Today was our excursion day. We woke up nice and early to explore Hyderabad! I woke up with a scratchy throat, but I didnt think much of it because the air conditioning in the hotel and the air is so different from home I figured it was from the way I was sleeping. I was so excited to finally get out into the city and see and experience where we are. We started off visiting the Charminar, which is a historical site associated with Hyderabad as it was a monument erected as a mark of the end of the plague. From there, we visited Chowmallah Palace, which had beautiful gardens, lots of paintings, traditional clothing items on display, and even a classic car museum! So random but very cool. We then drove to Golconda Fort, having lunch on the way. It was a very interesting lunch, boxed lunch containing a cucumber and tomato sandwich (seemingly common lunch item), something that looks like chicken but was actually Vegetable nuggets, and an interesting spicy croissant thing. It was interesting, and Christine couldn't eat it, so she gave it to a woman with a child in the parking lot when we arrived. That women then upped her begging activity and got quite, violent isn't the word, but aggressive is maybe a better word. I would have thought that would make things a lot better because then you aren't hugnry, but then again I've always been blessed and never been hungry and needy like that so what do I know. Anyway, we made it to the Fort, where we climbed over 29 flights of stairs to the very top, and we saw multiple small temples along the way. I did not enter them, because one of the hosting members told us it was slightly disrespectful to participate if we don't believe. Also, I had to take my shoes off, and the floor was very dirty so I was quite hesitant. Speaking of dirty, right when we walked in, there was a shrine-type set up. Upon inquiry, we learned that it had actually been a sacrificial site the night before for a Festival of Hyderabad. A SACRIFICE! OF A HEN, GOAT, AND SHEEP! THERE WAS A PUDDLE OF BLOOD STILL WET ON THE GROUND! Okay I'm dramatic but I was shocked. I could not wrap my head around the fact that this still happens in the world, so I had to ask my group leader about it (a Hyderabad local). While I know this makes me culturally ignorant, I just couldn't get it. He told us that it was a sacrifice to god, which god (God?) I'm not really sure, he had to continue doing group leader things so we couldn't for long, so if anyone can educate me on this I would be extremely grateful. Anyway, remember that scratchy throat I mentioned this morning, well by this point it was a million degrees, I was extremely overheated, dehydrated, and started feeling horrible. At the top of the fort they had a stand with slightly chilled water and COCA COLA! Of course I had one, a liter of water and a coke cost me 70 cents, I should have bought a million.
From the fort we made our way to Lumbini Park, which is one of the top sites to see in Hyderabad (as are all the other sites we went today) but this was also the place I was planning on visiting on that first day when they didn't want me to leave so I slept instead. So I'm glad I got to see it! It's a cute little park, a mix between what you imagine as a traditional park with green spaces and fountains, and an amusement park, with some rides for kids and food stands. I was shocked at the security, we had to get patted down to go inside! And there were separate lines for men and women, the men's line being much quicker. We had to go into a small curtained room, but my guess is that this is for privacy of women dressed in full hijabs or other traditional attire that is very conservative and bulky, that their privacy is respected. We went to the park to go on a short boat ride out to the Buddha statue out in the middle of the lake. I don't remember if I ever talked about this lake, but it's called Hussain Sagar, and this statue of Guatama Buddha is the largest monolith of him in the world! I'm not sure the percentage of Buddhists here in Hyderabad, but regardless that's a pretty cool fun fact. My group was in line for the second boat trip -- only one boat was working today. Well, naturally as my luck would have it, it starts to rain. But not only rain, but DOWNPOUR. This was really awesome for that scratchy throat-turned-cold-via-dehydration I already had going on. Luckily one of the guys from Slovenia had a big umbrella and let me share it, and we made our way back to the bus. The rain lightened up, and as soon as we got to the bus, one of the boys from Australia proposes we make our way back and get our boat ride in! I was already fed up with this day and how horrible I felt, but Christine, ever the great friend and influence on this trip, encourages me to come because the boat ride to Buddha was something we had been wanting to do for days. Well, I'm so glad we did. They let us back in the park and we were on the very next boat ride. Im not sure if because of slippery surfaces or they just never do, but when we got to the statue, we didn't unboard (there's a big deck area) but just stayed docked to take pictures and look at it. The whole ride only took about 30 minutes, but there was a DJ on board playing music, the majority of them throwbacks from the '90s and early 2000s. I'm not really sure they knew how to DJ because the transitions were pretty horrible, but it was hilarious and added to the hilarious rainy fun experience.
We rushed back because we were trying to take a group picture, but since we were all rainy and disgusting we postponed it.
Tonight was our free night, and the USA delegates decided we were going to have a family night. Our original plan was to boat ride out to see buddha then go out on the town, btu since we did both those things during the excursion day, we changed our plan to eating at the hotel restaurant, it was fairly inexpensive and they had HAMBURGERS! This was shocking since cows are held sacred by many people here, but we were all about jumping on this advantage. However, upon going downstairs to the restaurant, we learn that we were not the only people with this idea, and they had run out of burgers. So, what do we decide to do as a back up plan? Hard Rock. I had no idea that Hyderabad has a Hard Rock Cafe, but upon learning this we were all in. We got dressed, signed ourselves out of the hotel, and made our way to the rickshaws. Now, there were 7 of us who decided to go, and a rickshaw can comfortably seat about 3. We were planning on taking two tuktuks, but two drivers didn't both want to drive that far. So, our option was to all fit in one. We had 3 girls in back, 3 girls on our laps, and one girl shoved up front with the driver. Since it was so heavy we could hardly make it up the one hill I've seen in Hyderabad, and it took us quite a while because we were moving so slow. We did however finally made it, and it was marvelous. I had a California burger with ranch and guac and cucumbers and it was so great (notice this is the first time I've gone into food detail -- and if you know me I'm a big foodie. I just seriously can't eat this Indian food. They put coriander in everything and it makes me really nauseous). We had a wonderful night out with the girls and enjoyed some good food. It wasn't as good as it would be in the US, but it was still the best meal I've had so far here.
We took two tuktuks back, because that squish was not worth saving 30 cents each, and we hit the bed hard because we were exhausted. It was a much needed night's sleep for me after the beating on my body and starting to feel ill. Tomorrow resumes Congress and Workshops begin so I am so excited for that! Goodnight all