Aurangabad, India/Hyderabad, India

We're in Hyderabad now, though we spent three days in Aurangabad during which time I didn't blog at all. Basically, Aurangabad in a nutshell: heat, caves, exhaustion, and my discovery of Indian potato chips. I actually discovered these on a tour we took of all the sites in the region when I hadn't had any breakfast. When we got to the first stop, I ran across the street and bought one bag of "American style cream and onion" and one bag of Masala flavored chips. For five rupees each!!! That is like a penny. No joke. Actually it's like a dime, but still. Great deal. And they were so good! Definitely better than actual American Style [sour] cream and onion chips, and certainly cheaper. Other than that, on the food front, I have been branching out and eating more meat, lots of naan, and one night in Aurangabad, I even tried Chinese style noodles. It's weird because there are very few restaurants with American food, but there are lots with Indian and Chinese food. When I was taking a nap one day in Aurangabad, Sam went to a restaurant and got some friend rice, which he said was the best fried rice he had ever had. Anyway, on the whole Aurangabad was much more manageable than Mumbai, though it was still extremely dirty and the traffic was insane.

In Hyderabad, which we arrived at by way of a 10 hour overnight train, things have been a lot different. On the one hand, Hyderabad, is a lot cleaner than the other cities. There isn't garbage everywhere like in Mumbai and Aurangabad, everything seems to function effectively and more or less on schedule, and there is just like a lot more infrastructure. The roads are paved, there are traffic lights, there is what appears to be a functioning public transit system, and there are lots and lots of shops. We booked the cheapest "mid-range" hotel listed in the Lonely Planet, and it turned out to actually be a really nice, recently renovated hotel. We have a flat-screen Samsung TV in our room, which in my opinion, is any real-estate developper/hotel manager's way of telling you that you are in a pretty nice place.

The food in Hyderabad has been exceptionally good. Not sure why we weren't doing this before, but we have pretty much only been going to places recommended by the Lonely Planet, and they have all been fantastic. The first one we went to was a vegetarian place in the Andhra-style of cuisine (apparently one of the two prominent in Hyderabad, the other one is Biryani). It was incredible. Everything was served on a banana leaf, and basically, you just sit down, they put a banana leaf in front of you, then this guy just comes and starts dumping stuff on your banana leaf. So there were four main dishes, and two kinds of rice. Of the four, one was lentil-based, one was maybe chickpea and tomato-based, one was spicy chili fried vegetables, and then one I think was a creamy nut base, maybe cashew. They also gave you yogurt and this creamy sauce which looked gross so I didn't touch it, and then there were like five or six dishes of spices on each table which you added at will. Basically, I just tried different cominations, my favorite being the yellow rice with yogurt, the cashew dish, the chickpea dish, and then i sprinkled some of the crispy veggies on top. DELISH. After this restaurant, we went to the internet cafe, where we tried to book our next few spots (we're headed to Delhi next), and then we went to buy me a nail file (my nails are all broken from the dry heat, and filthy from eating with my hands) and Sam some listerine. That nail file was such a joke. It's like trying to file your nails with a piece of styrofoam.

Last night, Sam passed out for two hours (which we had tried not to do since at that point we had yet to sleep a full night and not at all during the day), and I read Tina Fey's new book Bossypants. The book is hilarious, and it was especially great since she has a chapter about the year she worked in Evanston, which actually mentioned people I know/have met! Small world. THEN, we went to meet Krish Batra, one of my friends from Grinnell, who lives in Hyderabad, for dinner! It was seriously like the most wonderful night. Krish actually lives in Secunderabad, which is Hyderabad's next-door sister city. He took us to this place called "Paradise," which is supposed to be like the focal point of the Biryani scene in Hyderabad. Krish said he thought they didn't have the best-though I thought it was great!- BIryani in the city, but he described it as "an institution" in Hyderabad, so of course we had to go. It was multiple floors, and very nice decor-wise, though in all honesty, my favorite things I ate weren't the Biryani, but rather the mutton kebab appetizer, and the dough balls soaking in sugar water which we had for dessert. It was also just so fun to see Krish and catch up and find a friendly face in India.

This morning, Sam and I went to some fort which was amazing, but our tour guide kind of ripped us off, which sort of soured us on the experience. The fort was enormous and incredible, full of hidden passageways, a full-scale water distribution network, mosques and underground tunnels. I took a million pictures, and our tourguide referred to me as "queen." The harem, which was once home to the 365 wives of one of the shahs, is now home to lots of bats, a nescafe machine, and Hyderabad's BIGGEST LASER LIGHT SHOW! No joke. We did not attend. After the fort, we went to the seven tombs of the Mughal shahs who once ruled the forts. They were large ornate domes surrounded by palm trees and these beautiful trees that flower pink and orange. We then came back into the city and had the best by far tandoori chicken I have ever had. It was in the weird restaurant with a very shady-looking entrance, though once inside, there was a guy making piles and piles of naan in the tandoori machine. The restaurant had two rooms, one when you first walked in, which was only for men, and one, which had a sign that said "family room" where men, women, and children were allowed. Not sure what that was about. Anyway, that's all for now. Leave comments!