Trip to Ajanta and Ellora caves

I did a trip to Ajanta and Ellora caves with Eduardo, Simon, Kevin and Thomas last weekend. It was a good break from the buzz of the city. We took a night train from Hyd to Aurangabad on Friday evening. I got to the Secunderabad train station on the 49M bus. It was the first time on an Indian local bus. In India there is no limit on the amount of people you can stuff into a vehicle. The bus was completely full, I mean full! It was nuts. The people were friendly, telling me when to get off the bus. When we finally arrived at the station I had 8 minutes until the train would leave. One guy from the bus guided me to the station from the bus stop, which was really nice. Even though you meet loads of insincere people who will do anything to rip you (= the dumb tourist) off, you also get lots of people who go through a lot of trouble just to help you.

Sick again but getting better

Don’t worry, it’s just acute homesickness, so nothing too severe. I got very stressed last Saturday. It is never really quiet in here. You have at least the fans rolling to keep away the heat. On Saturday people were working at the construction site next to our house and the noise was terrible. Occasionally a plane flies over our flat to land on or to take off from the Hyd airport. Every morning you can here kids, adults, chicken, someone banging a hammer, babies crying and dogs barking. I basically spent the whole Saturday in bed listening to music. I did not really have any energy to go anywhere or do anything. We went to have lunch at about five and it was too late because it was between lunch and dinner time. Many restaurants don’t really server anything then. We did find a place on Road n:o 1 where they served food (funnily, between lunch and dinner, this place did not have any veggie food, only chicken). That place was situated in a big crossroads and the noise there was awful. You had to shout to make the person on the other side of the table to hear you.

Trip to Tirumala

We went to Tirumala to see some temples last weekend. The place is one of the most holiest places for the Hindus. The place was just packed with pilgrims. You can clime up to Tirumala from Tirupati, to which you can travel by train. We also walked up, all 9 kilometers. Already on the way it became clear that there is something special about the place. The steps were covered in red dye that people smear on them. We saw some people going up the steps on their knees, most likely an act of remorse or shame or both, I don’t know. Did not stop to ask. There was incense and candles everywhere too.

Pictures online

Good news: we managed to get an Internet connection to our flat! Thanks to our Brasilian flatmate Eduardo 🙂

Last weekend we did a trip to Tirumala. The trip became memorable for many reasons but more about that later.

I put some pictures into the AIESEC Jyvaskyla gallery. Go check them out! Now I need to get back to work. Cheers!

The way to do work, Hinduism, Hyderabad city

I am writing this on the balcony just to get into the right mood. I had work today. Indians are hard-working people. Gotta go along with that. Some people, other trainees and even a friend at work, have said that it would not really matter that much if I did not work on Saturdays. However I would hate to work less than the others. On the other hand, working six days a week will be so hard. Next weekend we are going to Chirupati to see some temples. I’ve already asked for the Saturday off. It will be my first train trip in India. Claire had heard that there are so many tourists there right now that the locals are giving some food away for free. They make so much money with tourism. We just have to go check out if that is true. If not, then we’ll be just some of the tourists the people there depend on.

Note about the pictures & today’s lunch

And after an hour setting these up here I realise that they don’t work like they should, that is, you can’t open a bigger picture by clicking the picture. Sorry, don’t have energy right now to start working on that.

I’ll try to arrange that I can get the pictures into AIESEC’s gallery instead of trying to set them up in the blog. The blog is ok for a couple of shots, but no more than that…

Today I ate Thali, the South Indian version of it actually. It had this very thin bread-like thing, curry, chutney (vegetable and chili made into something that resembles mustard), curd and something called sambar (in a little bowl just like the curd).

I realised today that Indians work on Saturdays as well. However a colleague at work seemed to imply that no one would really care if I did not do that. Of course I will work on Saturdays as well. Anyways, we are planning to go to Chirupati next week’s weekend to see some temples and stuff, so I’ll miss Saturday work then.

The wedding thing did not work eventually. We did other stuff and did not go, and the actual wedding today would have been in Secuderabad, the other half of this place that is called the Twin Cities, Hyd being the other half.

First pictures

OK, you asked for it.

The pictures I have now are not that fancy. I don’t even have any from our flat, damn… Still you do get some kind of an idea about the place with these.

Work & bargaining

Every day seems to be so funny, strange and new that I can’t stop writing. Today I left the flat at about ten past nine. The same auto driver that took me to work yesterday appeared into my sight when I was a few tens of meters from Road n:o 12. I realised it was the same guy when I said “Basheerbagh?” and he answered “Yes Yes, Basheerbagh, 50”. That’s the price we had talked about the day before. Anyway, I quickly corrected that it is 40 that I’m willing to pay and off we went. His auto failed him at this big crossroads and he had to push start it. I was wondering if I was supposed to help him, because I’ve seen some people help the drivers in that. I didn’t. Hope he does not now think I’m a Western albino bastard.

Second day at work & wedding invitation

Second day at work was a lot better than the first one. In the morning though I was a bit nervous because I was supposed to exchange money today, get a telephone card and some clothes (flip-flops and a good shirt for work) would not hurt either. I got on an auto at 9.10 and went to work. Already while going there I started feeling more positive. I thought that I’m here to work and not on holiday. I will also be here for so long that I will get accustomed to any unpleasant issues I have to confront now.

First day at work & being a trainee

As I told in an earlier post, I was not helped at all by AIESEC to find the work place. It was the same with Pike and we were both really angry about the whole thing this morning. Someone will here about this… Hyd reception should be one of the best in all of India…