Michelle
David
Configurators
Triathlon
Other Links
| India Trip Fall 2000 |
|---|
| Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 |
Growing up one of my family's closest friends was Anil Balaram. In fact he was sometimes refered to as another 'Browne brother' In the spring of 2000 he announced his engagement with a lady from India named Ruth who lived in a town called Hyderabad. Having received invitations, my brother Chris and I decided that we would be honoured to represent our family at Anil's wedding in Hyderabad. In September we purchased our tickets and in early November of 2000 we embarked on our trip to India leaving from Dallas.
Chris and David at DFW Airport just prior to leaving on our epic journey.
After a long flight we arrived in England sometime early in the morning at London Gatwick airport. We took a bus to Heathrow for our leg to Bombay (Mumbai). This is a picture of the English countryside. My first view of England.
We Landed in Mumbai (Bombay) at around 2:30am local time after an interminably long flight ( I have no idea how parents of young children do it). After collecting our luggage we ventured out of the international airport to find the free bus that would take us to the domestic airport. After avoiding some of the taxi and 'official' airport worker scams that we were warned about by our Indian friends, we made our way without any problems to the domestic airport. By this time it was around 4:00am and with a couple of hours to wait for our 6:00 flight to Hyderabad Chris opted for some shuteye.
At 6:00am we were on our way again headed to our final destination Hyderabad. We landed around 8:30am and threaded our way to the baggage claim area. On our way we got view of Anil and his mother. What an awesome feeling finally meeting someone that we knew. Outside the airport by the taxis we stopped and got a picture taken with Anil's mom.
Our first destination was the Deccan Hotel. On the way I grabbed a picture of one of the major intersections. After checking in we went downstairs for a standard Indian breakfast of dosa (sp?) which was a flat baked pancake rolled up with a spicy potato mix inside. It was pretty good stuff and became our standard breakfast for the remainder of our time in Hyderabad.
Since we had a 12 hour jet lag to get over we opted to try and stay awake. To do this we headed out a local market area called the Pot(sp?) market. I purchased some gold earrings and pearl necklace for my wife back home. I took a picture of the jewelry store so I could show Michelle where the earrings came from.
Back at the hotel we took the obligatory picture of a 'holy' cow. They were actually fairly pathetic creatures that would get fed at the whim of people. Other than that they were pretty much left to wander around town. Many did not look too healthy.
In the afternoon we headed for a more modern section of town that actually resembled something that was a little more like familiar to us with billboards and stores.
After an early supper we hung out in our luxurious hotel room with Anil and his brother for a while waiting to head for the train station where we were going to pick up some more of Anil's relatives.
The train station was again something interesting. The luggage was being carried by ancient porters on their heads. Chris headed back to the hotel just after 7:00pm with the first batch of relatives. Anil and I waited for the second set which arrived around 9:30pm. The ride back was very exciting as I rode with Ruth's brother Vincent (the hardest working man in Hyderabad) on his motorcycle. Let's just say that I now know what the land speeder chase on the Ewok planet in Return of the Jedi was like. I have no idea how we avoided crashing. It was a fitting end to one long long day.