Warning: This post will be long

Hello America! Happy belated birthday.  Brad and John here with an update of our recent exploits.  Since the first day that John arrived we have been way busy doing a lot of interesting things.  On that first night, we went out for dinner with some of my flatmates to a place called Paradise.  If you come to Southern India you have to have biryani.  And the best city for biryani is Hyderabad.  Within Hyderabad, the most delicious biryani is at Paradise.  It is an historic restaurant that has been around for 60 years.  We all loved the food, of course, and after dinner we went across the street in search of a bar.  After walking down a shady alley and through a long corridor with arrows guiding us, we found a local dive bar.  It was really cool to sit in a dingy little run-down pub.  It was really cool to be immersed in the local flavor.  We had a few beers and talked with Hauke, our German friend, about all of the great places for beer in Ann Arbor.  Hopefully he will come visit us and we can share a pint (or seven) at Ashley's and ABC.  He also informed us that there is a different, Czech version of Budweiser that is apparently much better than the brand we know as the "King of Beer".  We will have to look into that.   

The next day we went to Golconda Fort, which is about 700 years old.  As has been previously mentioned, there aren't many rules here in India and that definitely held true at the fort as well.  We were able to climb all over the walls and explore secluded nooks and crannies.  We found some really cool areas that most people probably never see.  Unfortunately, the fort was also very dirty, with bottles and trash everywhere you looked, always accompanied by the smell of fermented urine.  It was really cool to explore the fort and feel like we were back in time by hundreds of years.  That feeling was interrupted occasionally when we ran into groups of Indians who requested photo sessions with us.  We met one guy named Wahid who was pretty nice about it, but some people would just snap pictures as we walked by.  One guy even took some video footage of us.  I felt like Sasquatch, John like an alien.  This amazement with foreigners is common all over the place.  People will walk by and shout WHERE YOU FROM!!? and ask to shake our hands.  It's alright up to a point, but we don't want to be shaking every hand that is extended towards us.  We only have so much hand sanitizer.  After the fort, we had some dinner, introducing John to one of his, and my, favorite dishes, Chicken Tikka Masala.  Then we headed back to the flat for my going away party.  At first not many people showed up, but after an hour or so the terrace was hopping.  Most of the people that I wanted to see ended up coming over and we had a great time talking and dancing all night.  I wasn't really all that sad to leave Hyderabad until the party.  Partying with all of my new friends made me realize how much fun I have had here with them and that we definitely did not have enough time together.  Every time someone left and I had to say my final goodbyes it made me sadder and sadder.  The party was still a lot of fun though.  I'm glad we had a last hurrah.

(John here)

The party that was thrown for Brad was really really great. That was the first, and last, time I got to meet most of his friends, and they were an amazing group of people. Everyone knows how I tend to get at parties with people I don't know (no, not drunk...anxious and the like), but I never felt uncomfortable around them. Everyone was so open and friendly and interesting...it was almost as though I had known them for ages. I left Hyderabad feeling as though I had made twenty new friends, even though I had only known them for a few hours. I met people from Colombia, Brazil, New Zealand, Mauritius, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Holland, England, Afghanistan, Turkey...the list goes on. One girl from Mauritius had the most hilarious accent (something of a mix of French, English and Carribean), and she pronounced 'laugh' as 'lawwwwff'. Honestly, I cannot get enoough of saying that word. I lawf about it even now, after 200 times lawfing about it with Brad. Watching Brad say goodbye to everyone was touching. I can tell he had a fantastic time with those people, and I have to say, I'm more than a little jealous that I did not have more time to get to know them.

On our final day in Hyderabad, we visited the Charminar, which is a very old iconic Mosque. It is one of those things that everyone says you must see before you leave the city. Much like Golconda Fort, we, being white, had to pay twenty times the price that locals pay. It sounds like a lot, but it still only amounts to about $2. The Charminar is an incredible piece of architecture. It is situated right in the middle of the old city, surrounded by huge bazaars. The molding is beautiful and intricate, and we were able to go up near the top and see a panoramic view of the city. The stairways that lead up to the viewpoints are so scary! They are super skinny, super steep and spirally, with gigantic and uneven steps. Everything in this country, even the stairways, is an adventure. Our visit to the Charminar was followed by some shopping in the crowded bazaars nearby where I learned the ancient Indian art of haggling. I really think Americans should adopt this practice. It is so fun to ask a price and act like it is intolerably high, demand an unreasonably low price and go back and forth until they refuse and you pretend to leave. Once you turn around they call you back and the deal is sealed.  You will get what you asked for at the lower price. It is great. Quite a fun game. 

Our day culminated with a goodbye to Hyderabad and a trip to the train station. We realized that getting there an hour early is far too early.  We could have arrived twenty minutes late and still would have been too early.  Once the train finally arrived we had to wait for the "Guy with the chart", as he was called, to come by and tell us which compartment was ours.  When he showed up he didn't say anything to anyone, he just wiped the wall of the train with some glue and slapped the chart to it before walking away.  We found our cabin and sat down on the train.  Quickly, we realized that having a First Class cabin doesn't mean you're going to be traveling in style like in The Darjeeling Limited.  Our compartment was much more sparse and bland, and we had two roommates that we didn't know.  Luckily they were nice guys and we were able to have a good conversation with them when we wanted and they minded their business the rest of the time.  Once the train started moving we got up to explore a little bit and found a door leading to the outside that was left open, with no rail or barrier to keep people from falling out.  The real reason for this is so that people can smoke cigarettes, but we were just excited to look out at the lush green mountains and valleys zipping by.  It was a rainy day and there was a heavy fog, so it looked like we were passing through some mystical world.  There were little villages nestled into the valleys below and mountains barely visable through the mist.  In the morning we sat in the doorway with our legs dangling out of the train and observed our incredible surroundings for a while.  For breakfast we were served bread omelettes, which are exactly what they sound like, and actually pretty good.  Then we arrived in Mumbai.

Our first order of business upon getting to Mumbai was to go to the airport to retrieve John's long lost luggage.  In order to keep ourselves from spontaneously combusting or breaking everything in sight, we won't discuss this experience much.  Let's just say John still doesn't have his bag and it's a miracle that we weren't arrested for multiple homicide/the destruction of an airport.  After that we came to the AIESEC flat where we were put up for the two nights that we stayed in Mumbai.  It is an amazing apartment on the 12th floor, overlooking the Arabian Sea.  The place is really ritzy compared to our previous digs and the trainees here are all very nice and welcoming (surprise, surprise).  As soon as we got to the flat they invited us out with them for dinner, drinks, and hookah.  We went to a really cool hookah bar that was decorated in Arabian style with gravel floors and billowing, lanterned ceilings.  The shisha was probably some of the best we've ever had and we had a good time chatting with our new friends (including one guy who is going to attend U of M Law School in the fall).  After the bar we came back to the flat and played Kings.  It turned into an hilarious evening, mostly due to one girl who, as we found out later, no one actually knew.  She came with the future U of M guy, but he only barely knew her.  She got pretty drunk and kept spouting off ridiculous phrases like "She's so jaded and faded" and "Riddle me that, riddle me this. Who's afraid of the big white BAT!?"  We didn't end up sleeping until around 4am but we did sleep well after such a long day.

The next morning our hosts took us on a train trip to the southern part of the city (their flat is in the ultra-north). The local trains here are a force to be reckoned with. Our new friend, Abhishek, gave us some pre-boarding instructions: "You need to push your way on. I mean PUSH. If you need to hit someone, it's fine." We heard him, but did not fully understand him until the train arrived. Basically this is how it goes: Before the train has fully stopped, there is an explosion of people exiting, like someone poured water on a packet of Instant Mosh-Pit. There is a simultaneous counter-flow of people forcing, and I do mean forcing, their way into the train. You have approximately 30 seconds to get on board, or you will be left behind or killed. We made it on safely, and had no further problems. When we reached southern Mumbai, the monsoon was in full effect (the city is on the coast, so the rains are extra intense). We had no umbrella, and as such, our feet were soaked instantly and remained so for the rest of the day. Our first stop was lunch at Leopold's, one of the most iconic eateries in Mumbai.  We were unaware of this before arriving, but the restaurant was one of the targets of the terrorist attacks last year. There are still bullet holes in the walls, pillars and ceiling. It was kind of eerie dining there, knowing the horrors that had taken place only a few months ago, but the food was delicious and it was a cool place. Brad got to have a burger. Oh joy! 

After lunch, we walked a short distance (the rain continued) to the Gateway of India and The Taj Hotel (another site of the terrorist attacks). They are both beautiful structures, but the Taj was the coolest. It's a very fancy hotel, with traditional-style Indian architecture on the facade, and beautiful western-style architecture inside. We were told that we MUST use the bathrooms there, so we did. Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwww....nice bathrooms man. It would be amazing to stay in that hotel someday. As we were leaving the Taj we ran into a guy with a big block M on his shirt.  We stopped him and asked him if he went to Michigan and he said that he did.  We spent some time talking about Ann Arbor and met his wife, who went to U of M as well.  It was pretty surreal to randomly run into fellow alumni halfway around the world.  Unfortunately the weather precluded us from spending much time in the area, so we left after taking some pictures (as well as a brief and rainsoaked walk by the beach) and returned to Leopold's for dinner and drinks with more friends. There were more tourists in that restaurant than we have seen everywhere else in India combined. It was a comforting sight, as it becomes a little overwhelming at times being the only two non-indians around. The day was very interesting, despite the weather, and we were able to see a good deal of Mumbai, which is far nicer than Hyderabad.  Just like when I visited Bangalore, it made me wish, in part, that I had decided to come there for my exchange instead.  However, I have no regrets, since I met such cool people in Hyderabad.  After finally drying off a bit during dinner, it was back into the rain.  We did end up buying an umbrella earlier in the day, but it only helped superficially.  We went back to the train station and followed the same procedure as described above, however this time we were on the train during rush hour.  We were packed so tightly into the car that I felt like the guys surrounding me should buy me dinner.  It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences in our lives and we estimated that there were around 1,000 people in our car alone.  After around 30 minutes of life as a sardine we squeezed out of the train and became fully stretchable humans again.  To relieve our stress we went to a bar which happened to be having a free beer hour.  Also, one of our new friends was the coordinator of the event so we got free food as well.  It was a good time.  It was weird throughout the day to realize that it was the 4th of July.  This was definitely the most different Independence Day that we have ever had and we felt kind of homesick at times, thinking about hot dogs and fireworks.  This summer has certainly been a departure from the norm.

In a few hours we will board another train for a northward journey to Jaipur.  Then we will spend a few days there, getting to know another city.  Hopefully it will be as interesting as Mumbai and a lot dryer.  We will be home now in less than 10 days, which is strange and exciting at the same time.  We are definitely looking forward to the comforts of home.