Sunday, June 06, 2004

Published on June 7, 2004 By Dmitry Polyakovsky In Welcome

This is a story of my business trip to Hyderabad, India. The approximate exchange rate is 45 Rupees to $1. My flight left Seattle on Friday, June 4th @ 1:15 PM. I flew Northwest Airlines to Amsterdam and then on to Mumbai (former Bombay). I spend 2 hours wondering around Amsterdam airport which is very nice and has many duty free shops so I bought some chocolates for the team in India. Both Seattle – Amsterdam and Amsterdam – Mumbai flights were about 10 hours and I slept part of the way.

The interesting stuff started happening once I got to Mumbai. I landed around 10 PM and my flight to Hyderabad was at 3 AM. So I had 5 hours to spend at the airport and thought about getting a hotel room and taking a later flight. The airport looked rather dingy, cheap florescent lighting, dirty floors and smelly bathrooms. It took me half an hour to get my luggage. Then it took me 1.5 hours to transfer to the other terminal which was only about 2 miles away. The reason it took so long is because I had to wait an hour and twenty minutes for the bus. Apparently you can’t take a taxi or walk there. As I was about to get on the bus the driver said that I could not go because the bus was full. I pleaded and he let me on. The funny thing is that I completely forgot that they drive on the left side of the road in India. Then I had to go through the check-in for the domestic flight to Hyderabad. Their security is either really thorough or really slow because they took a long time. At that point I only had 2 hours left so I just waited for my plane. The flight was only an hour.

The Hyderabad airport was actually nicer and cleaner than Mumbai airport. I asked one of the fellow passengers what’s the best way to get to the hotel and he recommended either getting a prepaid taxi at the airport or calling the hotel to come pick me up. In retrospect I should have called from US but now I did not want to wait so I chose the prepaid taxi. I paid the clerk in the airport booth 140 Rupees and then a guy approached and told me that he is the driver and will take me to my hotel. Then another guy came, said something to the first guy and told me that he will take me to the hotel. This was all happening at 4 in the morning and I was dead tired after 30 hours of traveling. I considered calling the hotel but decided not to. The cab had to be at least 30 years old and was making every noise imaginable. It was raining but the windshield wiper was broken so the driver opened a window and manually pushed the wiper with his hand. Scary thoughts about Western tourists getting kidnapped in poor countries flashed through my mind. As you can imagine the traffic laws are practically non-existent in India but amazingly (probably due to my prayers

) we got to the hotel 10 minutes later without any accidents. I checked in, called my wife to tell her that I arrived safely and fell asleep. I woke up 5 hours later and went to have some breakfast. My room includes a complimentary buffet breakfast and happy hour. I also was able to check my email since hotel has wireless internet access but that costs extra.

The hotel is pretty nice, has a small exercise room and a pool. After breakfast I looked around hotel and decided that I did not want to spend the whole day sitting around. I asked the concierge if there are tours of the city available (normally you have a whole stand with various brochures but they did not have any) and they told me that I can just hire a driver with a car for several hours. I decided to hire a car for 4 hours and to spend a few extra $ on the air conditioned car (which proved to be wise choice). Every where in the hotel there are people who are trying to help you. Sometimes they are actually not very helpful but they sure try. So I stood there looking at the map trying to decide where to go and 4 people were trying to help me. After numerous attempts to understand exactly what they are saying I decided that whatever they are recommending is probably fairly interesting and went along. The 3 places they suggested I could see in 4 hours were Qutub Shani Tombs, Golconda Fort and Charminar.

Qutub Shani Tombs are 7 tombs where Qutub Shani Shah and family are buried. He ruled that area about 400 years ago and his dynasty actually lasted until 1873. Today there is only one surviving member of the family and he’s living in Australia (according to my driver). The place is actually a park and there were many people sitting on the ground having picnics. Which is a little odd because near there are these huge domes where the Shah and his family are buried. The place was interesting but in need of serious restoration work.

The price of the car rental did not include the admission to these places so I had to pay 10 Rupees for my ticket, 10 for my driver’s ticket (so he could tell me a little bit about the place) and then 20 to park the car. Another thing you discover at all these sites is beggars. This is not like what you see in US when people are panhandling. First of all it is women with babies, children, old people, and handicapped asking for money. Second is they are much more persistent and won’t leave you along (especially if you are a Western tourist). What seems to work is to keep several 1 Rupee coins and just give it to them.

Then we went to Golconda Fort. My driver recommended getting a guide because the place is pretty big and he did not know much about it. To get admission to the fort cost 5 Rupees if you are a local but 100 (that’s right, a hundred) if you are a foreigner. It’s only $2 but I’ve never seen such price differential. The nice thing is that if you pay 100 Rupees then you don’t have to wait in line (there were many lines in all these places). Plus I had to get a guide and pay for car parking. The guide was pretty good. He said he’s been doing this for 30 years and talked my ear off for the next hour and a half. I was only able to understand about half of what he said but it was really interesting. The fort was used as a residence by many rulers of the area. They had numerous guards and you can still see the cannons they used. They had a very ingenious acoustic sound system where there are many points that are far apart but you can hear what is going on in other parts. They had mosques, armory, harem and a series of water cisterns for getting water to the top of the hill. The fort sits on the hill and its top is at 2200 above the see level while the bottom is at 500 feel about the sea level. The views of the city are very nice. After walking up and down the hill for an hour and a half in hot and humid weather I was really tired.

After this we drove to Charminar. As I mentioned the traffic was absolutely insane (according to my driver it was a light day because it was Sunday). Everywhere you see scooters and motorcycles with 2 or 3 people on them (only saw 2 people wearing helmets) and yellow 3 wheel auto-rickshaw taxis. You also have buses, bicycles, horses, cows and cars sharing the same road and driving between the lanes. People cross the street in all places and don’t seem terribly concerned that they might be hit. I saw one minor accident but since traffic was moving pretty slow, nobody was hurt.

At Charminar I again paid 100 Rupees, told to go to the beginning of the line and went upstairs. At the top however I had to wait in a really long line to get down. The views of the city were quite interesting but it was not worth all the time that I had to wait. Being the ONLY non-Indian person I stuck out like a sore thumb and attracted attention, especially from kids.

After that we just drove back to the hotel, had dinner and showered. I went to the bar during happy hour but it was pretty boring so I came back to my room. I also realized that I only packed two shirts (forgot the rest because they were hanging in the closet) so I will have to buy more tomorrow. I already wore one today and it needs to be washed (that’s how much I sweated).

Comments

eadams

on Jul 22, 2005

ha! found your blog. Cool, very cool!

Bekki

on Jan 18, 2006

Dmitry, it's Bekki from the undergraduate physics class in winter of 94. How the heck are you? Bekki Leu

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