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Carla and Ashley Arrive in Hyderabad !
July 6th
Went to get Carla at airport at 8am, an event that was of high-intensity considering instances of missed flights in the recent past! BUT, she did us all proud and made it ! The drive back with my Uncle and Carla was made interesting by two "transvestite" beggars - they were clearly men just pretending to be transvestites. They saw the
gori (white girl) in the back seat and were knocking on our windows at a traffic light. Only in India! After Carla awoke from a 2hr nap, we went to visit a couple of high-end shopping malls -GVK One and Hyderabad Central, where we were accosted by no less than 2 salespersons at any given moment in time.
That night, I went back to the airport to get Ashley. The 45 minute drive back involved Ashley giggling to herself for 45 minutes at all the sights and sounds of Hyderabad at night. She also counted ~10 stray dogs on the street in 3 minutes, and subsequently gave up trying to keep count. We got home at around 12.30am, and immediately went to bed - satisfied that everyone was now safely in Hyderabad!
Day 1 of Hyderabadi goodness !
Getting Ashley and Indian-approved wardrobe!
Ashley showed up with a transparent shirt and one set of pants. This called for a mad shop. We headed to a building called Whitehouse - a building that consisted of several hot, cramped stores that had about 8 sales attendants to each person ! After that, we headed to another mall where Ashley bought some more non-transparent clothes. Walking by some of the stores, we saw a small kiosk selling corn. Canadian Sweet Corn! They had the maple leaf on it and the whole deal! After some mandatory photos of that oddity, we went upstairs to a Chinese restaurant to have some delicious - if spicy - Indo-Chinese cuisine. There we met up briefly with my cousin Avinash, our unofficial travel agent within India that got us tickets for 2 overnight trains and 2 flights for under 220 CAD !
Shilpa Ramam Arts & Crafts
After lunch, we headed to a touristy outdoor Arts & Crafts area called Shilpa Ramam, where we tried in vain to haggle with the deceptive vendors. Ashley and Carla ended up buying a few small souvenirs for Rs. 20 each (48 cents). I was sure they ripped us off, but we didn't have the energy or desperation to haggle for the 10-20cents that they were adding on to the actual price. As we left Shilpa Ramam, we were surrounded by little kids begging aggressively for money ... grabbing purses,etc. Then it started to pour, and we called it a day and headed home in our chauffeurred car !
Dinner with Avinash
At around 8.30 pm that night, my cousin Avinash picked us up and drove us around Necklace Road - which loops around the Hussein Sagar lake. The lake has a massive monolithic statue of Buddha in the middle of it, and it was quite the sight with the lighting at night. We proceeded to have dinner and a very upscale restaurant on the lakeside, and were shocked when our Potato Cake starter turned out to be McCain's Smiles !!! Ashley was amused, and Carla was not impressed. The dinner was really good, if overpriced, and we got home at around 11pm.
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Janelle
non-member comment
Bahaha
I just want to say, Carla, congrats on making this flight, and Trash, leave it to you to go to INDIA without clothes. Well done, well done.