Getting to know Hyderabad

Day 3 of the trip I spent with Krishna, Venu, who lived across the street (Who I also worked with) and Krishna's cousin Kranthi (who I met in Embrace once). 

We were originally going to visit a zoo, but that got postponed and we went to pick up yet another guy I used to work with at BnQ (quite the reunion ehh?). I was unaware, but Naresh didn't even know that I was in the country, so you can imagine the look on his face when I pulled up in the passenger seat. At this time also there was a random old guy shouting something in my direction, I found out later that he was chanting 'white man, white man, London white man', haha. What a dick. I must say I had loads of people staring at me the majority of the time, some with a look of curiosity, others with a look like I just slapped their grandmother, but I guess this was understandable, I looked different. Krishna said that he has never known a white person in his local area before, so I had to rep. 

We visited the Salar Jung museum, which had exhibits from when India was under Muslim rule. It cost only 10 rupees to get into the museum, or so we thought.....As I approached with my ticket I was turned away and told to buy a foreigners ticket which ended up costing 150 rupees, 15 times the amount of a local. After we drove to the old city of Hyderabad, which hosted the Charminar, which is a beautiful islamic monument known as the Arc de Triomphe of the East. I will post a video clip of this drive to the monument, that way you can see how entertaining the roads are in India. 

Right now, were about to leave to go for a few drinks and a dance at the Daserra festival, I'll let you know how it goes when I get the chance. Peace.

Meeting Krishna in Hyderabad

Day 2 in India and I was already changing cities, I thought it would make sense to meet some friends that I used to work with at BnQ, this way they could show me the ropes of living in India. I got to Hyderabad airport at around 17:30 and Krishna was waiting there for me. I thought that maybe the roads in Mumbai were so scary because of the 18-19 million population and that it may be different here........shit was I wrong. Krishna drove like an animal! One sight that I must mention is the family of 5 riding on a 100cc motorbike, oh and one fellow driving on the opposite side of the road towards us, oh also a guy who had be knocked off his bike, yes, there were actually many events that took place on that short drive. Including our quick trip to the grocers. His aunty was going to cook us up some of Hyderabad's famous chicken Biryani, all she needed us to pick up was the chicken. But this was no ordinary mission to Asda for the frozen variety, we went to a dedicated chicken shop and Krishna told me to watch as the chickens (yep 3 of em) were decapitated, skinned, and chopped within minutes, quite entertaining for a massacrist We went to his Uncles apartment building that was still under construction and nearly drove into some scaffolding, which actually turned out to be bamboo or something similar??? That's when Krishna taught me a great lesson, 'there is no such thing as health and safety in India, nobody likes paperwork'. From that moment on, the unexpected was kinda expected. I met his family and there boy servant, Arjun, who was 10 years old but looked about 6. He could not speak English, but he asked Krishna if the reason for my skin being different to theirs was down to the soap I used!.... I laughed too. We ate the Biryani (without silverware) and it turned out to be just as good as Krishna had boasted, so I got seconds.

Arriving in Mumbai

With Majid not acquiring his Visa in time for the trip I had to venture out to India alone for the time being. I have got to admit that I was a little nervous about this at first, but as usual I just went ahead with it anyway. The nine hour flight from Heathrow to Mumbai literally flew by, probably because I slept the majority of the way. When I first stepped off the plane at around 23:45 local time, I did not expect the heat to be so overwhelming. Thats when I knew I was in India. After finding my taxi, we drove through the city to the Bentley hotel. It was the end of the Daserra Festival, and there were tons of people crowding the streets. Many of them were packed onto these huge trucks that were decorated with loads of colourful flowers, playing loud music. The roads in India by the way are INSANE! I had at least 3 near death experiences just getting to my hotel, lol. I'll be sure to post a video link of the roads soon. The only significant event that happened at the hotel was when I went to the toilet. I found that Indians don't use toilet roll! Sooooo..... I reached for the nearby tap and improvised. 

The following day I had a quick breakfast of tea 'n' toast, then got one of the drivers to take me on a short tour of the city. He asked for 800 rupees initially, but he tried hustlin a hustler, haha. I refused that much and he asked for 500, I said 300 was all I had, blatantly a lie. He thought about it for a few minutes and agreed to 300 rupees, sheffield shuffle. By the way 75-80 rupees is around £1. I visited the gateway to India, Ghandi's home, the biggest outdoor laundry washplace in Asia, the hanging gardens, Jain temple, Mumbai's red light district (not pretty) and the slum set for slumdog millionaire, not bad for less than £7!!! 

The map to our trip

If you want to have an idea of how big we plan our trip to be, you can click on this link to see our map. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111685628077355115234.000467da02bf1941a1323&ll=20.632784,95.537109&spn=42.555846,78.662109&z=4