467 KM in 10 hours = 29 MPH average

Wednesday, June 13, 2012.  Hyderabad – Delhi – Amritsar

We took a 12:20 PM flight on SpiceJet from Hyderabad to Delhi.  SpiceJet is one of the local low cost airlines and along with Jet Airways and IndiGo is one of the few Indian airlines we were recommended to fly.  Air India has a bad safety record and maybe about to strike.  Kingfisher hasn’t paid their pilots in a while.

The flight was uneventful, but delayed by about 20 minutes, so we arrived in Delhi around 2:40 PM.  This time our bags arrived quickly and we exited the airport to be met by the Delhi manager of Four Wheel Drive and our driver Sury, who will be with us for the next couple of weeks. 

We set off immediately for Amritsar in Punjab province close to the border with Pakistan.  This a major road, and in parts it was a decent highway (although nothing like as good at the Hyderabad superhighways).  But at least half of it was under construction, so we were diverted to the access road for much of the drive, which ended up taking ten hours with a short stop for tea and another for a quick, tasty dinner at a roadside Dhabba, 

The drive was excruciatingly slow – just as it looked like we were getting up to speed on the highway, there would be another diversion sign that took us through yet another heavily populated access road.  Then there are all the different kinds of vehicles and animate objects that have to be avoided.  An incomplete list includes:

• Bicycles
• Bicycle rickshaws
• Bicycle goods carriers
• Scooters
• Motorcycles
• Autos/Tuk Tuks – 3 wheeled motorcycle taxis
• 3 Wheeled motorcycle goods carriers
• Cars
• Vans
• Trucks of all sizes
• Humans crossing every kind of road, including major highways
• Dogs
• Goats
• Sheep
• Cows
• Oxen pulling carts
• Buffalo
• And likely many more that I can’t remember

Plus, if the road was even halfway decent, you could guarantee that it was a toll road, so we had to stop often to pay the tolls.

We eventually made it to our hotel at 1am, tired but still in one piece! 

Golconda Fort and the Qutb Shahi Tombs

Tuesday, June 12, 2012.  Hyderabad, India

Frances drove us to the Golconda Fort, which is the largest in southern India, originally built of mud in the 14th Century, but rebuilt in stone in the 17th Century.   Its outer walls, which are still intact, extend for 5 miles.

Today Golconda is mostly ruins of the fortifications and palace complexes, but you can still get some idea of the scope of the place and a hint at how decorative it may have been in its heyday.

About 1Km down the road are the Qutb Shahi Tombs which consist of a series of large, onion domed tombs and their adjacent mosques.  There is also a building that was a bath house with hot and cold water where the corpses were prepared for burial. 

The structures are mostly in tact, but a bit run down and most of the grounds are not well kept.  With a little effort, this place could be stunning.  As it is, it is still an interesting place to visit.  The buildings are very impressive and in places you can see hints of the colored paint and tile that must have been very attractive when these were in their prime. This is the burial place of a whole line of royalty that ruled this area in the 17th and 18th centuries.

At the largest tomb there was a camera crew and a bunch of people in costume with some thrones set out on the veranda of the tomb.  Presumably they were shooting a movie or a TV show.  They seemed to have one very fancy camera and instead of powered lighting like we might see on the streets of LA or New York, they were equipped with large reflectors to bounce sunlight onto the set.

One odd thing as we walked through both locales was that lots of locals kept asking to have a picture taken with us.  Most of the time we obliged.  We were even asked by some of the school kids on the street for a photo.  Laura reckoned that they might be doing this so that if they put in a visa application to the States, they can show a picture of their supposed US sponsors along with a fake letter of introduction.  I doubt this would be too successful, and maybe this was the primary motivation, but it seemed that some of the people just wanted a photo with a foreign visitor.

A Visit to Paradise

Monday, June 11, 2012, Hyderabad, India.

We started our day by going to the NCR office with Phil and getting a quick tour.  Apart from seeing what an Indian development office and lab looks like (seeing an ATM cracked open is always fun!), they have a cafeteria on site that seemed to have a very interesting juice offering about half way down the menu:

Unfortunately Aaron was feeling a bit under the weather so he rested for a few hours while the rest of us headed towards the center of old Hyderabad to the Salar Jung Museum.  The Salar Jung was the Prime Minister of the rulers (or Nizzams) of Hyderabad, at one time the wealthiest people on the planet.  Consider that the Koh-i-Noor diamond and many others were mined locally and safeguarded in the Golconda Fort for many years. 

The Salar Jung museum is the largest museum of just one person’s collection and includes a vast variety of arms, ivory, jade, toys, furniture, wood carvings, paintings, etc., etc.   The building was nothing special, but the artifacts were fascinating.  Perhaps my favorite was a full sized intricately carved ivory sword. The level of craftsmanship was amazing.  Unfortunately no photography was allowed.

We would have liked to have stayed a bit longer, but needed to leave to meet Phil and Laura for lunch, so we grabbed a Tuk Tuk for the 15KM ride and had a more visceral experience of Hyderabadi street life. You get to see some crazy stuff on the streets, like people transporting car windscreens on a scooter. 

Paradise restaurant is famous throughout India for its biryanis (rice dishes) and is supposedly the largest restaurant in the country.  It is huge and has multiple levels and hundreds of clients at any one time.  The took the orders on smart phones to transmit them to the kitchen.

Post lunch Laura took us to a few of her favorite stores and Kelly and I each bought Kurtas (long shirts), then we headed to the mall to pick up the Ventimiglia kids who went to the movies for their last day of school to see Men In Black III. 

First time trying Hash

Sunday June 10, 2012.  Hyderabad.

Today Kelly and I spent about day cooking with Hamsa

Our menu included dhosas (Indian crepes) with potato tilling and lentil sambar (stew) with a coconut chutney for lunch.  Everyone seemed to enjoy these.  The dhosas are made from left over rice, raw soaked rice, and raw soaked lentils made into a batter and rested overnight  Just before cooking some baking soda and salt get added and then the process is very similar to making French crepes.

After lunch the boys went swimming with the Ventimiglias while Kelly and I made a few more recipes:

• Hyderabad Chicken – a baked spicy dish.
• Chicken with Sweet Corn – a mild curry that was a hit with everyone.
• Palak koftas – Spinach balls. Loved the spicy sauce, the spinach balls themselves were very hard.
• Aloo Paratha – bread stuffed with potato filling.
• Spiced rice

Hamsa uses a couple of Indian cuisine cookbooks, but the main one with 1,000 different recipes I was able to find for a bargain on Amazon.com and so it should be waiting for us when we return.

The Hash House Harriers is an international running/walking and social club and in Hyderabad they meet each Sunday.  Phil and Laura invited us to join them for a Hash (what the club calls their walks and runs) and we had a chance to get a little exercise and meet some other Hyderabad residents – both ex pats and locals.  Kelly decided to stay at the house and finish cooking, so the boys and I went along and I got to learn a little about local politics and received a strong recommendation to visit the Salar Jung museum from one of the locals.  The local landscape has some interesting granite boulders as can be seen from this traffic circle.

We came back to the house to eat all the great food Kelly and Hamsa made.  Even something as simple as rice is special here.  We’ve spiced our rice water with some cardamom or cloves before, but here they use cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and bay leaves.  Add a little turmeric and you have super tasty yellow rice.  By the way, a huge bag of bay leaves, at one of the most expensive stores in town was RP5 or about 10 US cents.  Looking forward to buying a bunch of spices before we leave Delhi in a few weeks.

The Sanity Tax

Friday, June 8th, 2012 Mumbai – Hyderabad

Since we are leaving Mumbai this evening, we wanted to see a few other places before we go.  After we checked out and stored our bags at the hotel, we dealt with the taxi hassle yet again.  This time we walked over to the nearby taxi rank, got in a taxi and said we wanted to go to Mani Bhavan, which is the Ghandi library/museum, an important site in Mumbai.  The driver didn’t turn on the meter, but I also think he didn’t know where we were going, because he pulled into the Mumbai Central Train Station, which was next door and started talking to the other drivers there.  Can’t figure out why these drivers might be more knowledgeable than the ones at the taxi rank, but after a few minutes there seemed to be an invite to go to another taxi that could take us there for a fixed fee that I knew had to be way over the odds.  Bottom line was that none of the drivers here would do the journey on the meter and wanted RP300 to RP200 to drive us.  I figured this has to be at least 4 times what it should cost.  They didn’t want to budge, so we voted with our feet and walked out of the station and found another taxi.  He charged us RP100 for the same trip, which I knew was still more than it would be on the meter, but in the end, saving the last 50 cents to $1 on a cab ride just grinds it out of you.  I call this the “sanity tax” – at some point our time (and mental health) is worth more than a few rupees.

As it turns out, I got a rare opportunity to figure out what it should really have cost us, since later in the day we had a driver take us back to the hotel to get our bags on the meter, which rang up around RP50.  So as you can see, the initial drivers actually wanted 4-6X the meter rate.  It is rarely in your best interest to go off meter with a taxi. Of course the drivers all want to do it because they make more money.  The best bet is to ask a local (e.g. at your hotel) what the taxi ride should cost and use that information.  Of course, that’s great if you can get a taxi driver to take you for it, but often times, they will simply refuse to use the meter and their fixed rate will be a multiple of what you should pay.  At that point it is time to decide whether to pay the sanity tax or get out and find another cab.

Mani Bhavan is the home where Ghandi stayed whenever he was in Mumbai.  Today it is a Ghandi research library and has a number of displays about the man, his work, and his life.  It is free and definitely worth a look in you are in Mumbai.  Amongst the various photos on display, I liked seeing one of him sitting with Charlie Chaplin.

The room where Ghandi slept has a display of some of his few personal belongings and artifacts. Scattered throughout the whole building are panels with some of his quotes on various topics.

Perhaps my favorite part was the dioramas that depict important junctures in Ghandi’s life.  As you can see from the photo below, these have a folksy charm, and are actually quite informative once you read the accompanying panels.  Someone took a lot of time to make these.  Of course if this was created today, we’ve expect LCD panels with fancy graphics and information, but for some reason, I think these dioramas are more engaging.

Leaving Mani Bhavan, which is in the Malabar Hill area of town - the “Beverly Hills” of Mumbai and resident to many Bollywood Film Stars - we walked past the Tower of Silence and up to the Hanging Gardens.  The Tower of Silence is a Parsi funeral tower and can only be glimpsed from the road.  Parsis are another small Indian religious group – they are direct descendants of Persian (Iranian) Zoroastrians.  They believe that bodies should not pollute the ground and practice air burial – putting bodes in these towers and allowing vultures to pick the bones clean.  Seemingly Mumbai has had a decrease in their vulture population which is of great concern to this community.

The Hanging Gardens are a pleasant park located on one of the highest parts of Mumbai and actually built over water tanks that are the main water supply for the city below. 

The view is pretty interesting and includes a unique private residence.  Aaron’s friend had told him a little about this place – it is apparently the home of a very wealthy guy known as the Wall Street Nostradamus and is rumored to have 100 servants, but he doesn’t actually live there.  Who knows?

We walked down the hill I the heat and had a late lunch at a restaurant called Soam which serves Gujurati vegetarian food.  I found the place using Google Places on my smart phone, which is really great when you are traveling and don’t otherwise know where to find a good local restaurant.  We had a fabulous lunch with several different dishes, which mostly consisted of some form of tasty bread and accompanying curry or sauce.

From there, we got a metered taxi back to the hotel.  He had wanted to charge me RP150 (“very good price, sir”), but relented and went on the meter, which as previously stated, rang up as RP50.  He actually spoke some English and since we were headed to the airport, I converted our trip into a fixed price trip that was within the guidelines of what the hotel had told me the journey should cost.

We arrived early at the airport, which was fine as we had heard that it can be a very slow process.  In the end we actually got through check in and security pretty quickly. At the domestic terminal, in addition to the typical waiting seats, they had a good number of loungers, which I think is a great idea in an airport.  They also had a few booths with tables and electrical power, so the boys were able to plug in the netbook and watch some programs they had brought with them for just such an opportunity.

Our Jet Airways flight to Hyderabad lasted about 80 minutes and was uneventful.  After getting our bags, we left the new, very modern airport and were met by Frances, our friends’ driver.  Outside, on the airport grounds they had a shooting gallery and a go kart track as well as some other things that looked like much more fun than I’ve seen at any other airports.

We took a fantastic new road and about 20 minutes later arrived at Phil and Laura’s house and were greeted by them and two of their kids,  Benjamin, Abigail.  Their youngest Aidan was already asleep.

Phil and I used to work together a long while back at Dell.  When Phil and Laura moved with Dell to Singapore, I was actually their cross cultural trainer. Since then, Phil moved to NCR Corp. and runs their Hyderabad operation.

Cooking up a storm in Hyderabad

Saturday, June 9th, 2012.  Hyderabad, India.

This is actually a picture of the Mango tart Hamsa made, but it was the only food shot I took.  The tart was very yummy.  If you are on a diet, you don’t want to know the ingredients!

It is the start of monsoon season, so heavy rains are on their way.  We’ve seen no more than a sprinkle, but will surely soon hit some rainfall.  That should cool it down a little, but also increase the humidity.  Right now it is in the high 90s here in Hyderabad.  In Punjab (our next stop), it may be twenty degrees warmer.  Yikes!

Our friends have a cook named Hamsa who comes in several times a week to make meals for the family. She is a lovely woman (as Laura said, think Indian grandmother) and a very good cook.  As the Ventimiglias are not big fans of Indian cuisine, she mostly does western cooking, but we spent two days with her learning a variety of Indian recipes and basic cooking techniques.  We made some very tasty dishes (most of the Ventimiglias even enjoyed them) and look forward to getting home to make more.  We’ll likely make some adjustments to make some of the recipes fit the healthier eating style Kelly and I are following at home.

Today we made some plain paratha bread and dal (lentils) for lunch which was very tasty.  Once we figured out a few more recipes we had to go to two stores to get all the ingredients, which took more than an hour.   Eventually we got to make Chicken Curry, Chicken Biryani, and Eggplant Curry with nuts which we all enjoyed for dinner.

Afterwards, we left the kids and Kelly and I joined Phil and Laurra at the Westin hotel for some drinks.  I decided to skip the alcohol and had a lovely drink of coconut juice, banana, apple, and mint.  Very refreshing.  Looking forward to more cooking tomorrow.

Connecting Cultures

Thursday, June 7, Mumbai, India

We started today at the former Prince of Wales Museum, which is in a beautiful colonial era building and houses a variety of artifacts related to India and some other countries and cultures from antiquity to modern times.

For some reason that I really haven’t figured out, taxi drivers seem to have no clue about where the major sites of interest to a visitor are located, such as the largest and best known museum in Mumbai.  Showing a map doesn’t seem to help much.  The best I’ve figured out is to find some other important local building such as the Police Headquarters and ask for that.  Eventually once enough data has been shared (or the driver has consulted half a dozen of his colleagues) the car takes off and so far, we’ve always ended up in the right place.

Just as yesterday, there was a wide disparity between the entrance fees for foreigners and locals, BUT if you have a student ID (Ben remembered his), you essentially get the local rate.  One nice thing about paying more as a foreigner is that they included an excellent free audio guide.

Wandering the collections of art, collectibles, and natural history we were able to learn more about various aspects of Indian culture as well as see some incredible art.  Their miniature picture gallery, an art form associated with the Murghals was particularly impressive.  Amongst their collection of arms were some frightening looking knives and swords, but perhaps the most interesting to me was what appeared to be a deadly frisbee, called a Chakra, which was a unique Indian weapon that was used by twirling it around your finger before it got flung and its razor sharp outer edge injured your foe.  Maybe this was the origin of Odd Job’s hat weapon in the James Bond movies.

Also in the armory was a suit of armor and weapons that had been on display for more than seventy years before they figured out that they were the Emperor Akbar’s personal armor. 

In a gallery devoted to new acquisitions I found a game board on cloth for something called Gyana Bazi, which was the forerunner of snakes and ladders (or chutes and ladders depending on what side of the Atlantic you are from!).  In an of itself, that did not surprise me, but I found out that this is a game played by the Jains especially during one of their festivals and it is meant to help teach the concept of karma, thus something that in the west is purely a form of entertainment is yet another example of something with deep symbolic meaning here in India.

The Jains are a relatively small but influential religious group in Indian, less than 1% of the population, but very influential in business and other endeavors.  Their religion pre dates Hinduism and significantly influenced its concepts and ideas.  Jains are totally against violence and strict vegetarians.  Ghandi’s approach of peaceful disobedience was heavily influenced by Jain concepts.

The strictest Jains will not even eat any root vegetables such as garlic, onions, carrots or potatoes because it requires destroying the plant in order to harvest the food.

Coincidentally we ended up spending a delightful evening with a Jain family.  One of Aaron’s friends from Georgia Tech is from Mumbai and Aaron sent him a message asking if he would like to get together while we are in the city.  Very quickly a response came back insisting that we come to dinner at their home on the beach in one of Mumbai’s suburbs.  Getting there took about an hour in the taxi and we went over the toll causeway that was the best road we’ve seen so far and the only one comparable to a US or European highway.  Even with practically no other cars on the road, our taxi driver still straddled two lanes as he drove.

Until very recently when the great grandmother passed away at age 103, four generations of the family lived under one roof.  Right now they are redeveloping one of their homes about 15 minutes away and when finished there will be nine floors of apartments for everyone to be able to live under the same roof. Family is very important here.

While waiting for the parents, we got to visit with Aaron’s friend and his sister who is a rising senior at the University of Southern California. In retrospect, we probably made the mistake of coming at the time we were requested, but should have been fashionably late.  Dad is an industrialist and clearly a very successful one at that.  We have a marvelous evening of good pure vegetarian food, champagne, and very pleasant company.

I also got to find out at least one theory about the “Horn OK Please” sign on the back of trucks from our host.  He believes it dates back to when the British were here and the idea was that when you were caught behind a large truck on the road you would honk to let them know you wanted to pass.  During the war the trucks ran on kerosene, so the some say that “OK” stood for “On Kerosene”.

Over time this has morphed into its own little bit of cultural identity and when people get a truck here they sort of tattoo a decorative version of this message on the back of the vehicle.  Clearly it has no real purpose within the city – everyone honks their horn at anything anyhow.  If you want to see some other interesting theories, the hyperlink above is worth a click.