Joys of being in India
When I posted a month ago with all my plans for my vacation in India, I skipped a very important factor. I have a family who loves me way too much 🙂 So… as a result most of the last two weeks have been spent catching up with my aunts, grandmother and my cousins reliving my childhood with them, realizing that I was indeed a VERY PAMPERED girl 🙂 And now, when I have my nephews and nieces, it is my turn to pamper them, so when the opportunity arose for me to choose between going shopping or making train tracks with my nephew, there was no question what I was going to do 🙂 One look at his pleading eyes and I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
How the last 13 days flew by, I never noticed. So today when I have some time to myself, I thought it might be fun to go back 2 weeks and take you with me.
April 2nd – I flew in to Delhi, where my family lives. I had just enough time to meet my parents and pack my bags for my travel within India. No time for Jetlag!
April 3rd – I arrived in Hyderabad, home to ISB (Indian School of Business), voted 15th best B-School in the whole world! This is where my brother was graduating from. Graduation cermony was amazing! 
ISB Library
The next two days were spent in exploring the campus with my brother, going pearl shopping with my mother and sister in law.
We also went to a craft bazaar. It was over 100 degrees though so we came back within an hour.
I really wanted to bring one of these back but I was afraid they would break in travel.
Fabric sold by the piece
Hyderabad was the home to Nizams in the 17th century India. They were among the wealthiest people in the whole world. Which is why Hyderabad has a rich culture and is known also for pearls, architecture and museums. I visited a museum consisting of collection from one of the Nizams of Hyderabad. How one individual can possess so much was mind boggling.
Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad
Unlike the US, museums in India are very affordable and cater to the masses. A ticket only costed 15 Rupees which is equivalent to 0.30 Cents! Of course this is also not a big city so that might have something to do with it. Photography was prohibited but I bought a CD which I will upload later. Unlike the museum shops in the US which are filled with made in china crap, the shop in this museum was run by the Govt. of India and contained books and CDs and local crafts. It was obviously boring to most people but to me it was fascinating!
Modern Hyderabad is one of the fastest developing cities in India. It has a HUGE IT sector and home to many bio tech companies. Microsoft has a HUGE campus here. So much so that they coined the IT town “CYBERabad”..
Whenever I travel I always sample some of the local foods… One of the things Hyderabad is famous for is BIRYANI, which is basically is a rice casserole layered with really HOT spices, lots of vegetables, coconut (its the south so there has to be coconut). It’s really yummy, but you need a glass of cold milk to suppress the heat afterwords 🙂 It is traditionally made with beef, but I had the vegetarian version which is equally good! Atleast in India I didnt have to worry about meatless food 🙂 I didnt take a photo, but that just means that I have to get the recipe from my sister in law and try it here at home.
Even though I grew up in Delhi, India, I never took the time to travel within India and now that I am, it is just so fascinating! The culture so rich, the history so divine and the people so warm. I wish you were here with me to experience this all.
I have to run, my cousin is coming to visit. I’ll continue this later with tasty bites from Bombay!
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