Spent a little time at the pool this morning. Actually 11am to noon. I forgot to bring any sunscreen but figured an hour wouldn't be bad. I wasn't even in the sun the whole hour. Okay, everyone is going to say how stupid I was. And you are right. I am very red. Not painful. A little itchy and that wasn't until much later. Hyderabad is at 17 degrees north, Dallas is 32 degrees north, Minneapolis is 44, Washington, DC is 38. Hyderabad is only 17 degrees latitude from the equator.
Charminar is the structure shown in the right part of the page. No one knows for sure why it was built but it was probably intended to be the entrance to the city.
Hyderabad is the center of the pearl trade. Luis, the project manager, was here last Fall and found a reputable pearl dealer. The pearl dealer sent a car to pick us up and drive us to his shop. The pearl shop was just a narrow store with a long display case and row of chairs in front of it. Luis had experience here and asked the pearl dealer to show us pearls. There were thousands if not hundreds of thousands.
After the pearls we went to the Charminar and climbed the very narrow spiral staircase to the sightseeing level. You can walk around the entire floor. These pictures are from the some of the sights we saw.
We came back down and were greeted by "John" who volunteered to be our bodyguard. I was in search of a shot glass for Stacey and a fake Rolex watch for Blake. "John" was assisted by is friend "Shawn." Here are our bodyguards.
The streets are crowded and you have to watch out for vehicles of all sorts. We weren't successful finding a shot glass but we did find a superbly fake Rolex for 200 rupees ($5 US). We headed back to the pearl dealer to pick up the pearls. "John" and "Shawn" who I know wanted to be paid for their bodyguarding were not at all please with their payments. No amount would have pleased them.
The pearl dealer offered to have us driven where ever we wanted. I had read that the light show at Golcondar Fort was well worth it. There was a 7pm show and leaving the Charminar at 5:30 should have given us plenty of time. Well, it didn't and the show started at 6:30pm instead. Golcondar Fort is the immense fort built 400 years ago. The light show had started but we went in anyway. It gets dark early here.
Well, it was boring. It was in English but included a lot of recorded songs/poems that were in Hindi. If we were able to understand the songs, it may have been better. We had to take a three-wheeler all the way back to the hotel.
I have such varied reactions to all I've seen. And I've only seen bits and pieces. There wasn't extreme begging that I had been warned about. There are more people in Minneapolis at the street intersections asking for handouts than here. There are lots and lots of people and the streets overflow with people but it isn't overwhelming.
The Muslim population is prominent and there are mosques blaring calls to pray everywhere in the old city. Maybe the whole thing is that it is new and different for me.
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