It's about 9am on Sunday and I've been up since 5. This is probably bc I slept almost all day yesterday - I know that's not good when you are trying to adjust time zones, but I was just so exhausted. I really wish I had brought some sleeping pills – ugh.
Anyway, I’ll pick up where I left off w/ the flights. We arrived in Hyderabad a little after 4am on Saturday. It was ridiculously humid when we got off the plane and the airport wasn’t air conditioned, we were sweating our butts off by the time we got thru customs. The airport was really modern and clean at least. It was basically empty in there and I think our flight was the only one that had come through at that point. Our bags came out right away and we headed over to find our driver from the hotel. Luckily we found him very quickly and we headed out toward the exit.
The airport has one of those big arrivals waiting areas, picture international arrivals at Heathrow (like in Love Actually) and everyone’s waiting around to meet people. Even though it was 4am there were a lot of people waiting. And then we walk in.
You’d have thought Brangelina showed up.
Everyone was turning around and staring at us. Not the “I’m kind of curious and will try to casually glance over” kind of look. I mean FULL BODY turn around, blatant stares. I wasn’t that surprised by this, since I was told by many people (and all of the guidebooks) that Americans get a lot of attention/stares, especially if you are a female and have blonde or red hair. It was just kind of weird/creepy to have everyone staring at you (I’m fairly sure someone took a cell phone pic too).
We followed the driver and another guy from the hotel (I think he was the “airport services manager” or something) outside to the car and headed out. Since it was dark out there wasn’t much to see, but we were on a normal highway, not much different from any other country. They drive on the English side of the road here so the steering wheel’s on the right side of the car. The ride went by uneventfully until the highway just kind of ended and then we were on a dirt road. It happened so suddenly we were kind of like huh?? There was no exit or any sort of indication that the highway was ending, we just kind of turned to the right and went on this dirt road and then a minute later we were back on another highway. So random.
A few minutes later we were into the city. Again since it was dark not much to report, the area we drove through was pretty run down, but not Slumdog Millionaire kind of poverty … it was just a crappy neighborhood. There weren’t really lanes of any sort so people just kind of drove where they felt like and we nearly ran over a guy on a scooter…at least there weren’t many cars on the road at 4:30am.
We got to the hotel and there’s a big gate around the complex, you have to go past a guard station to get in. Once they waved us through we went down a long driveway up to another guard station. Four or so guys came around and checked under the car and in the trunk (for bombs). Finally we got to the entrance, which is really nice and has big palm trees out front. A few people came over and took our luggage out and then we went through another interesting security process.
They actually have a baggage scanner thing right outside the front doors of the hotel, like when you go through airport security. So all of our bags went through there while a lady had me go in this outdoor shower looking cube where she proceeded to use a scanning wand thing to check me for metal or bombs or what have you. They did the same to Tim but outside in the open, which I think was interesting. I guess it’s a modesty thing with women?
We walked through a metal detector and then went inside to check in. The staff members all wore cricket jerseys b/c the Cricket World Cup is going on right now. Everyone’s obsessed with it. We watched the Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka game yesterday and I had no clue what was going on but it reminds me a bit of baseball.
Anyway, a mosquito flew around us when we were checking and I freaked out. I’m slightly paranoid about getting malaria or some other disease. Just slightly…
The lobby definitely wasn’t air conditioned (although it was during the day later, maybe they just turn it off in the middle of the night?) and we felt so gross.
By the time we got up to our room it was definitely around 5am and all we wanted to do was shower and go to bed. Our room’s very nice and pretty big but it’s just a normal hotel room (not a suite or anything). We passed out sometime around 6am. I slept til 12:30 but T woke up a lot earlier and ended up unpacking our suitcases and putting everything away.
We decided to go to lunch downstairs in the main lobby restaurant. They had a lunch buffet or you could do a la carte, but we chose the buffet (not knowing how expensive it was). They had mostly Indian food but some other random stuff as well, I ended up trying a few types of chicken but didn’t like any of them so I basically ate some steamed rice, two rolls and a mini BBQ chicken pizza (which was the size of a bagel bite). The bill wound up being $48 so um yeah those were some expensive rolls.
After lunch we wandered around, saw the gym, spa, shops and pool. It was pretty nice out, maybe 83 degrees or so. We were still really out of it so we went back up to the room and watched TV and ended up falling asleep again. We prob would have slept right through dinner but my mom called around 6pm on Skype so we woke up and talked to her, then got dressed for dinner. They have a BBQ every Sat night so I sprayed us down with bug spray in preparation!
We went outside and they had tents set up with tables underneath and lots of citronella around. One of the staff members said we had to go inside to check in at the host desk, where they said the outside seating was all taken (it definitely wasn’t, but maybe they were reserved for others). I was kind of annoyed considering I had taken the time to cover myself in bug spray but then again I was a bit relieved we didn’t have to sit outside w/ the mosquitos. They had the same buffet as lunch only with some more (better) options and you could also go outside and have the BBQ stuff but it was all seafood which I wasn’t gonna eat. Luckily this meal was covered; we can choose from either Saturday BBQ dinner or Sunday brunch each week for free. We found out it was unlimited booze so we both ordered a beer. It was funny b/c the waiter said ok, I’ll get you a beer and walked away. Apparently there wasn’t an option of picking what kind! He brought us back some bottles of Carlsberg, which I’d never had before but it was fine.
T’s coworker had told him about this sushi roll ice cream so we both had some of that. They pour chocolate on an ice block and then it hardens, then they put vanilla ice cream on top of it and any toppings you want. Then they take the end of the chocolate and roll it up and then cut it up so it looks like sushi. SO good!!!
Funny story – we got a bill at the end b/c we had shared some bottled water. Apparently you can drink as many beers as you want and eat anything for free but you have to pay for water! Haha. It was only a few dollars but it was just kinda funny.
We walked around the pool for a while, took some pics and watched a bit of the Cricket World Cup on a big screen they had outside, but the bugs were setting me into panic mode so we went back in. It was a shame b/c the night was so nice (maybe 65ish degrees) or we would have stayed out longer, but the mosquitos were buzzing around us a lot. We watched some more of the game inside and then went to bed around midnight after catching up on FB and stuff. The Internet here is REALLY slow and annoying, by the way. Sometimes it randomly stops working…I have a feeling that I’m not going to be able to use Netflix like I hoped ☹
Anyway I have no idea what we’re going to do today besides maybe go to the gym or the pool. We obviously can’t leave the complex without a driver given the surrounding neighborhood, and honestly, I don’t even think you’re allowed to. There’s nowhere in walking distance to go even if we wanted to go somewhere anyway. We don’t really want to venture out into the other parts of the city (the normal parts and tourist stuff) until T goes to work and talks to people and figures out what is safe, etc. Plus he doesn’t have his local cell phone yet, which we need to call our driver and tell him where/when to get us if we go out. I’m a little antsy to be able to get into a routine and meet some people so I’m not stuck in the hotel 24/7. This first wknd is definitely an adjustment period.
I’m going to attempt to sleep for a bit, which I’m sure won’t work!
Xoxo
K
complex and within a couple of minutes saw some pretty crazy stuff. Cows and goats walking in the street, people living in tents and shacks on the side of the road...you hear/see about these things on TV or in movies but it's an entirely different experience to witness in person. It was a very small area of the road that had the tents but it was still really sad. Further along the traffic got busier and it was kinda scary. Driving at 4am is a TOTALLY diff situation since there aren't many cars. During the day there are people everywhere, especially on scooters and auto rickshaws and none of them really look where they're going. People use their horn every 2 seconds and I had to shut my eyes a few times!