My Time in India 08

So Long

Well my time in India was simply amazing and eye opening. I've been back before and quite a few times but the last time I went was 5 years ago. This time around it was different. I am now old enough to really take in the culture and the people and to see where I'm from and the immense heritage that makes me who I am (partly). This is the first time that I've been to India that I got to understand what really makes it different from this society here and how that difference is really its strength.

When I first got back to Calgary my first impression was that this place was ugly lol. Well it isn't but with all the beauty out there in the world, Calgary looks so plain and boring. I'm not trying to knock Calgary and I like living here but there are amazing things out there in the world. This trip has inspired me to do more traveling and to visit India again as soon as possible.

Until Next time, so long India, I look forward to seeing you again.

July 25/26 - In Limbo??

Well the throwing up didn't stop and I got a high fever. I slept all the way to Bangalore (5 hours). I had to stay awake for all 6 hours in Hong Kong, and then 4 hours in Vancouver after a 12 hour flight. All in all total travel route to Calgary was 33 hours and I was sick for all of it! I like plane travel and all but that was the worst experience I've ever had. Anyhow, I got back to Calgary and hugged Becca and went and stayed sick at the house in Calgary.

I left at 2:20 am Saturday July 26 and arrived in Calgary 7:20 pm Saturday July 26th. Thanks to the international date line my timing got messed up.

July 25 - Bombs over Bangalore

Kingfisher airlines is definitely the best airlines in India. Lots of leg room, really good food, awesome masala chai, and in flight entertainment! Needless to say, the flight from Hyderabad to Bangalore was great.

I arrived to very rainy weather. It almost felt like the plane was going to skid off of the runway. My uncle picked me up and we went back to his place. Had some food, chatted a while and fell asleep. I woke up at ten am (late start, I was dead tired). I asked my uncle to take me to a local gym so I could get a quick workout in before I went back to see Becca.

He took me to the same place where I went for my massage, but across the hallway to the gym. I got assigned a guy who couldn't speak any english. He was my personal trainer! There's a lot of people who use the gym here and who also are very big and buff. Haha, they must have thought I didn't know how to exercise because my current physical appearance isn't impressive in any way. Anyhow, he got me to do stretches then threw me on the treadmill, elliptical, and bike. He was stunned to see that I was very fit and that this wasn't very strenous for me. I think to test me, he had me do 50 painful crunches lol. With that, he called it a day, but I was very impressed with the gym and the knowledge of the trainers.

My uncle took me back to his place for a shower and then we were off to Cauvery. Cauvery is a government regulated handicrafts emporium. This place was very cool! Prices were reasonable and the handicrafts were awesome. Bought quite a few things here. We headed over to my younger cousins girls school. We got there and she wanted to give me a tour of her school. So we walked around and I was fairly impressed. It was a beautiful school. With that we headed back to their place.

After lunch, my aunt and I decided to head out to do some shopping for kurtis (short sleeved tops for women) and pick up my other cousin from his school. Sanju (cousin) wanted to go to a mall called Garuda Mall but my aunt was adament that going to commercial street would be the better place. As it turns out, it was a good idea. We headed over to commercial street after picking up my cousin from his school (which was huge!) and started shopping around when my aunt received a phone call. She got off the phone and said we needed to head over to KFC, there's been a bomb blast near Garuda Mall. So we went over there, fed my cousin then drove back to their apartment. The cell network was down, landlines, as well as there was no power. So we killed time while everyone was tense and I started packing.

2 hours later the power came back on and my bags were packed. We heard that there were 8 low intensity bomb blasts around Bangalore and 2 people had died. What a send off from India eh? I do respect everyone here though because everyone was calm and collected. We decided to have me at the airport earlier. After a really heavy dinner (I still wish I hadn't eaten that much to this day) and my goodbyes we headed over to the airport. After check in I started feeling really sick and then the throwing up started.

July 24 - Goodbye Hyderabad

Early Morning Awakening

My dad drove me around Hyderabd today, specifically Hi Tec City. There are three phases of construction to Hi Tec City and it has just started it's second phase. It's a nice place and for me personally it's like a stamp of Western culture or should I say corporate culture in traditional India. You aren't allowed to take photos or anything around Hi Tec City.

So much has changed...

And somethings haven't...

Just like I remember it when I was a kid...

I came back home and started packing my bags. Tonight is my flight to Bangalore. I wish I had more time with the family here, but what can you do... I didn't hesitate taking photos in and around the house here.

Until Next Time

(Added Later)

Hyderbad International airport is an impressive building. Very modern architecture reminiscent of the Hong Kong Airport, but only a miniture version of it. Still, for India it's incredibly gorgeous. If I were allowed to take pictures I would have.

July 23 - Hyderabad Day 3

Goodbye

The drive back from Warangal was about 4 hours and as a result we decided not to do anything strenous in the evening. We just hung out with the family. Nothing interesting, sight seeing wise or quirky to report.

Highway Garage

July 22 - Warangal

Warangal is a town about 250 km east of Hyderabad. My dad's family lives there and that was the reason for the trip out. There isn't too much to say about Warangal. Nothing's changed too much. It was interesting to see where my dad studied and it was nice to see the family out there.

Highway Pitstop - Yes that is the highway on the left...

Too hot to handle

Abused Penguin

My cousins took me to Thousand Pillars Temple which had been reduced down to 50. So much for preservation. We stayed the night in Warangal and headed back to Hyderabad on the 23rd.

Thousand Pillars Temple

Pillar Artwork

I need a couple of these in front of my dream home

All chalked up and nowhere to go

The three Amigos

July 21 - Hyderabadi Biryani

Today we decided to check out a restaurant called Paradise and get some shopping done for my mom and sis who are staying in India longer than me and my dad. Paradise is located in old Hyderabad and the restaurant is famous for Traditional Hyderabadi Biryani. Biryani is meat and rice cooked together with spices. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but it is my favorite Indian dish. The funny thing about posh restaurants here is that they have 4 or 5 floors dedicated to them, with each floor having a level of A/C. I.e. No A/C, standard A/C, Deluxe A/C, Super Deluxe A/C, Platinum A/C.

Each level is just a representaion of the amount of cold air they blow into the restaurant. We chose to go with Deluxe A/C and had an incredile meal. At least I thought saw. My biggest regret of this trip will be not coming back here again. I stuffed my face full and I have no regrets in doing so.

My Favorite Dish - Hyderbadi Biryani

mmm... Can't get enough of this stuff

Chicken Biryani

After lunch it started pouring in the city so we decided to head to a local mall. Well really it's a mall built around the IMAX theatre. Nice place, but nothing authentically Indian aout it. This spelled Western Influence. The malls here in India are generally tiny compared to the malls in Calgary. However, I have seen a few mega malls here which would easily dwarf any of the megamalls in the U.S. or Canada; well nothing beats West Ed in terms of square footage but you get what I mean.

Hyderabad is famous for three things; Food, Shopping, and Hi Tec City. Hi Tec City being a separate district of Hyderabad that houses all the IT firms such as Microsoft, IBM, Dell, and all the call centres. Because all these companies are here they also have brought their massive architecture to Hyderbad. While the buildings aren't sky scrapers by any means they easily dwarf any of the buildings in Hyderabad.

We decided to call it a day as we're heading to Warangal tomorrow.

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.

Traffic in one direction

Traffic in another direction

Traffic in one more direction...

Can anyone spot the traffic police, because I sure can't and the other people probably didn't even notice he was there.

Shopping Mall just outside Grandparents house

Lovely jewellery at a stand

Nervous woman of corn

Just take your coconut juice

July 19 - Bengaluru

I didn't do too much today.

My family and I were fairly exhausted after the North India tour so we decided to take it easy today. We have a departure for Hyderabad later on tonight.

Well now that I've seen North Indiaand I'm old enough to remember all the details I can start describing what South India is like. It's definitely different. The skin complexions are darker and the languages (telegu, karnataka, tamil, etc..) are more flowing where as Hindi is more structured and rigid.

My dad and I decided to see what the massages were like here so my uncle took us to a spa. In India, men usually go to spas more than women and it is more socially acceptable for them to get manicures, facials, and pedicures. We arrived at the spa not more than two blocks away from my uncle's place so it was a nice short walk. The spa was on the second floor of a small commercial building. It looked more like an office than an actual spa. The front lady greeted us and showed us their menu (I kid you not, a physical menu) of the various services offered. We flipped to the massages part. I chose the cheapest'; a coconut oil massage where as my dad went for the more exotic aroma therapy massage. My massage cost was 750 rupees which is equivalent to about 20 canadian dollars. My dad's was 1000 rupees which is about 25 canadian dollars.

So, I go into the massage room which is not more than 4 feet wide by 10 feet long with a very narrow massage table. There was a tiny hole in the table to put your face into and the table itself was about 5 foot 5 inches in length, so I couldn't lay down on it without my feet hanging off of the edge.

My massesseuse walked into the room, a young man named neru who is a native Bangalore. He couldn't speak a word of english and only some Hindi. So it was hard to communicate. He was about 5 foot 6 inches, so fairly small, clean shaven, and had a little ponch. He asked me to take my clothes off and lie down on the table. I asked whether I should strip down comletely or just to my boxers. He said boxers. He left the room and I did as instructed. When he came back in, I guess he didn't realize boxers covered a good chunk the thighs. He opened a drawer and pulled out a clean pair of tighty whities or briefs if you will and asked me to wear this instead, which I did.

He heated up some coconut oil in a small pot, but the transformer blew so he had to resort to using the oil as quickly as possible so that it didn't cool down too fast. Now, the massage was great. He massaged every joint and muscle in my body and even made me do stretches that I wouldn't normally do, but I must admit it was a little weird having a man massage me by rubbing hot oil all over my body and massaging my inner thighs as well as chest lol. We chatted a little bit and he asked me how much massages cost in Canada. I told him the equivalent is 3200 rupees (80 cad). He was astounded and said he should come to Canada to work as a massessue. I learnt that he never went onto further studies after grade 10 and decided he'd rather make money as soon as possible before continuing on with his studies.

After the massage was done he asked me to throw the underwear in a corner, towel off and put my clothes back on ,which I did. He asked if I would come back for a massage again, and I said yes probably.

And that was pretty much the day's activities. We went to the bus stop in the evening, which really is just waiting at some random point on the sidewalk wiating for the bus to come. The bus was an hour late and when it did show up it wasn't the best looking bus either... It looked likethe bus hadn't been changed in the last 10 years. Anyhow, we got on board and there was some guy sitting in the spots that were reserved for our family. We told him we had the spots and he refused to budge sayiun he needed five minutes. Five minutes came and went and we asked again and at this point my dad was starting to lose his temper as was I. Finally the ticket checker came around and kicked him out. We had our seats, which were cramped and small (Smaller than the greyhound busses in Canada).

Waiting at the Bus Stop watching Traffic Go By

The Country that never sleeps

People eat at any time of the day

Other people waiting at their bus stop across the street

Our bus looked something similar to this

The ride to Hyderbad was scary as the driver was already behind schedule and he was driving the bus like it was a volkswagen beetle. I chose to sleep as quickly as possible not wanting to see how the driver was heading directly into oncoming traffic. I woke up halfway in the night and lifted my legs up on to the seat in front of me to try and get more comfortable. I didn\t get much sleep after that.

We arrived in Hyderabad at about 10 in the morning; 2 hours behind schedule.(It's about a 12 hour drive for 600 km). All of us desperately needed to use the washroom and we were ecstatic that my cousin and uncle were waiting to pick us up. We made a mad dash to their apartment (3 bedroom/3 bathroom) apartment which was really nice.

Back to South India

Woke up early morning and my stomach wasn't feeling too well. We headed quickly over to Akbhor's tomb which was by far the best tomb I've seen next to the Taj. You were even allowed to take pictures inside of the tomb! Simply splendid and I'll let the pictures describe the tomb instead of words. Well, I'll add that the this tomb is the only tomb I've seen so far that has so much vivid color everywhere!

Akbar's Tomb Entrance

At a wall

Incredible Colors and Textures

Colorful Patterns

Love the Gold Trim

Entrance into the courtyard before Akbar's Tomb

Akbar's Tomb in the distance

Akbar's Tomb in the distance

MONKEY SHOTS

Grand entrance before entering the hallway to Akbar's Tomb

Beautiful Trees line the entrance to Akbar's Tomb

The hallway to Akbar's Tomb

The Hallway to Akbar's Tomb

Akbar's Tomb

Akbar's Tomb and his lantern

Akbar the Great Lies here

View of the front entrance to Akbar's Tomb

The Exit

The drive back to Delhi was long and I slept through most of it. Back in Delhi, Anil wished us off well and invited me to bring Becca back some time and to make sure he was our driver lol. He's a funny guy and I like him and I will hire him next time.

Highway Traffic

Anil the Driver - Great Guy

4 hours later, I was back in Bangalore relishing South Indian food and calling it a night. And that was the end of my North India tour!

All in all the journey was great. I had lots of fun and my favorite places were Amer Fort, Qutb Minar, and Taj Mahal. Next time I come I'll definitely spend as much time as I can in Rajasthan.