The last few days have hectic! Wednesday, Thursday and Friday where at least 15 hour days for me, heading into the office from 9am until 12pm. Thankfully I've moved onto the campus, perhaps this could be a contributing factor.
Now on the campus, food options in the evening aren't are great. Yes it has a Subway and Dominos Pizza, but both aren't very healthy and to be truthful I'm sick of curry. Everything is curried, I've love simple vegetables.
On both Thursday and Friday our dinner was delivered to our hotel rooms after 9am, but we didn't get back until after midnight, to cold dinner. Fingers crossed we don't get sick eating cold dinner!
This weekend was a massive turn around, we managed to get out of the campus and see some of India, well at least Hyderabad. We had hoped to fly out as far as Goha for the weekend, but decided to stay local. We had an amazing time, a day two city tour, really happy we stayed.
Saturday kicked off with some work in the office, all of the developers are working the weekend to meeting the deadlines. Our driver and guide picked us up at 12 noon. It's not safe to travel alone, and as everything is so cheap, it costs nothing to have a personal driver and guide. We covered the local one man collection museum, with the world famous Veiled Rebecca, leading onto the Chowmahalla palace, which was truly beautiful. Jody got alot of attention from the local schoolgirls, they were amazed to see a white person. It's funny really, but rather cute to see 10+ girls swarm her in affection and awe over her differences. This place is truly untouched. The afternoon was spent pearl shopping, this City is known for it's world famous pearls!
Saturday evening, we took one of the developers whos over from the UK, Smitha, out for dinner in the Tak Kristina Hotel, it's a 5 star hotel some 40 odd minutes from our campus. The food was brill, nice and western for our tastes. Midnight buffets are common in hotels here, great for us as we didn't arrive until after midnight. Deserts here in India are something else. They are usually hot, so accompanied with vanilla ice cream is usually the norm. We had hired a local at taxi man to drive us out. Its normal for then to wait for you, he did. We returned home some 3 hours later. The whole taxi and waited costed less than €20! Amazing!
Sunday was an early start, 10am departure from outside the hotel/hostel, guess what, Jody and I were late! We still need sleep! Our first port of call was the Golkonda Fort. This fort is the original fort for the king of the area. It has both mosque and Hindi Temple. The views from the top of the hill where the royal palace sits where breathtaking, the whole of Hyderabad beneath. The roads around the fort where something else, cows, goats and all manners of animals roamed the streets. So weird!
We took in Mc Donalds, yes I know I shouldn't have, but this in India, Mac Donalds doesn't serve beef! So no big mac. Lots of nice chicken and veggie options on the menu. Handicraft shopping followed where Jody was surprised with a birthday cake! Today was her birthday and our guide organised the cake! How thoughtful! Brill or what! All of the Indians in the store sang to her! How nice.
A visit to the center of the old town followed afterwards, taking in the charminara and bangle street (famous for it's bangles). A visit to the local mosque, capable of holding 10,000 was a must, but we didn't go any further past the inner courtyard. Lots of goats roamed the grounds, I was horrified to learn that these were owned by the mosque, and would be killed in scarifies to God! WHAT! They don't deserve that! As I'm currently a vegetarian during this lent period, I find this very hard to accept and modern day religion/church would perform such an act. Horrible.
Again, walking around the very busy streets, we stuck out. The only two white people in a massive crowd of 1000s. People touched us, talked to us, shuck our hands. It all really was nice, but very very strange. The kids are more inquisitive then the adults.
We need to book our flights home tomorrow, more then likely we'll be leaving on Friday. Heres to another week (or best part of) in India. Pics soon, not easy to upload as I'm on a very slow mobile broadband connection provided by the company I'm visiting over here.
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