Month: January 2009

Hello all,

   Anjali and I decided to blow straight through Chennai, which we

figure we will return to, and on to Pondicherry.  The city was

officially renamed Puducherry, but even the official tourism guides

say “Pondicherry” in their bus tours.  Pondicherry is the largest city

in what was formerly the French colony also named Pondicherry.  It is

on the coast in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.  A little bit

French, and a lot Indian.  Getting here took 24 hours of travel:  we

walked down a cliff from our Virupapuragadda cottage to the boat

launch to Hampi,  we were ferried across the water, we dragged luggage up a hundred steps to the streets above the river, we walked to an

autorickshaw, we took the auto to the Hospet railway station, we

waited a few hours for our train to Guntakal, at Guntakal we

transferred to an overnight train to Chennai, once there we caught a

city bus, to another city bus, which took us to the long distance bus

station, where we caught a bus to the Pondicherry bus station, where

we caught an autorickshaw to the Ram Guest House.  If this wasn’t

exhausting enough, we realized immediately that the only room

available with no windows to the outside was entirely unsuitable, so

we spent the rest of the day walking around Pondicherry in the blazing

heat looking for a place to stay for the rest of our visit.

   People say they love traveling, but I have decided that as much

as I love seeing new and different places, I don’t particularly love

to travel.  I don’t love being cramped and aching in tight quarters on

long journeys.  I don’t like not being able to stand up and move

around.  Traveling by train in India is not easy, as no one ever tells

you what stop you are at, and if you have a window seat, and it is not

night, and you are on the right side of the train, you might see a

station sign, but only sometimes is there English next to the dominant

Indian language of whatever area you are passing through.  You can set

your watch by when you think you are going to arrive, but trains are

notoriously delayed, and you may or may not arrive any time close to

when you are scheduled.  You may see a conductor once in eighteen

hours, and the staff on board may or may not know any English.  If

your destination is the final destination of the train, then you will

be OK, but if it is a stop along the way, you must be vigilant.  The

train may only stop for a few minutes, and you need to be at the door

waiting to exit with your luggage, because there will certainly be

many people trying to force their way on, and you may very well end up

trapped between them and the exit as you watch the train pull away

from the station.   Sound familiar?

   The “beach” in Pondicherry is a manufactured one: a little strip

of clay-like sand that gives way to a slope of huge imported black

boulders that stand against the surging waves.  The water near the

rocks is brown, but the sea looks beautiful shades of blue and green

in the distance.  People come to stroll.  No one comes to swim.  The

French Quarter in Pondicherry consists of the nearly empty streets

near the beachfront.  Noticeably clean, these streets exude a quiet,

quaint, relaxed feel, unlike anywhere else in India.    The houses are

painted in tranquil pastels, and the walls are overrun by flowering

bougainvilleas.  The rest of the city is as chaotic, noisy, dirty, and

overstimulating as any Indian metropolis.  Street after street is

given over to streetside sales vendors, and endless bazaars.  The

French Quarter accomadation has been all booked-up our entire visit,

so we have been staying in the Indian side, at the funky Ganga Guest

House, decorated with framed vintage Tamil film posters.

One day we went on an all-day bus tour sponsored by the Puducherry

Tourism Department.  A bus tour is something that neither of us have

never done.  In the afternoon the tour took us to the intentional

community of Auroville some 9km away.  Auroville was founded by “The

Mother,” a “spiritual companion” to Sri Aurobindo, the Indian mystic.

The Mother decreed, “Auroville wants to be a universal town where men

and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive

harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The

purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.”  The tour gave us no

background, except to sit us down for a short video presentation at

the Auroville information center which explained the central

importance of the Matrimandir to Auroville.  According to The Mother,

“The Matrimandir wants to be the symbol of the Universal Mother

according to Sri Aurobindo’s teachings, and “The Matrimandir wants to

be the symbol of the Divine’s answer to man’s aspiration for

perfection. Union with the Divine, manifesting in a progressive human

unity.”  We were told we were only going to be allowed to see the

outside of this structure, and not the world’s largest crystal in the

chamber inside, where Aurovillians come to “concentrate.”  A short

walk through very beautiful forests, we came to the Matrimandir.  The

Mother had decreed of the Matrimandir that, “It must be a thing of

great beauty, of such beauty that when people come they will say ‘Ah,

this is it.’

   To me the Matrimandir looked like a giant smooshed golden golf

ball in a red brick portable golf hole in the middle of green lawns

bordered by swathes of red clay.  It also looks like a spaceship from

some ’60s sci-fi movie.  If I did my Indian math correctly (Indians

use lakhs and crores instead of our hundred thousands and millions.)

the Matrimandir has cost 100 million dollars so far, and is still

being constructed.  Allegedly, all of the funds for the Matrimandir’s

construction have come from donations.  For a structure that is still

being constructed, it already looks dated.  I wanted to stay and look,

but because I was impressed by its bizareness, not its beauty.  The

Golden Temple of the Sikhs kicks its ass in that regard.

   Anjali really wanted to shop at the Auroville boutiques, since

the Aurovillians make their own clothes, candles, incense, soaps,

jewelry, paper, spirulina, cashew toffee, jams, you name it.  We were

forbidden by our tour guide to shop, since he said we didn’t have

enough time, but Anjali thought that enough of our group was dawdling,

that she could sneak in some shopping.  I was anxious and kept

insisting we get back to the bus, and sure enough, when we got back to

the parking lot we discovered that the bus had left without us.  Our

tour ticket explicitly stated that if you got left behind, there was

not going to be any refund.  There were a bunch of auto rickshaws in

the parking lot earlier in the day, so we figured we could hire one to

take us back to Pondicherry.  We went back to spend more time with the

informational displays that we were rushed through before,  and to

spend some more time shopping through the boutiques, where Glen Frey

and Prince being piped in supposedly puts you in a concentrative mood.

   As the sun was getting close to setting we went out to catch an

auto rickshaw only to discover that they were all gone.  We were told

that Pondicherry was only 9km away, so I figured we could walk along

the road for a few hours, although Anjali was none too happy about

walking along a desolate road in the woods at night.

   After a while we started hearing explosions in the distance in

the direction we were walking.  As we continued walking towards the

explosions Anjali was convinced she was hearing a gun, but I was

pretty sure it was firecrackers.  Sure enough it was firecrackers.

Very loud firecrackers.  Mortar loud.  A group of firework-tossing

villagers were leading a procession of drummers and a flower-covered

float.  The men would alternate throwing fireworks that shot into the

air and exploded, and ones that were tossed into the road that

exploded on the ground with an incredible BOOM and a blinding flash of

light.  Anjali figured standing near a group of small half-naked

village children on the side of the road to watch the procession go by

would be as safe a place as any.  The Tamil Nadu harvest festival of

Pongal was being celebrated while we were in Pondicherry, so I figured

this procession must be tied into the festival.  The men with the

fireworks passed us only to toss one behind in our direction, that

exploded with such force and made such a loud sound that Anjali (who

cranks stage monitors to the maximum) thought it gave her hearing

damage.  As the drummers and the float were coming close I began

snapping photos, excited to catch such a procession, when Anjali

called out, “It’s a body!” upon seeing the flower-bedecked form in the

center of the float.  Horrified, I quickly put away the camera.  I had

no idea that I was making like a spectator at a parade when it was a

floral hearse that was going by.  I was hoping the locals would decide

not to stone me, though they seemed to take little notice as they

marched by.

   After the procession passed we continued on our long walk back to

Pondicherry in the deeping darkness.  Fortunately after several

kilometers we came to a major road, where we stood with some locals to

catch a bus to Pondi.  We didn’t have to wait more than a half hour

before we were rescued by a standing-room-only B.O.-outgassing bus

blasting a moody Tamil soundtrack that lent quite an aura to the

packed and sweaty ride back to town.  It was quite a long ride, and

I’m very glad we caught a bus, and didn’t have to walk the whole way.

   Anjali and I usually have really bad timing, and are always

arriving somewhere just after, or leaving somewhere just before, major

events, concerts, celebrations, etc.  It was actually amazing that we

were in Pondicherry for the Pongal celebrations.  The doorsteps or

streets in front of houses and businesses were done up with kolam

white sandpaint designs, or colorful rangoli scenes.  No one ever

offered us any pongal, the rice dish that is the center of the

celebrations, but we felt the generally festive mood, and learned

first hand that many in Tamil Nadu head to the coast to celebrate the

festival.  One day we did the same, and hired a taxi to a boat launch,

where you can take a boat to a strip of sand between the ocean, and a

large backwater, called Paradise Beach.  It wasn’t quite paradise, as

the Indian beachgoers have covered the beach with litter, even glass.  In addition, people coming and going to paradise apparently lose any sense of civility, as they crowd onto narrow docks waiting to load onto boats that are full of people that need room on the dock in order to disembark, and wrestling, shoving, shouting and pushing matches occur in view of small children.  This wasn’t a football match, this was middle class families spending an afternoon at the beach.

However, Paradise Beach is a nice beach, and I swam in the Bay of Bengal for the first

time.  As a general rule, Indians never learn how to swim, but people

did enjoy standing in the shallows and having the waves wash over

them.  Since I swam out into the waves I was under close scrutiny by

the lifeguard in case I should go out too far.

   The weather in Pondicherry while we were there was hot, hot, hot,

and going to the beach seemed like a great idea.  There was a freak

rainstorm the morning we left for the beach, but I assumed it would still be

a blazing hot day.  Instead it was overcast, and it actually rained on us

while we were at Paradise Beach.  Most people fled for the return

boat, but Anjali and I stuck it out under one of the thatched huts near

the beach.  When we got back to Pondicherry later that evening we were ready for dinner,

but the first place we went to said they were closed, an hour before

the listed time.  Pongal is celebrated over many days, so we assumed

they were closing early for the holiday.  We went to another place

down the street and the guard at the entrance said they were “full,”

even though we could see many empty tables in the rooftop dining area.

We finally found a place that would serve us, but they wouldn’t let

us sit in the empty downstairs, and made us go up to their rooftop

area.  Anjali soon realized she was the only woman there, and I

noticed the menu said “bar and restaurant.”  The men around us were

all drinking and eating meat, and they chortled when we ordered our

fresh lime sodas.  The waiter emphasized that the paneer tikka we

ordered was “veg,” as if we were making some mistake. We had a very

tense meal, surrounded by increasingly rowdy drinkers, and the

waitstaff seemed happy to get us out of there.  When we went

downstairs the security guard pulled up the rolled-down metal door to

let us out, as if we were leaving a speakeasy.  The streets were

strangely empty and shut down for the hour, and we had an eerie walk

home, not sure what all of this had to do with the Pongal

celebrations.

 

Next:  On to Chennai, and then Mumbai.

 

Take care all,

 

Stephen

IK

Hello all,

Yesterday Anjali and I experienced the most intense culture shock of our trip.  We arrived in the village of Hampi in Karnataka yesterday morning, which was the heart of the sixteenth century Vijayanagar empire which dominated Southern India.  Now it is a town surrounded by ruins set amidst an evocative boulder-strewn landscape of rice paddies, banana plantations, and coconut palms.  It is also deluged by whiteys.  We have only seen a handful of whiteys here and there on our trip, and here we are SURROUNDED by them.  Australians, Europeans, Israelis, and good-old Americans.  We sat stunned in the popular Mango Tree restaurant on the banks of the Tungabhadra river watching dozens of goras eating all around us.  This is a little part of India they have taken over and staked out for their own.  As incredible as the giant rock pile-ups are, and amazing as it is to see ancient temples and ruins everywhere you luck, I am looking forward to getting out of here.  The Mango Tree had a sign that said “While you are in India, please try some Indian food.”  “Oh my God,” I realized, this means there are probably travelers who try to avoid eating Indian food.  The Mango Tree menu didn’t help, since it was loaded with Western options.  All the restaurants here advertise Italian food, German food, European pastries and desserts, and Israeli food, as Hampi is connected to Goa, and that is a favored Israeli vacation spot.  We have even seen signs in Hebrew, and the keys on the keyboard that I am currently using have Hebrew letters taped on next to the English letters.  Nutella is a restaurant staple here, and listed on menus in every possible combination with other foods.

The saddest thing is that the foreign tourists show no respect for Indians or Indian culture.  The men all wear T-shirts and shorts, and the women all dress in tight spaghetti-strap tops and short-shorts.  They go around holding hands or wrapped in each other’s arms, which is a real slap in the face to Indian social norms.   Every guidebook to India explains how to dress respectfully and conservatively, so these people are either totally ignorant, or intentionally trampling over cultural norms.  Fortunately there were lots of Indian tourists and school groups at the temples and ruins, so we didn’t feel completely disconnected from the rest of our trip.

Before Hampi we were in Hyderabad, AKA Cyberabad, India’s most hi-tech city (there is a township in Hyderabad called HITEC City -Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy City, but we didn’t make time to visit), and surprisingly it was a real challenge finding internet cafes (or net centers, as they are called there) in the area of town where we were staying.  Before that Anjali and I made it to Pachmarhi, Madya Pradesh’s major hill station, for the New Year’s Eve period.  Actually, I almost didn’t.  The closest railway station was in a town called Pipariya, and when the doors of the train opened, so many people tried to cram their way on, that I got stuck on the train, crushed in by people, with a suitcase (Anjali refuses to travel with a backpack) and my own ginormous backpack that were very hard to manuever, and I lost sight of Anjali, who had managed to force her way off the train.  People were far more interested in cramming their way on to the train than letting an overburdened white boy off, and by the time I heard Anjali yelling for me I realized the train was moving.  I yelled “I can’t get off!” at which point an Indian man grabbed the emergency brake and stopped the train.  Anjali had jumped back on the train when it started moving, and after I yelled, people made some effort to let me get off the train, but I still had to toss the luggage off in order to disembark.

When we planned our New Year’s for the hill station of Pachmarhi we thought it would be a quiet little getaway, little knowing that it is THE place to be for Indian tourists during this period, especially ones from Maharashtra.  Prices in the region increase up to tenfold during this time (our hotel fortunately only doubled their rates), and the town is packed with celebrating Indians.  In fact, once we arrived we learned that our hotel would throw the major parties in town, one on the 30th in the lawn behind the hotel, and one on the 31st in the open courtyard of a nearby school.  Our room was “deluxe” which always means the crappiest room available.  “Deluxe” is the bottom of the barrel, compared to tags such as “imperial” or “grand”  Since meals were included, it is a good thing the place had a fine kitchen.  In fact, since all the tourists in town are Indian, the food is cooked for Indians, not whiteys, so it was spicy!  Yum.  One night I ordered Kohlapuri dal, wondering what kind of dal that was, only to discover that Kohlapuri meant that the top of the dal was covered in mounds of chilies, chili flakes, and hot chili oil.  Which is fine, I love spicy food, but I have never seen a dish arrive at my place setting like that outside of only the most chili-crazy Thai joints.  The Misty Meadows Resort served the most amazing, creamy lassis which Anjali and I ordered every meal.  The tops were covered in nuts and berries, and I was skeptical of these unusual additions at first, but was soon won over by the scrumptious delightfulness of these ambrosial concoctions.

Pachmarhi is a plateau located inside a double caldera.  The now extinct volcano had two great explosions, so Pachmarhi is ringed by two sets of mountain peaks.  The area is filled with scenic woods and beautiful waterfalls.  Our first full day (or the first full day we didn’t spend sleeping recovering from our overnight train journey) we hired a jeep (gypsy is what they are called here) to see some of the local sights.  Our non-English-speaking driver took us to a ticket station where we were told it would be 1710 (!) rupees to get a pass to see the sights,  which seemed astronomically expensive in context.  I walked away in shock, only to have a generalissimo-type figure in aviator shades with a military cap and camo fatigues follow me from behind the counter to explain that if we left the jeep outside the woods, and did more hiking, the fee would only be 710 rupees to see the waterfalls with a guide.  I told him we didn’t want a guide, and that we wanted a cheaper option.  He explained there was no cheaper option, and we were required to have a guide. None of the three guidebooks we brought said a guide was necessary, in fact they suggested walking or biking to some of the closer spots, so I thought we were being lied to, but he seemed official, so I relented.

The area of Pachmarhi is largely controlled by the Indian army, who make up most of the population, and it seemed like the military had their fingers in the tourist industry as well.  After agreeing to pay the fee, the generalissimo jumped in the jeep and said he would be our guide. This really freaked me out, especially after he quickly announced that for a little extra, he would take us on special routes through the woods where the Indian tourists didn’t go, and we could see “untouched natural beauty.”  I wasn’t picturing untouched natural beauty, I was picturing us raped, robbed and murdered out in the forest by generalisimo and his army buddies.  He took us to some ancient Buddhist caves in the area, told us no more than what I already knew from our travel books, told us a maximum time we had in the area, and then waited at the bottom of the cliff while we did the strenous climbing ourselves.  I was fuming.  I felt lied to.  I felt ripped off.  The whole reason we rented our own jeep was so we could be on our own schedule, and now I was being told the “maximum” amount of time I could spend in an area. Bullshit!  But this guy seemed military, and we were in a military town, so what power did I have in this situation?  Our Indian cellphone didn’t even get service up at the hill station.  While I explored the caves with Anjali I kept having imaginary confrontations with the generalissimo in my head.  When we returned to the base of the cliff, I asked the man his name, and he replied, “Thakur,” pointing to it embroiderd on his chest.  Oh, right.  I asked his job title and employer and learned that he was the senior-most Madhya Pradesh Forest Guide, having served as a guide in the area for twenty-eight years.  He explained that all tourists, foreign and Indian, needed a guide to visit the waterfalls in order to ensure the protection of rare plants.  After a lengthy questioning period I accepted the guy’s legitimacy, and realized his fatigues were not military camo, but a more playful pine leaf design used by the forest service.

Once he started taking us through the woods and sharing his geological and botanical knowledge with us I realized that we had really lucked out in scoring such a knowledgeable and sensitive guide.  He railed constantly about the Indian tourists who visit the area and how they don’t appreciate nature and throw garbage everywhere and talk the whole time.  He said there were only about 200 foreign tourists in Pachmarhi a year, and I realized why he wanted to be our guide, and share some really special places with us.  He took us off the general trail and showed us the world’s largest mango tree (to me, anyway), silver ferns, the curry plant, neem plant, carniverous pitcher plants and the Mahua tree, whose leaves are fermented to make a potent tribal liquor.  He explained that the tribals in the area make no handicrafts -which explained why we saw nothing but mass-produced plastic crap in the market the night before- but they harvest a health miracle mineral called shilajeet, harvest amazing honey, and brew up wicked Mahua.  He showed us a giant rocky overhang covered in prehistoric rock art of hunters and beasts.  The guide books claim the rock art in the area was painted 10,000 years ago, but Mr. Thakur claimed the art was 35,000 years old.  Mr. Thakur explained that he has discovered 300 prehistoric art sites in Pachmarhi that only he knows about, as he fears if he tells the forest service that the sites will become popular with Indian tourists and they will deface the art and cover it with graffitti.  Sure enough, I could see that a few people had already done just that on the site he was sharing with us.

We shared a beautiful walk through highland forest, only spying the occasional tribal children who use the trails in the area.  Mr. Thakur warned us what we would see once we rejoined the main trail and sure enough it was covered with garbage, Indian tourists talking loudly, and even playing Bollywood music on boomboxes.  He took us to a small falls called Apsara Vihar (Fairy Pool), which was covered in garbage, overrun by dozens and dozens of people eating snacks at the nearby snack bar in the woods, and I was really underwhelmed compared to the spectacular falls we have in the Columbia gorge.  It was only when the trek continued to Rajat Pratap (Silver Fall) that I was awed by the scenery.  The fall drops hundreds of feet into a massive ravine covered in forest.  The panorama was immense, providing a view of both sets of mountain rings, and several enormous forest valleys which are apparently lined with fourteen waterfalls during the wet season.  Later he took us to Bee Falls, a very popular spot where hundreds of Indians congregate to bathe in the towering cascade, and eat chai and snacks at the neighboring stalls deep in a gorge.  Anjali didn’t join the masses at the lower falls, but instead bathed in the secret middle falls, that Mr. Thakur led us to as a peaceful alternative to the chaos below.  Anjali lived out her wet sari fantasy swimming around the hidden pool.  At the end of our day together I learned through Mr. Thakur that our jeep driver’s wife brews up wicked Mahua, and even though it was “unlegal,” he could hook us up with a bottle.  Although I am not much of a drinker, I jumped at the chance to sample the local forbidden brew, and when the driver’s wife ended up being out, we drove to a neighboring compound where we got some of what I was told was good stuff, brewed 25 km away out in the tribal sticks.  I sampled it later that night and it smelled and tasted like funky rotten flowers, but it sure felt good.

Our hotel parties on the 30th and 31st featured a Bollywood cover band from Bhopal featuring bongos and lots of pre-recorded electronic parts, and really bad computer DJs who would only play 30 seconds of a song, abruptly and traumatically crash into the next one, and then within a few songs bring back the original song for another 30 seconds.  Horrible.  The party on the 30th occurred in the freezing lawn behind the hotel where we hovered around a bonfire and waited for a dinner that wasn’t served until after 10:30pm.  Indians eat late.  On New Year’s Eve the party occurred in the courtyard of a nearby school.  At both events I was the only whitey, and while it was fun to see Indians partying in their element, the atrocious DJing drove me away both times.  It was all current Bollywood hits with a few bhangra songs thrown in, mostly of the cheezy pop variety, except for Panjabi MC’s “Dhol Jageero Da,” which made appearences both nights.  The one completely surprising moment was when the DJ threw in a bit of a track by Panamanian reggaeton producer El Chombo on New Year’s Eve.  That really threw me.  In remote central India . . . Wow.  At the New Year’s Eve party there was a prohibited corner, where they served chicken and alcohol for additional money beyond the 600 rupee cover charge.  All the veg food lining the courtyard was free, and mostly average, except for a really good moong dal desert.  The chaat counter was hopping, but I was wary of being served dicey water in the chutneys, so I abstained.

After Pachmarhi we transferred some trains to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, where Anjali and I had never been.  In fact, neither of us had ever been South of Pune, and we were impressed by how much friendlier people seemed than in the North.  Hyderabad is a Muslim city in a Hindu state.  Which means that while Telugu is the state language, many people in Hyderabad speak Urdu, so Anjali and I could still get by with some Hindi, since Hindi and Urdu are very similar in their spoken forms.  I was eager to buy Telugu soundtrack CDs, since their percussion-riot aesthetics are the most exciting thing I have heard in years.  I bought about 150 of them, which wasn’t hard, since they run less than a buck each.  We spent the evenings watching South Indian movie dance and fight scenes on cable at our hotel.  Despite the popularity of the Telugu movies in theaters and on TV, it was still Bollywood music that dominated the soundscape in Hyderabad.  Even in the music stores it was mostly music in Hindi that got played.  We stayed at the Hotel Taj Mahal, which is not related to the Taj chain of Mumbai, although that chain does have several super-expensive branches in Hyderabad.  Our hotel had an amazing and hopping South Indian restaurant, that since the only whitey they ever served while I was there was me, meant that I got real Indian food.  The best was their unlimited South Indian thali.  The thali was slightly different every day, and would include dal, sambar, rasam, pappadum, pooris, curds, raita (with chilies and ginger in it!), salty fried chilies, a vegetarian version of something like fried pork skins, a wet curry, two dry vegetable curries, a savory fried rice, dessert, and all the white rice you could eat.  If you emptied any of the little bowls, the waiters would quickly bring new ones, sometimes even if you begged them not to, until maybe you had three bowls of curry, rasam, sambar, dal, etc.  They wouldn’t stop until you couldn’t move.   All super-tasty, and all you could eat for less than two bucks.

While the food at the hotel was probably too spicy for most Americans, I wanted something even hotter.  For years Indians in America have been telling me that the cooking of Andhra Pradesh is the spiciest in the Subcontinent.  I was really looking forward to testing myself on this cuisine.  After questioning several locals I got the impression that it is the meat dishes that are primarily the spicy ones, and since I don’t eat meat I was very disappointed.  We finally got a recommendation to try a restaurant called Rayalaseema Ruchulu with Andhra specialties, which took some time, and the efforts of two autorickshaw wallahs to finally find.  We tried Gutti Vankaya, a peanuty-sauce eggplant dish, a mixed vegetable curry in an unusual dark brown sauce, a dish called Ulavacharu, which was essentially a dark brown broth, with a tamarind taste.  Very savory.  You eat it by pouring it over a bunch of white rice.  For desert we tried Bakshalu (Bobbatlu) a butter-dripping flat bread stuffed with a sweet moong dal paste.  Even though I asked for it spicy, the dishes weren’t that hot, yet all had very unique flavors, unlike anything else I have had in India.

One thing that was very noticeable in Hyderabad was how intense security was.  To go into a mall you had to go through a metal detector, get patted down, and have your bags searched.  Same if you wanted to go to the park bordering the giant Hussain Sagar lake in the center of town, or a grocery store (They have grocery stores in Hyderabad!), or a bakery.  The Karachi bakery had three guards and a metal detector.  Anjali learned that behind covered women’s security screening areas they even pat full frontal.  There have been terrorist bombings in Hyderabad in the past, and they obviously take the threat of future terrorist activity very seriously.  There is an old Muslim part of town, and also super ritzy modern areas with incredibly fancy malls and shopping districts that seemed much more posh than anything I had experienced in America.  Since Hyderabad has surpassed Bangalore as the hi-tech capitol of India, there are lots of people there with money to burn.