the rotary dial

and when friends-of-friends pass through Hyderabad on the Rotary circuit? well, that calls for jump shots at Golkona Fort, no? Luckily, michelle was more than game. :-)

berta and brian bonanza!

so nice to welcome berta and boyfriend brian to Hyderabad for a short stint of the two-week expedition around a nice little swing of india. friends #20 and #21 over the course of these two years, wow. sehr impressiv, my friends, sehr impressiv!

Berta and Brian do the world's largest wardrobe in the Purani Haveli

sha's days

So great to have Sha in town, returning my March visit with one of her own. She and Kate graduated a year or two apart, from rival schools, and were my two favorite Fondy Relays friends...but had never met each other. Enjoyed new views at the fort, cleaned up in preparation of the Biodiversity Summit, and night shopping at Shilparamam, another new feature! Oh...and go see ARGO!

Children, children...look! Pasty people!

i get a good feeling

Rachel knows me better than any person on this planet. We share Camp Nan A Bo Sho and ALPs. Her friends are my friends and my friends are her friends. She followed me out to DC once, and even as far as Hungary. It’s a bit of an odd role for one of my best friend from college’s little sisters to fill, but we’re long past that.

And Sara’s an all-time fav. A facilitator of fun and merriment. I met her when Rachel was off studying in Spain. A com-dis replacement of sorts, but I swore they’d become fast friends when Rachel returned. Sure enough, the ladies both live in Milwaukee these days, the closest of friends.

And daring enough to make the journey to India.

Quite a few friends proposed at some point or another a New Years visit but only Rachel and Sara emailed proud pictures of their new visas in November. For two months we excitedly planned out a two-week super adventure.

I’m pretty good at the hosting schtick by this point. And in truth, it’s not that hard when you’ve got a four-bedroom apartment and a staff of two.

Hugs at the airport are always the best, followed by a question-and-answer-packed car ride. Usually the same questions, mostly the same answers. Does anyone own those cows? Who is watching those goats? Why are there four languages on each sign? Does someone really live there? What is that smell?

Early morning arrivals are the best. The ladies landed from Abu Dhabi at 3:05 am, the first of the Middle East flights to arrive, which allows you to slip through the crowds and make a relatively peaceful return to my place. And when you time it right you can get a quick nap in before waking for the day relatively refreshed.

By Friday afternoon, they were ready to peek into the consulate to watch the start of the annual consulate cricket match before lunch at Chiran Fort. After checking out Hussain Sagar and Lumbini Tower for the umpeenth time, I pulled out all the stops in honor of the girls’ arrival: the grand opening of Chef Inam’s new steakhouse on Road 2! Our favorite restaurant by far, Chef Inam’s graduated from a dingy concrete box at Masab Tank to a cute and clean restaurant behind Melting Moments across from KBR park, just up from Coco’s. If you like mean, you’ve gotta put it on your Hyderabad short-list.

Saturday, New Years’ Eve day, we trapse through the history of Golkonda Fort and the Qutb Shahi tombs. After a pizza dinner, we napped and pregamed before a pricey New Years’ Eve at Rain. Sadly I was removed from the dance floor for dancing “stag” at one point, but after we met some new Satyam friends, the evening turned around quickly. Until the party ran out at 1am, of course.

After a rest, recovered and planning day on Sunday, we hit the Old City on Monday. I hit two Hyderabadi highlights for the first time, the Birla Planetarium & Science Center and the Salar Jung museum. The planetarium was fun, a nice little time-pass in a nice little area of the city. The science museum’d be a great place to take a 10 year old. And the Salary Jung museum was a pretty good collection, even if a bit random and labeled only rather spartanly. The ladies liked the Charminar a bit more than trapsing aimlessly through the streets of Lal Bazaar, but I did see an antique wall clock unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I decided immediately that I wouldn’t leave Hyderabad until its mine.

And as die-hard Badgers, we awoke at 3 am this morning to watch the mighty boys from Wisconsin battle in their second consecutive Rose Bowl. Rachel and I toasted Miller Genuine Drafts while Sara broke out the cheese. Friends back home dug our late night/early morning photos, at least until the 4th quarter, when Big Red ran out of steam versus a pretty darn good Oregon team.

The ladies are off to Goa for a few days now before we headed to Rajasthan, my first adventure outside of Andhra Pradesh in far too long. Cameras will be put to good use!

A Very Bekes Christmas

Avid readers of Hungarian Goulash might remember that “bekes” is Hugarian for “peaceful.” And thanks to friend-of-a-friend Laura, my first Indian Christmas was extra “bekes” this year.

Laura and I had only met once, years ago at Cooper Amy’s wedding. Sadly, she claims no Hungarian heritage. She quit an NGO consulting job not too long ago and decided some time in Asia is what she needed next. When I heard she planned to spend a few months traveling India, I was quick to put out the invite. India and this apartment, simply, are more fun when you’ve got someone to share it with.

For two months she hiked Nepal, circling Annapurna and climbing to Everest Base Camp. By the middle of December, though, she was getting cold in the mountains, so I recommended she arrive in time for a Zakir Hussain concert at the Chowmahallah Palce. A glorious evening of tabla in the nicest nighttime setting Hyderabad has to offer. And the drive back offered the mood-lit Charminar at night, a first for me.

Another first? The Andhra Pradesh State Health Museum. Tucked into a small building in the Public Gardens just up from the Andhra Pradesh State Museum, between L.B. Stadium and the Assembly. The three-chambered exhibit is an honest-to-goodness time capsule, transporting you straight to 1991. Nothing’s changed. The dust, the exhibits, the population figure: 790,000,000. The information is an amazing glance at health propoganda from a rural country emerging into modernity. Free and worth the visit, although they don’t allow anything other than sly pictures.

After a quick trip to Goa, Laura was back in time for Christmas. Complete with a quaint little tree in the living room, we opened packages and wined and dined with consulate friends.

And Boxing Day brought my first visit to Snow World, one of Hyderabad’s other best kitsch hotspots. For 300 rupees, you get to suit up and set into a giant freezer, a paradise at -5 degrees Celsius. The best part, of course, is the people-watching that comes with seeing local folks feel winter for the first time. Ever. And below Snow World? Some surprisingly good go-karts. With a track built into a cave, as that makes the most sense.

Nagarjunakonda Roadtrip

The list of things I miss about America is long. It's topped by Chipotle, of course, but somewhere not to far down the list you'll find "good ole-fashioned roadtrips."

Not too many "tourist destinations" within driving distance in this chunk of India. Guidebooks usually call Andhra Pradesh, in a variety of diplomatic phrases, something along the lines of a "subtle charmer." I've broken out on wheels just once, a bus trip to Laknavaramu with the Adventure Club. (Treks out to Bhongir only count as a mini-excursion, i've decided.) Atop my to-do list of regional destinations, higher than even noted Wall Drugs of the Deccan like Medak, Nizamabad, and Bidar, was Nagarjunakonda.

I got antsy sitting in Hyderabad since coming back from Nepal, so I convinced coworker Sarah* and new friends Aliza* and Mandy* to load up with Raghu and I and two burned CDs. We set out on the three-hour (150km) drive to Nagarjunakonda, a relatively pleasant drive down a relatively decent road.

The earthen dam itself is pretty impressive, and the reservoir'll the best looking body of water i've seen in months. I was allllllmost tempted to jump in. The valley was an international hub of buddhism back in the 200-300 AD range. The site was excavated in the 1930s, but was threatened when construction began on the dam in the 1960s. the ingenious solution? dig up the ruins and plop them on a hilltop, set to become an island in the new reservoir. The result is a pleasant island park, gardens and paths linking museums and reconstructed ancient buddhist structures. The one-hour ferry and entrance fee combine to about $5 a head, not an unreasonable price for a pretty pleasant out of doors experience. Worth the three-hour trip, if you've got time to kill in the Hyderabad metropolitan region. Two-and-a-half stars out of five.

* Denotes an awesome individual.

Likeable Laura

Returned from Delhi to a great surprise...Laura sleeping on the couch!

Bright and early Saturday, we set out for Bhongir Fort, my second day-trip to the monolith and fort an hour east of HYD. It was great to hike, walking doesn’t happen much here and I miss it. The ladies loved the drive, the history and the views!

Some local boys at the top recommended a Narasimha temple a few miles east of the fort. Raghu agreed it was worth the drive. Temples and pilgrimages are the biggest form of local tourism in India, but the Wisconsin Dells-like tourist trap of Hindu gods and goddesses was a bit surprising. Inside the temple, though, we were given the VIP treatment...they don’t see many firengis that far out. Laura tried to take the darshan with her left hand. The highlight for Ann, though, was certainly the troop of roadside monkeys.

Sunday I helped the ladies plan the next legs of their trip: HYD to Kerala. Then to Delhi and the Golden Triangle (Delhi/Agra/Jaipur) before setting off for Kathmandu the last day of September. Ann and Laura will hike – likely a circumnavigation of the Annapurna Circuit. As laura leaves, I’ll head to Kathandu to join Annie for ten days of trekking at the end of October. Hurrah!

And afterwards, a trip to Lumbini Park. A quick summer monsoon always drown our plans to get to the Buddha, but we made it at dusk. And then a first: the laser show!! I spent the first 15 minutes quite skeptical...THEN THEY TURNED ON THE LASERS!! It was so good!! I was amazed!! This has become a must-do on my visitor to-do list!! It’s so surprisingly good for one dollar!!

One Photo?

What its like going out in public when you're a ghora in India:

Old Structures on Top of Hills

Janani's four days in Hyderabad were the perfect chance to hit two of the city's best tourist attractions, which I had yet to prioritize in 6 months of Hyderabading: Golkona Fort and the Qutb Shahi Tombs.


The fort is the reason there's the city of Hyderabad today, even though it's many miles from the city center. For years, the three-walled bastion on a rocky outcropping was one of the wealthiest strongholds in all of India. From the 13th century Hindu Kakatiya emporers through 16th century Muslim Qutb Shahi dynasty. All the great diamonds of the world passed through the walls. Gold. Pearls. Spices. Some of the richest men in the world sat on thrones here. My first impression was how similar it felt compared to contemporary castles in Europe like Hungary's Eger Castle.


By the 1600s, though, the water situation was getting dreary, so after a big famine the kind moved a few miles to the east, on the banks of the River Musi and built from scratch the Hyderabad we know and love.


The remains, though, are a jumbled blend of fortifications, temples, mosques, markets and lawns.


India: a whole lotta new and old, side by side. The newest residential developments from the top of the fort:


Raghu's favorite top-secret destination within in the largest fort wall? The biggest tree i've ever seen...and climbed into.


And the tombs of the Qutb rulers? Amazing monuments to a different day and age, even as they slowly crumble.