Chowmahalla and sari shopping

Saturday was a busy day of sightseeing and shopping. I woke up excited to wear my floral maxi dress, because I’ve only ever worn it one time (out to dinner in Santorini on our honeymoon). So I put it on and realize that it’s REALLY see-through. Like, can’t wear out in public see-through. The dress is kind of between ivory and a light yellow and has a floral pattern down the sides and along the bottom, but you could totally see the outline of my legs/butt right through the back of the dress. Ughhhh.

My first reaction was humiliation, considering I walked around Greece in a see-through dress. I know we drank a lot of wine that night in Santorini, but geez. I didn’t feel like buying a slip just to wear this dress here and I definitely didn’t want to wear jeans after the Golconda Fort incident, so I did a bit of fashion engineering and turned my J. Crew strapless beach dress into a tea-length skirt by folding the tube top part over and wearing it with a tank and short sleeve cardigan. Fashion emergency solved, we went down to breakfast.

Our sightseeing location for the day was Chowmahalla Palace, which was the official residence of the Nizam (ruler of Hyderabad). It actually consists of four palaces so the grounds are pretty huge, but most of the rooms are closed up to the public so it really only took about an hour to tour the whole complex. Parts of it reminded me of Venice because of the elaborate architecture and pigeons everywhere. The rooms that you could go in were beautiful and had huge chandeliers and marble everywhere.

We wandered around taking photos and enjoying the fact that they didn’t have any pushy tour guides, but at the same time we really didn’t know what we were looking at, so I guess that’s the downside. It was a lot more laid back than the fort, though, which was nice.

After the palace we drove across the city, kind of near the FRO, to Meena Bazaar so I could get a sari for the wedding we’re going to this week. You can’t just buy a sari already made, you have to pick out a fabric and then they measure you and make it. I wanted to go to Meena b/c it was recommended by friends who have been here and also by the hotel, plus they have on-site tailoring; I could have found fabric cheaper elsewhere, but it’s more convenient to just have everything in one place.

I spent a long time looking at different fabrics and “trying” them on. To try on a sari it involves two guys wrapping the material around you and trying to fix it, so it’s kind of a production. One takes the fabric and gathers it up and wraps it around your waist like a long skirt. You hold it in place while he takes a big sash and ties it around you so the fabric stays in place. Meanwhile the other guy takes the right side of the fabric and drapes it over you and they’re both fussing with it to make it look like it would in real life. I tried on at least four or five and of course the one I wanted (pink and red with tons of beading) was double the cost I wanted to spend, even with the 50% off sale.

Instead I ended up getting a gorgeous bright purple fabric; I wanted something blue or green but they didn’t have any I liked in my price range in those colors. All in all it was still fairly expensive but the beading is all done by hand, which makes it cost more of course. The tailoring only cost $20 though, which is insanely cheap compared to home. I spent $75 on a simple bridesmaid dress alteration last year and here they’re making you a custom dress for 20 bucks! My sari will be ready on Wednesday night so I’m excited to go pick it up.

After that we went to the mall because we were starving and also needed to pick up a few things. The only options were Chili’s or Pizza Hut, unless we wanted to go to the food court. I don’t even eat McDonald’s in the States, so we opted for Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut here is actually better than it is at home, go figure. It was funny because I ordered a “chicken n’ corn” personal pizza and it was the size of a child’s pizza…it had four tiny slices. It was seriously the smallest pizza I’ve ever seen (but really good at least). T got a medium chicken supreme and it was pretty much the size of a personal. It’s probably a better idea considering the portion sizes are out of control at home!

After lunch I had to go to the bathroom, so I went to the one in the mall. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but they don’t use toilet paper here. Bathrooms have a little hose that comes out of the wall and you use that to clean off with water and kinda wipe with your left hand (that’s why no one shakes hands or serves/touches food with their left hand here). Of course in hotels they have TP, and when I went in the Hard Rock Café they did, but you shouldn’t expect it in a public bathroom or even at a tourist place. This was my first encounter with a bathroom that didn’t have any, but luckily I had a Charmin to Go pack in my purse.

Anyway, next we went to a store called Mangatrai to pick up a few gifts and ran into one of T’s Indian coworkers. She argued with the guy in Hindi for a bit and helped us get a better deal so that was nice. After we chatted with her for a while we headed downstairs to Hyper City, which is basically like a Walmart or Target. It has a full grocery store and also sells electronics, home stuff, toys, clothes, etc. They had a ton of American brands there and also British/European food so we bought some digestives, Pringles, Milano cookies and a few other things to keep in the room. We ended up running into two more of T’s coworkers (Americans) and saw a lot of other foreigners in the store, too. I guess that’s where everyone does their grocery shopping.

We were both really tired from running around all day (it was about 5pm when we finished at the mall) so we headed back to the hotel and ended up watching this movie called Wedding Daze with Isla Fisher and Jason Biggs. I never even heard of it (apparently it came out in 2006) but it was actually really funny. The first season of Dexter just premiered here so we watched a few episodes of that as well. I never watched it at home but I like it so far, although this show is totally messed up! I’ve only seen the first four episodes so far. We had dinner at the hotel since I wanted to have “sushi” ice cream one last time; they only have it on Saturday nights. I had my usual chicken biryani and a few other Indian dishes for dinner; the biryani at the hotel is good, but not as good as Paradise’s biryani (where we ate last Sunday). We went to bed fairly early because we had to get up early to head out to Ramjoi Film City the next day. I’ll write about that later today!