Day 17: Hyderabad by Day

Day 17

I'm starting to think I was a little hard on Chennai at first. Large cities in India are terrible places to live and try to move about. Hyderabad is a fine example of this phenomenon.

We got up before dawn and headed far out of town, the way we'd come in. We found a remote area with palm trees, scrub brush and big rocky hills near a the town of Malkapur. It was the perfect spot to get some off road shots.

We took the top off one of the Rickshaws and mounted the medium format camera to the framework. We got some stupendous shots of Michael driving a rickshaw as the lead rickshaw towed it through the desert. After he clones out the tow line, the shots will look amazing.

A local came to gawk (even in the middle of nowhere) and we had him trip the shutter for a reenactment shot of our team logo. It was hysterical.

After a long rest that afternoon, Adam and I went to the Charminer district of old Hyderabad. It has one of the oldest mosques in this area, from the 15th century, Mecca Masjib.

This is an obviously heavy Islamic town and it was the first time I'd seen so many burqas. It was like something out of a movie or CNN.

The dense bazaar part of town is known for it's perfume and essential oils. We found a little shop just like we'd read about in a guide book. They had the local specialty we'd read about, "Gil". It was also known as "Miti" in Hindi and is supposed to smell like the wet earth from the first rain after a long, hot summer. It does smell dirt-like, but we're not experts on the seasons here yet.

During the past 2 evenings, motivated by the team's utter lack of intestinal problems the whole trip, I decided to throw caution to the wind and eat street food. Late the previous evening I had a couple samosas, some curried popcorn (mine's better,) and a palak paneer baked pastry. They were all amazing and I was kicking myself I hadn't been braver during our 3 weeks here.

This evening I told Adam about it as we walked about and he got into the spirit. This surprised me as Adam has lived up to his nickname, "control group", as he likes to be the control group in any ingesting experiment that Michael and I undertake. If we order the house special, Adam will invariably say, "I'm going to control group that."

When he ordered some peanuts from a street cart, I was quietly shocked. The cart looked really cool. It was a high, wooden platform on large wooden wheels. It could have come from Europe in the dark ages. There were large metal platters with all sorts of grains piled on them. Towards the vendor was a small, metal scale with cast iron kilogram equivalents for measure out the goods. Adams 1kg of peanuts went into the scale and then the guy put a smoking pot on top if it. The pot was a ceramic vessel full of hot coals with a handle and a leather grip. A minute of "toasting" and the peanuts and seasonings went into a freshly rolled newspaper cone. Way cool.

I decided to find another hot samosa, as the one I had the night before was stellar. I reasonably crowed cart presented itself in no time and I went to ordering my snack. The options at this cart were different from the other night and the communication breakdown left me wondering what I was going to get.

The vendor took my 8 rupees with a wet, messy hand and set to making my dish. He selected a samosa from a pile and then smashed it with his hand. It was put into a small bowled formed out of compressed, dried palm leaves. On top of the samosa went a ladel of masalaish stew, some green sauce and some spices. I was given a tiny wooden "spoon" like you'd get at an old icecream parlor. I was nervous because of how this looked and was prepared. It is one thing to get a piping hot, fried samosa, and another altogether to get what I was handed. I decided it was worth whatever was about to happen and I went for it. It was incredible. I wish I knew what it was.

India is finally getting to Michael and he is suffering from the same deep sinus pain that Adam and I went through the week before. It is debilitating and he has been resting in the hotel. We joined him and fell asleep watching National Treasure.

TV here is terrible.