Day 1 - Hyderabad - Golkonda Fort

I love India.

Our room at the Quality Pearl Inn is 5 minutes from Amy's house and is a nice room (except for the AC which points straight at the bed).

The complimentary breakfast buffet included dishes like French Toast and Curried Potatoes.  Awesome! :)

India is so unlike any place I have ever seen.  Apparently, Kevin, Amy, Sean and I are something unlike what the Indians ever see.  During our visit to Golkonda Fort, we were stopped by dozens upon dozens of people who asked to take our photograph.  They wanted to be in the photos with us and they wanted us to photograph them!!  Wow...willing models!!  They even asked for our AUTOGRAPHS!!  LOL!!  We're were ROCK STARS for the day!!  It was a fun day.

The people of Hyderabad are warm, curious, intelligent people who wanted to know who we were, where we were from and how long we had been in India.

The photo below is of my new friend Shivani, an 8th grader who lives in Hyderabad.  She spoke English well and she wanted to know if I was visiting India with my parents.  :)  Apparently, when I tell people I am from New York, it's a big thing to them.  They all seem to love New York.

Qatar Plane Ride

So right before take off, my cell phone rings (yes, I realize it should have been off)  and it's Amy Lee!!  Haha!!  She  tells  me that her and Sean are going to get us at 3:20am from the airport when we land in India instead of her driver since she wanted to make sure he would be awake that whole day since he would be driving us around!  Whohoo!!

Qatar's planes are known for having more leg room and having more of a recline to their seats. Awesome!!  Except if you need to get out of your seat while the person in front of you is fully reclined.

The arm rest in the aisle seat does not fold up.  I think there was about 4" of space between the seat in front of me and my arm rest.  I had to pull off some wild yoga moves to try to maneuver out of my seat each time Kevin or I needed to get up.  Kevin could care less about disturbing the dude in front of me.  He was like a bull in a china shop nearly up-righting the seat in front of me each time he tried to squeeze past. :)

Upon landing in Doha at 6:21am, we had to deplane onto the tarmac where a shuttle took us to the terminal.  The first thing that  struck me was how humid it was. It was only 77 degrees out.

The Doha airport itself is well lit and looks very modern.  It is spacious and seemed very clean and well maintained.  They are going through a $1b USD renovation which should be done by 2012 - can't imagine what it will look like then!

We went through the transfer line and had to get re-screened.  I noticed that not everyone took off their shoes  so I elected to keep my sneakers on.  The security screens seemed more concerned about where my cell  phone was rather than if I had  my shoes on.

We waited about 1.5 hours before boarding our flight to Hyderabad.  After checking out tickets, we had to go down the escalator to wait for the shuttle which would take us to our plane.  The problem was that the  shuttle wasn't there yet so we were herded like livestock, penned into a small, un-air conditioned area, chomping at the bit to go through those sliding doors once they were unlocked.

The security person  finally came to let us board  the shuttle only to keep us locked up as hostages once we got alongside the plane.  It was probably only 15 minutes, but having to stand with all my equipment on my back with a heavy tote bag draped over my arm, in a tiny shuttle where the term "personal space" has no meaning, made it felt like I had been standing there for two hours.

Still in our excited vacation mode, we just go with the flow.  Nothing can dampen our spirits.  Not even the baby that sat  behind me kicking my chair the whole way to Hyderabad.  India, here we come!!

Check-In

Check-in went surprisingly smoothly and there were no problems with the weight of our bags. Whoohoo!! Waiting at the gate. :)

Packing

Packing to go to a place that is sunny and hot is usually pretty easy.  We like to pack everything into as little baggage as possible.  Usually, this means one suitcase each and one carry-on and laptop bag.

Packing photography equipment while flying on Qatar is a tricky little puzzle.  They limit coach passengers to two 50 lb. check in bags.  Our tripod alone is 10 lbs. Yikes!  They limit carry-on to only 15 lbs.  One camera body and a 29-300mm lens is already roughly 8-9 lbs.  Double yikes!!  It always makes me nervous if I go over the weight limit on carry-on luggage.  Airlines that are really strict will force you to check in your bag - no matter what you have inside....soooooooooo, I thought of a way around it.  I'm going to "wear" a lot of my lenses while going through the check in procedure.  I have a photographer's vest with a shitload of pockets and that is where the extra weight will go....hehehe.

This is the "equipment" suitcase.  It contains mostly chargers, cables, plugs, surge protector, steel cable and batteries.  In addition to that I have a pack of shamrocks, a frisbee, baseball caps and flipflops.  :)

Getting Shots

We have gotten our tetanus shot and the hepatitis A shot.  I asked our doctor for a prescription for anti-malarial pills and he asked me which medication I wanted.  Um...I dunno...anti-malarial medicine.  It was a strange scene.  Me, Kevin and the doc, sitting in the doc's office, all three of us on our iPhones looking up the name of the medication so he can prescribe it for us.   After checking on the CDC website, he decided to prescribe atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone) and not "the one that causes depression or thoughts of suicide," mefloquine (Lariam).  Uh..gee thanks. :)

Well to make a long story short, I never picked up the medicine because insurance doesn't cover it and it would have cost us $231 per person for 23 pills each.  Fuggedaboutit!!!  How bad can a little malaria be??

Restricted Currency

I had never heard of the term "restricted currency" before today. Indian Rupees are considered restricted currency which means that India limits the amount of local currency that can be imported or exported. The import of Rs into India is prohibited. Supposedly, the Reserve Bank of India has permitted import by any person currency notes except notes of above Rs.100, and from other countries by Indian travelers, Rs of up to Rs.5000 (about $110 USD) per resident as long as the amount to be brought back to India had been taken out earlier before temporarily traveling abroad.

I'm not sure if what I just typed makes sense but now I have a headache.

Attacks in Pune

I read with distress, about the bombing at the cafe in Pune, India which killed nine people.  Why must these cowardly terrorist groups target innocent people? Apparently, there was a bag with a bomb placed under one of the tables in the restaurant, which was frequented by European and Jewish tourists as well as students.  The target, a German Bakery was located in an affluent neighborhood called Koregaon Park and was frequented by 20-30 year olds.

Pune is a few hours southeast of Mumbia, and I will admit, it made me nervous to read about the bombing.  I, as an American born citizen, am unused to how people in other parts of the world live.  Terrorists, bombings, and kidnappings.  These are almost regular occurrences in other countries such as India, Philippines, Israel, yet here in America, we are still pure, still untouched, still wearing our rose colored glasses to the daily life of people in other parts of the world.  I hope for our sake we can keep our little wonderland lives intact a little bit longer.

Things To Bring to India

D-day is Friday, February 26th. I have 14 days to purchase what I think I will need for 15 days abroad. So far we have prepared the following:

• Noise cancellation headphones for the plane ride
• Pepto
• Inflatable Komfort Kollar. It is a truly ridiculous looking airline pillow that goes around your entire neck. That's right....laugh all your want my fellow passengers, but I'll be sleeping soundly with no neck cramps on that 18 hour flight.
• A 250V surge protector power strip for all our 1,001 batteries.
• Pepto
• TSA approved luggage locks
• A 6' steel cable and lock to secure our equipment to something in our hotel room
• Toilet paper
• Anti-bacterial hand wipes and gel
• India plug adapters - 3-prong and 2-prong
• Toilet paper
• Flip-flops for mildewy guest house showers
• 50+ SPF sunblock
• Pepto
• NY Yankees sun visor. This is soooo American, huh?

Finalizing Our India Trip

When I found out that my friend Amy's husband Sean was accepted into the US Foreign Service, I had promised to visit them wherever they moved to in the world. So far, I have seen Amy in New York, Colorado, Washington DC, and next Hyderabad, India!! I am hoping they will pick a South American country on their next tour in 2012.

Planning for India: Other than visiting the city of Hyderabad, I hadn't a clue on where I should go on my first trip to India. I knew nothing about India except from what I had seen in movies - think City of Joy with Patrick Swayze. I decided to do what I usually do when planning to travel to someplace new - I Googled the map of India and looked up each city that sounded interesting and used the Google satellite view to see if any particular terrain (greenery, mountains, desert etc.) tantalized my senses.

After much research and reallocating of funds, I figured out we could afford to visit 3 cities and have settled on Hyderabad (central), Varanasi (north), Mumbai (west). If we had more time and more funds, I would also like to visit Janakapur (and then hop a train to Nepal), West Bengal/Kolkata, Jaipur, Chennai and the backwaters of Kerala.

Instead of booking this trip through a travel agent, which is what a smart person would have done, I decided to book everything myself.....online. Ugh! After a nail biting, hair pulling few weeks of going back and forth on Expedia, Travelocity and other online travel sites, I've secured flights for myself and Kevin on Qatar Airlines, a 5-star rated airline, to and from India. For domestic flights while in India, I booked flights for us on Kingfisher only because their flight times suited us best.

On both our outbound and return flights, we connect in Doha, the capital of the state of Qatar, located in the Persian Gulf. Doha Airport is fairly new, small, and modern.  I have read that if you fly Qatar and your layover is move than 10 hours they will provide a free hotel voucher for you.  Travelers who wish to visit Qatar during their layover can apply for a visa at the airport and I think it's around $55 per person.  Our  layover each way is not too bad, only 2 hours or so.

We arrive into Hyderabad on Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 3:20 am and will be met by Amy's driver.  How cool is that??  Amy has a driver.  WTF? The only way I can come close to having 'a driver' in NYC is by sitting in the back of my dad's yellow cab....but that isn't quite the same is it.

Amy is kind enough to let us use her driver, Narsaiah, during our stay in Hyderabad.  Narsaiah works on salary, and his hours are 7:15am - 7:00pm, Monday through Friday. Anything outside that realm is considered overtime and would cost $1 per hour.  I don't know if we can afford him.

Holi: The day after we arrive is one of India's most festive holidays, Holi, the Festival of Colors, which celebrates the arrival of Spring. During this two day celebration, social restictions are loosened and people of all ages, status and castes come together in a fun bacchanal of sorts. Festivities the day before Holi consist of gathering around bonfires which symbolizes the burning of Holika. Embers from these bonfires are often taken by people and used to rekindle fires in their own homes. The morning after this is the start of Dhuledi. During Dhuledi, brightly colored powders, called Gulal, in colors like magentas, yellows, greens, colbolt blues, and metallic silvers are used to color and coat your fellow merrymaker. People walk around their neigborhoods exchanging colors by throwing small balloons loaded with Gulal at each other, coating everyone and everything in psychedelic rainbow techni-color. Colored water filled syringe-like devices are used to spray passerbys from rooftops and windows. 

Another tradition during Holi is the consumption of Bhang. Bhang Ki Thandai is a cold drink made with spices, almonds, milk and sugar. On the ghats (steps leading down to water) in Varanasi, India, bhang is often prepared by using the leaves of cannibus which are ground into a paste and mixed into the drink. Now that's MY kind of drink - bhang with a bang!