Sunday, April 1, 2007

India- Day 2.
After a 36 hour trip I'm finally in Hyderabad and have finally gotten some sleep. I'm staying at the Jayabheri guest houses and there is one other person staying at my guest house. I have a room and a bathroom to myself, with my own personally controlled air conditioner that even comes with a remote control to set the temperature (and the air conditionart is definitely needed!). The apartment is really nice with marble floors and french doors and flat screen tvs, even a pre-stocked fridge and mini-fridge with Tropicana juices (so far my favorite is the mango). The meals are brought by the staff and set up at the dining table, ready to eat! My first meal was breakfast yesterday, a couscous with almonds and dried apricots. There is a guard posted outside the apartment and a large cleaning staff who enjoy watching the TV in the living room when they aren’t working. I came out of my room yesterday morning and all of the windows and doors to the apartment were open, including the front door! Seems to be a normal practice, so luckily my room has a separate door and lock that I can keep closed when I want to be alone.

I spent most of yesterday as a complete zombie because I only got 5 hours of sleep after I arrived because of the time difference. I did manage to get to Q-mart, an Indian version of target or k-mart to get some toiletries, and the ride there was my first real look at Hyderabad. On the roads there are tons of mopeds and a lot of couples riding on them, men driving and women in full bright saris with scarves riding side-saddle behind them. On my way home from the airport I saw a girl riding behind her boyfriend on a moped wearing jeans, a tank top, and a veil and hijab – don’t know how covering her face and hair was going to make up for the lack of modesty due to the tank top and low cut jeans!

I’m off now to the ex-pat buffet at the Taj Krishna, a Sunday tradition for a lot of visiting googlers. More observations will come soon.

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