good food and then back to my cousin's place.