48 Hours

Earlier while working today, Kelly reminded me, we have been in India less than 48 hours (well now it's more but at the time it wasn't).  It's just crazy.  It feels like so much has happened in those 48 hours.

Today was a crazy busy eventful day.


I finally went to bed a little after 2 this morning. And then proceeded to wake up at 6:15am so I could get myself ready before I met everyone for breakfast at 7:30. Breakfast was again in The Square (buffet again) and then our driver picked us up at 8:00 for our morning of sightseeing.

We started off with a crazy drive to get to Golkonda Fort. Cars were everywhere, people were everywhere. It was the time of day for school – so kids were everywhere. There seemed to be a lot of schools located on the road we were on. We had about 10 minutes to waste when we got to the Fort. The driver pulled up right by the entrance but told us to wait in the car until the doors opened. A guide took our money and pushed his way to the front of the line to buy our tickets….he told us a teeny bit about the fort and walked us to right near the entrance and then asked us if we wanted him to be our tour guide. We finally gave in and went for the long tour.

There are some pretty cool things that were incorporated into the fort. The main doors are incredibly thick and made of wood. But they also have spikes on them so that charging elephants could not charge the gate. Right in the entry way are some incredible acoustics. Standing in the entry way, a clap can be heard 1 km up the hill to where a guard was standing on top of the hill – a security system before electricity. The guard at the top of the hill could also warn the gate keeper to open/close the gate with claps. Also, standing in the middle of the entry way, the clap reverberates through the whole room. If you stand on the edge of the room, you only hear the single clap. We climbed to the very top of the fort and then headed back down through the palace (which for the most part is not standing). The King who lived in this fort was a very paranoid man. In the bedrooms in his palace, if you whisper into one of the corners in the room, you can hear the whisper on the other side of the room. It’s so weird. Also, the King set-up the room where the prisoners faced him very specially. The King would stand high above the prisoner. The prisoner would be placed in the middle of the hall. The King could see the whole entire prisoner but because of the angles of the room, the prisoner would only be able to see ½ of the King. Also, the place where the prisoner stood had the same acoustics – so any movement by the prisoner would reverberate throughout the room (i.e. if the prisoner pulled out a sword or an arrow the King would be able to hear it loud and clear. It’s amazing that they were able to build the fort with “technology” that people would be using computers to make today.

Random funny story – we had to be in a few pictures with some Indians – we were stared at constantly, uncomfortably and apparently they wanted to see us forever in a picture. People just followed us on our tour – we definitely had an entourage.

After Golkonda Fort we headed to Qutub Shahi Tombs. These tombs are where the seven sultans died (from what I understand they were not buried here). So intricately carved – again, it’s amazing what they did without machinery.

We next headed to Charminar (Char=4, Minar=Minarets). The traffic getting there, again insane! The road leading up to Charminar was interesting. The stores/markets/carts alongside the road were We made it and the driver parked the car and we got out and walked there. Again…we were taken to a “foreigner” only line (aka budge in front of everyone) and the guy who bought our tickets gave us a tour. During the tour he would make people move out of the viewing areas so we could have it all to ourselves – it was really rather rude. Usually a security guard (with a big wooden stick) stood nearby as well…to protect us??

We then headed straight back to the hotel and arrived there at 2:08. Since we were sweaty and gross we went upstairs and took showers and changed into work clothes. Made it back down to the lobby at about 2:33. That was some fast getting ready time!! Since we didn’t have much time I did the lunch buffet. Had an odd combination of food – veg biryani, vegetable fried rice, a little piece of a chicken burrito and some other Mexican thingy. Plus some tasty desserts.

3:00 the drivers came to pick us up (Kelly and I take Azher and Kristin and Dustin take Hussain). I could barely keep my eyes open all day at work. The day and not enough sleep just wore me down! Not much more sleep is going to be happening today!

It's too late - look at Shutterfly for pictures....maybe I'll add pictures to here tomorrow cause I didn't do good explanations on the pictures.  Gotta get up in less than 5 hours :(