The first two items on today's itinerary were breakfast and lunch. Last night, seeing the sparse schedule, colleagues hatched plans to visit Hindu temples and jewelry markets in the morning, but, as our flight's departure time receded, so did the ambitious plans. I woke up around 7:45 am and opened the curtains to reveal a view of Hyderabad, population 9 million. I fought the inclination to unpack my clothes and headed for the hotel gym and then ate breakfast.
 |
| View of the city from the hotel room |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | | | | |
|
Taking advantage of the free time and the already warming day, I strolled around the hotel grounds. I found a shady chair and read the local newspaper. Back in my room, I turned the bathroom sink into a makeshift washing machine and freshened up some of my clothes. We will be here until Thursday, leaving sufficient time for drying. By the time I had unpacked, wrung out the clothes, and checked messages, it was time for lunch. As usual, the hotel offers an abundant buffet of delicious food. I realized that eating from restaurants and not snacking, I haven't had anything crunchy or packaged in awhile.
 |
| The pool at our opulent hotel |
The afternoon plan was to visit a large fort on the outskirts of town, but the unrelenting heat prompted the organizers to swap tomorrow's museum visit for today. Whether it's the late night or the half-way point, the group dynamic is starting to fracture. A few people opted out of the sightseeing and lobbied to have our group lunch shifted to dinner so they could rest or catch up on work. I joined with several others who wanted to stick to the prearranged schedule. It's curious that many of my colleagues oversee study abroad programs and yet were asking for exemptions that they wouldn't have tolerated from their undergraduates.
In the end, eleven of the fourteen of us boarded the bus for the afternoon tour. A guide showed us around Salar Jung Museum, a massive edifice highlighting the collection of art and artifacts from the pre-Independence area rulers. I hadn't given much though to how India was organized before the British colonial period. Hyderabad had a very strong local monarchy with strong influence from Iran. Consequently, about 30 percent of the people here are Muslim, and we observed many women in burqas and men in traditional garb.
 |
| Exterior of the Salar Jung Museum |
From there, the bus wound through almost comically crowded streets to the historic city center. I did see a raised metro on one of the city's major thoroughfares, but most of the roads are chockablock with three-wheeled auto rickshaws, swarms of motorcycles, buses, and cars. A traffic jam can string an entire city block and last for ten stationary minutes. We steered to the Chaminar, an iconic structure downtown surrounded by a dizzying market. No cars allowed in this area, though the pell-mell pedestrians made navigating the streets and alleys as tricky.
 |
| With the Chaminar in the background, my fair-haired colleagues received many requests for photos. |
|
|
I went into a large mosque next to the Chaminar, which commemorates survival from a 16th-century plague. As with the museum and the hotel, the mosque required us to pass through a metal detector. The security took on a new poignance in light of the recent New Zealand tragedy. We have another day of touring tomorrow followed by dinner with the Consul General. Time to blow dry and iron my nice clothes!
Comments
Post a Comment