We've landed in Singapore. Staying at the Furama hotel in the center of the Chinatown in the city. We've got some fun things to do for the next few days, but I'll hopefully get a chance to finish the posts from the last few days in India. Here is one about our last weekend there:

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Saturday, May 10
On Saturday morning we hired a car and driver to take us to Hyderabad to do some shopping, eating and visiting of tourist sites. Our driver, a young local man named Prabhakar, spoke only slightly more words in English than we did in Telugu, Urdu or Hindi (the three languages he did speak), but he smiled a lot, and we smiled back, and things worked out very well. First on our agenda was to find a non-Indian restaurant after spending an entire week eating hospital cafeteria Indian food (much better than our hospital food, but a bit spicy and monotonous by the end of it.)

Hyderabad is not generally a tourist destination (and probably even less during the hottest month of the year). The 800+ page lonely planet guidebook that SP brought, has a total of 8 pages on Hyderabad and surrounding regions, and there are no better books available. Throughout our stay, we probably saw no more than 20 non-Indian people and most of that number was at the Golconda Fort, the biggest tourist destination here, which has an evening light show (so we were all there at once). You cannot buy real postcards here, though a few entrepreneurial people have managed to print out old pictures of Hyderabad --some of them remarkably unexciting (e.g. a picture of a skyscraper)-- on postcard-like paper and sell them in ten packs on the street. I paid far too much for mine, too happy to see postcards (after two days of searching) to haggle.

We started our day in the Abids area, where we felt we would have the best chance of finding a bank, an American restaurant, and a post office. It is the only post office in Hyderabad, and as we found out today, it is quite possibly the only place in this city from where one can send mail. Our driver dropped us off to search for parking, and after exchanging cell phone numbers, we had our first experience of walking on Hyderabad streets.

The traffic here is remarkable: thousands of cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians walk the roads at once. There are occasional sidewalks, but they are rare and narrow, and do not appear to be used by anyone other than people who beg or sleep on the street. There do not seem to be many traffic rules, and most people don't obey the ones there are (cars often run red lights en mass, sometimes because the light has just changed…a good 5 seconds ago, sometimes because they just feel like it). People also have a different sense of personal space. Everyone (whether in person or vehicle) appears to feel comfortable with being cramped in small spaces, so that if you are not following the car in front of you bumper to bumper, someone (first a motorcycle, then a rickshaw, then a truck) will eventually squeeze into that space. Often, when we were standing in line to buy something, people would just push right past us and take the personal space we had left in front of us as their own. Entire families would "cut" in line, quite possibly wondering to themselves what we were doing standing in line but going nowhere. Overtime, we learned that unless one made it physically impossible for a person to push himself past you, you will not get very far forward. Fortunately, we realized this after being here for more than a week, and after wearing the same clothes everyday, we had soaked up India -- its grease, sweat and smoke -- into ourselves, and we were much more comfortable standing in crowds.

Crossing the street in Abids was an adventure. There are a few crosswalks, but from having driven through the city already, we had no expectations that anyone would actually stop for us. We had sped past people attempting to cross the street - their noses or heels only inches from our car - and we knew it would be a mad dash each time. We survived; our white skin, female gender and western clothes probably made up for our inexperience, as many drivers would slow down to stare and yell "Pardon Madam" instead of clipping our heels.

The only place in Abids with the non-Indian food we craved was (yes, you guessed it) McDonalds. Our shame numbed by the need to eat some protein (I had started to eat mostly rice and bread, with a teaspoon of ridiculously spicy dal per meal) and ice cream, we went in and savored the air conditioning for a good hour.

The rest of our day was spent driving around the city and visiting the famous Hyderabad sites. We started at the Charminar, an ancient Muslim entrance to the city of Hyderabad that gave us a 360-degree view of the city, from about 6 or 7 stories up (which is pretty high around here). The Charminar is located in the Old Muslim Quarter of Hyderabad, and next to it is a famous bazaar that has narrow alleyways filled with hundreds of stores selling Bangles, Saris, fruits, and spices.

When we pulled up in rented Jeepesque SUV near the Charminar, a young boy stuck his head in our window and started to chat us up, first in English, then in French. He was 8 years old and sold cheap necklaces on the street, which he prominently displayed the entire time he talked with us. His name was Mazur, and soon, he was leading us around the street towards the Charminar itself, introducing us to the culture of the Bazaar: “People will try to cheat you here. Expensive for you, cheap for me. Don’t buy expensive. Ask for less.”

“Can we buy a necklace from you?” I asked.
“Not now, later. I will give you a good price. Not expensive. Good price. First go to the Charminar. Here is the entrance for foreigners. I will wait here.”

We followed Mazur’s instructions, paying the foreigner’s fee (which is 10 times the local price, but still costs around $2) and followed the crowds of Indian tourists to the top, up a steep, narrow spiral staircase that seemed coated with the city’s grime. There, we were unintentionally adopted by an unwanted guide, a man wearing a “Security” sweatshirt, who asked us if he could tell us about the history of the Charminar “You must know the history; it is important!”, and then 5 minutes later, asked us if he could tell us about his fee. Being that his fee was 5 rupees (about 12 cents), we had no problem paying it, and he did point our a structure or two for us to see. (The next day, at another tourist destination, we were stopped at a fake gate by a man who pretended to be checking our tickets, then pocketed them after we showed them to him, and asked us to follow us for a special tour. By the time we caught on to ask for our tickets back, he informed us that his fee was 350 rupees, and insisted that we would need his tour to get anything out of our visit: “But I will tell you history; the history is so important!” We said no thank you, and that’s when I bought the overpriced postcards from his friend.)

After seeing the Charminar, Mazur and Prabhakar (our driver, who we found out had secretly been following us to make sure we were OK) led us around the bazaar street that sold bangles. In every direction, there were thousands of shiny, glistening, colorful bangles (sorry, forgot to take pictures!) and in front of them, men yelled at us from every direction: “Come here, Madam!” “Just a second, Madam!” “Come look at these! I will give you a discount!” “Madam, just a moment! Please!”

It was overwhelming and not my ideal shopping environment, as I found a few moments later, when I bought ugly bangles for way too much money. After making my purchase, I turned around, and young Mazur was looking at me, disappointed and shaking his head. “Did I pay too much, Mazur? Should I have haggled more.” “Too expensive,” he simply said in a flat tone, as if I thoughtlessly wasted his precious instructions.

Seeing how overwhelmed we were by the bazaar (and probably also seeing that we weren’t interested in buying much, Prabhakar and Mazur steered us towards one of the side streets and into one of the quiet alleys of the neighborhood. There, we walked past small garage like buildings where all the artisans worked: in one, two men sat on the concrete floor, adding sequins, one by one, to a 6 yard long sari. In another, an old man was using tweezers to add little diamonds to a pricey gold bangle. In yet another, leather was being worked into the shape of a sandal.

After the Charminar, Mazur asked if he could go on with us to our next stop, Charmahala Palace, and jumped into the car to go with us, leaving his necklaces on the car seat. When we offered to pay the entrance fee for him and our driver, the guard, replied, “Oh no, you don’t have to pay for Mazur, he’s a big man around here!” Apparently, we weren’t the first tourists Mazur had charmed with his business savy manner.

We walked around the Palace grounds for a while, but it was blazingly hot, and the best part of the trip was sitting down with Mazur and Prabhakar for some cold sodas in the shade. Our day ended, with a trip to the biggest grocery store we could find – one only slightly bigger than a Trader Joes. It was inside of the mall in Abids, which –like all malls and most stores here – you couldn’t enter without passing security and a metal detector. Getting into the grocery store was just as difficult, but we happily left with water, mango juice and more Marie biscuits to prepare for another week away from the city.

Sunday, May 11

On Sunday, we returned to Hyderabad for a few more sites and a little bit more of American food. We started the day at the IMAX cinema and mall (yes, we’ve gone to more malls in these two days in India than I have all year in the USA, but our bellies were desperate.) The mall was a strange site to see in India. It was almost like an American mall, but it was clear that for many people who went there, it was a remarkable experience. There was a small climbing wall next to the entrance, and while one man attempted to scale it, another several dozen were frozen in awe. SB and I considered climbing for a moment, but didn't think it was appropriate in a country where women still have quite traditional roles. The most amusing part of the IMAX theater however, was the area with the escalator. Many people here had never been on moving stairs before, and SB said she could spend the rest of the day watching the mixture of trepidation, excitement and relief displayed by those who braved stepping onto their first escalator.

We ended our evening with a visit to the Golconda Fort, the large mountain side ruins of the former location of the city. Hyderabad was established in the end of the 17th century after the population at Golconda Fort exceeded the capacity (and ran out of water). The sultan at the time decided to move the city, and the fort was abandoned at the time. In the evenings each night, there is a "lightshow" at the fort, which you watch from chairs at the bottom of the mountain. The one hour program consists of a narrated story of the Fort's history, that is told with music and famous poems, while different parts of the fort are lit up.

We returned to our quarters late at night, with food and water for the week, relieved to have finally had a chance to experience and see the city.