This is the view from my hotel room at the Taj Hotel. It is a nice hotel by Indian standards. Hyderabad looks like a very pleasant city from here.
From my room these fish looked like they were the size of seals. I was kind of obsessed with watching them once I knew they were there. I needed to go and find these fish and see how big they actually were.
When I went down to the lobby on my quest for find the giant fish I met up with some other people from the trade mission who joined my quest to find the big fish.I will admit that once we found them I was a little, just a little bit disappointed. From my room they looked like they were the size of seals and in person they were just 1.5 to 2 foot fish. This is a picture of Alexis and I on the fish adventure.
This is me explaning to Lou and the rest of the people that "no really they looked so big from my room."
This is me figuring out that I was being photoraphed.
This is me being made fun of for telling a big fish tale to everyone.
These are Matt, Bill and Lenny in the lobby. After coming back from the big fish adventure. I think that they are still laughing at me.
This is pretty funny. India is pretty gross by Western standards. I cannot even try to tell you how it smells. But I found this very entertaining. On the floor that my room was on this was on a table outside of hte elevator. You know that it is bad when they have hand sanitizer waiting for you when you exit the elevator.
This is the lobby of the hotel. This is a photo of Nick from the Trade Mission walking to the hotel bar. At this time we were done with meetings for the day (yeah....finally) and a group was getting together to go out and see Hyderabad together before the Reception.
Someone from the hotel came by and offered some kind of Indian breath mint to the group. Danielle was the only taker to try it. It was a big wad of stuff that he stuffed into her mouth and told her to suck on for a half hour or so. She loves India and the culture so much she was happy to try it. It was kind of fun to try to make her laugh. She kept opening her mouth and pieces of it would fall out.
This is the group waiting for the cars to take us around. Matt was trying to get Danielle to spit the stuff out, either that or shoke on it. It was funny at the time.
This is a group photo prior to the Hyderbad adventure.
This is Danielle after she spit out the stuff. She smelled very minty.
This is the people in our car. Nick was so involved with talking to our driver. Nick had left India over 20 years ago and he was negotiating with the driver of how and where to take us.
I really need to try to get a ride in one of these taxis.
Here we were driving by the Hussain Sagar. It is a man made lake. This is an attempt to photograph the Buddah in the middle of the lake.
This is the only Hindu temple in town. It is the Sanghi Temple.
The driver stopped at this shop to show us some pearls. I was not interested in the pearls, but we parked right next to a Baskin Robbins. The 'Ice Cream and Cake and ckae' sone started going through my head. Again everyone thought that I was crazy because none of the others had ever heard of this commercial. Saddly I did not get any ice cream.
We were now headed to the Bazaar.
You have to love the traffic in India.
Hyderabad is the nicest city in India that I have visited so far.
You have to appreciate the packing skills of the India people.
We finally parked at the Laad Bazaar. The sights and sounds are more that I can attempt to share. The lady at the hotel said that his Bazaar was famous for bangles. The did have a lot of them there, but they were something a little girl in the US would like to play princess. Nedless to say I was not a great shopper here. I could not help but just look around and take in the craziness.
This is Danielle and I at a store that sold scarves. Most of the people in this store were Muslim women buying fabric to make the gown and head covers that they wear.
I bought some scarves, but found it very hard to want to buy anything else that there was to buy here. The lady on the left here is trying to get me to buy something.
These are the kind of photo's you get when someone else has your camera and is trying to entertain them self instead of shopping at the crazy market.
This is great. They guy was deliverying food via the 3 wheel taxi.
In the back here you can see the Charminar. It is named for the 4 minarets (things at the top in the corners) at the top. There is also a mosque at the top of it.
You cannot see it very well here, but this was the shoe area of the bazaar.
This stand was making sugar cane juice. I wanted to try some, but was not willing to take my life into my hands by trying juice.
This is a photo of the Charminar up close. This is considered to be the cities landmark. It was built by Mohammed Quli Qutub Shah in 1591. At the time I think that it was the cities center. But it is not the center of the city today.
Here we are on our way back to the hotel.
This is from the balcony of the Marriott Hotel over looking the Hassain Sugar. This is the oldest escavated lake in Hyderabad. I asked what that meant as the oldest escavated lake and did not get a good answer. All that I do know is that it is a man made lake by Ibrahim Qutub Shah in 1958. This is really not a very good picture, but I will say that the lake looked very nice in the dark. But at 10 pm there was so much traffic.
I tried to take some movies of the Laad Bazaar. I wish that they had sound.
This is me explaning to Lou and the rest of the people that "no really they looked so big from my room."
This is me figuring out that I was being photoraphed.
This is me being made fun of for telling a big fish tale to everyone.
These are Matt, Bill and Lenny in the lobby. After coming back from the big fish adventure. I think that they are still laughing at me.
This is pretty funny. India is pretty gross by Western standards. I cannot even try to tell you how it smells. But I found this very entertaining. On the floor that my room was on this was on a table outside of hte elevator. You know that it is bad when they have hand sanitizer waiting for you when you exit the elevator.
This is the lobby of the hotel. This is a photo of Nick from the Trade Mission walking to the hotel bar. At this time we were done with meetings for the day (yeah....finally) and a group was getting together to go out and see Hyderabad together before the Reception.
Someone from the hotel came by and offered some kind of Indian breath mint to the group. Danielle was the only taker to try it. It was a big wad of stuff that he stuffed into her mouth and told her to suck on for a half hour or so. She loves India and the culture so much she was happy to try it. It was kind of fun to try to make her laugh. She kept opening her mouth and pieces of it would fall out.
This is the group waiting for the cars to take us around. Matt was trying to get Danielle to spit the stuff out, either that or shoke on it. It was funny at the time.
This is a group photo prior to the Hyderbad adventure.
This is Danielle after she spit out the stuff. She smelled very minty.
This is the people in our car. Nick was so involved with talking to our driver. Nick had left India over 20 years ago and he was negotiating with the driver of how and where to take us.
I really need to try to get a ride in one of these taxis.
Here we were driving by the Hussain Sagar. It is a man made lake. This is an attempt to photograph the Buddah in the middle of the lake.
This is the only Hindu temple in town. It is the Sanghi Temple.
The driver stopped at this shop to show us some pearls. I was not interested in the pearls, but we parked right next to a Baskin Robbins. The 'Ice Cream and Cake and ckae' sone started going through my head. Again everyone thought that I was crazy because none of the others had ever heard of this commercial. Saddly I did not get any ice cream.
We were now headed to the Bazaar.
You have to love the traffic in India.
Hyderabad is the nicest city in India that I have visited so far.
You have to appreciate the packing skills of the India people.
We finally parked at the Laad Bazaar. The sights and sounds are more that I can attempt to share. The lady at the hotel said that his Bazaar was famous for bangles. The did have a lot of them there, but they were something a little girl in the US would like to play princess. Nedless to say I was not a great shopper here. I could not help but just look around and take in the craziness.
This is Danielle and I at a store that sold scarves. Most of the people in this store were Muslim women buying fabric to make the gown and head covers that they wear.
I bought some scarves, but found it very hard to want to buy anything else that there was to buy here. The lady on the left here is trying to get me to buy something.
These are the kind of photo's you get when someone else has your camera and is trying to entertain them self instead of shopping at the crazy market.
This is great. They guy was deliverying food via the 3 wheel taxi.
In the back here you can see the Charminar. It is named for the 4 minarets (things at the top in the corners) at the top. There is also a mosque at the top of it.
You cannot see it very well here, but this was the shoe area of the bazaar.
This stand was making sugar cane juice. I wanted to try some, but was not willing to take my life into my hands by trying juice.
This is a photo of the Charminar up close. This is considered to be the cities landmark. It was built by Mohammed Quli Qutub Shah in 1591. At the time I think that it was the cities center. But it is not the center of the city today.
Here we are on our way back to the hotel.
This is from the balcony of the Marriott Hotel over looking the Hassain Sugar. This is the oldest escavated lake in Hyderabad. I asked what that meant as the oldest escavated lake and did not get a good answer. All that I do know is that it is a man made lake by Ibrahim Qutub Shah in 1958. This is really not a very good picture, but I will say that the lake looked very nice in the dark. But at 10 pm there was so much traffic.
I tried to take some movies of the Laad Bazaar. I wish that they had sound.