travel back in time....

Today I'm traveling back in time a bit.. first to skip back to my trip out here, second.. well.. travelling back in time and wandering the old city of Hyderabad.
As far as my trip out here, I left San Francisco on Tuesday 26th of June, 1:30 AM in the morning, and from there on Singapore Airlines flight 1 via Hong Kong to Singapore.



I spent the day in Singapore, since my layover there was 8+ hours, and I attached some photos of that day.. mostly just tourist sites. The lion in the photo represents part of the history of Singapore, which got its name from a lion. It's one of the reasons you see lions in several parts of the city.

Back to today's "time travel". Two friends from work picked me up to show me around the city of Hyderabad, and from what I experienced throughout the day, it was a good thing I had local friends with me. It's just like everywhere else, if they can make money off of a tourist.. they will ;)




First off we visited Charminar, one of the "seven wonders of Hyderabad"
We got a tour through the building and learned a bunch about the history of the structure.

Other sites I visited today are: Birla Mandir, where unfortunately I was not allowed to take any photos, but you can view the building here



Having a late lunch, sitting next to Sangeeth.














Mahesh (our chauffeur) and Hari.

survived day 1, on to day 2

Amazing how I survived day 1, but looking at how the locals do this stuff every day, it's all good and I should be fine for the next couple of days here.

I found a video of what it looks like to walk across the street.. and this video is no joke!
How to cross the street in Hyderabad (or India in general from what I understand)

So day 1 (Thursday June 28th, 2007) was interesting, first I got dropped off at the wrong office, and I found out my company actually has 4 buildings in "Hi-Tec city" Hyderabad, or as some call it Cyberabad. Met with all the team members I've been working with for the last couple of months and got a tour of the office.

For lunch we went to the Hyderabad House, and I got to experience my first authentic Indian food. My co-workers were a bit worried about my tolerance for the food, but I guess my training on Indian food and spicy stuff paid off and I loved the food.
Naan with butter chicken, Chicken Biryani, and ice cream with dades (sp?) for desert.. who said I got any work done in the afternoon? It was full on naptime after that.. I managed to stay awake till 7pm and got in my cab back to my hotel.

I found out my hotel is right across the street from a crew hotel for KLM, I guess I'm gonna go check out the bar there to see if I'll run into any more Dutch people tonight..

Pictures on the way...

Travel to India (day 1)

Over the last 48 hours I've experienced the most insane travel experience ever.. .for me at least.

Board an airplane at 1:30 in the morning in San Francisco, arrive in Hong Kong about 13 hours later, then 2 hours later get back in the same plane and on to Singapore.
An 8 hour layover there, and then on for 5 hours to Hyderabad, India. I thought the videos you see on YouTube of traffic in India were sped up, and heavily editted.. now I realize it is a straight download from a webcam that was pointed at any random intersection in Hyderabad.. Just add more cars to it. The honking, the cars going every where.. it's all true.

The funniest part was my driver dropping me off across the street from the office, instead of at the front door.. He saw immediately I wasn't quite ready to cross the street yet.. he got out and said "follow me" and just started walking across.. I guess cars just stop if there is someone on the road. So I did what he showed me and just blindly crossed the road.. well, I'm still alive, posting this message here, and hopefully be posting some more in the days to come.
For now I'm going back to work.. talk to you tomorrow! I'll post some pictures later as well.