Delhi Belly, What Fun!!

This past week we had the opportunity to experience two new experiences.  First I started the week of with a case of Delhi Belly.  I still do not know what caused this fun experience but with  three available toilets in our apartment I got to play musical chairs.  Running to one toilet all the time in one day gets boring so I jazzed it up a bid by mixing my choice in toilets. 

There was also some rioting and violence during the early part of the week.  They call it "Bandh" over here, it basically means rioting/striking.  It was far from where we live but we did feel the effects from it.  Teresa was advised not to go into the office on Tuesday as no one else would have been there.  Wednesday I had to go do some shopping as we had run out of mostly fresh vegetables and some other essential food items.  That turned out not to be that easy.  The big malls were still closed because of the striking and we finally found one of the smaller stores open, well sort off.  The security roll doors were down but they open them up just enough for you to crawl through under the gates.  The fun part of it was that I was the only customer in the store so there was nobody jumping the line trying to pay before I can.  We are not really sure what they went on about and caused them to do all the damage they did but lets hope it does not happen too often.

Saturday evening we were invited by friends for a farewell party.  It is a couple that lives in the same community we do and her husband got a good work opportunity back home and he decided to take his chance at this new job.  We wish him all the best of luck in his new job.

We were stuck at home the whole weekend, our driver had the weekend off and no substitute driver was arranged.  Except for our Saturday farewell party we were home the whole time.  I did make us a roast chicken/pigeon/swallow, it was by far the smallest chicken I have ever seen!!  We bought it at the Novotel a couple of weeks ago.  After thawing it out and taking it out of the vacuum packing I found that our small chicken/bird had a bunch of extra wing tips.  Not sure if they thought that I could use it to make chicken stock or if they only wanted to up the weight for us to pay more for it.  Since I did not expect the extras I did not plan to make chicken stock and chose just to chuck them away.  It was all the uneatable parts of the wing so I could not even make some buffalo wings.  I will make sure to let them know not to stuff the chicken with their offcuts the next time, if there is a next time.

I took a short video clip the other day at an intersection on the way to pick up Teresa from the office, you will get an idea at how well the traffic is organised over here.  The pictures is just random pictures I took while driving back from the Spar on Friday afternoon.

The video clip and pictures was taken with my cheap cellphone and is not the best of quality.

One of the local restaurants, there are two locations and the other one looks better than this one.

Just some sidewalk activity.

Just some of the normal traffic.

Just another sidewalk.

It looks like a house, not sure.

These little supermarkets are all over the place but we don't like shopping there.

As you can see, they do have helmets in India, to protect their motorcycles in case of a crash.

More of the organised traffic.

Still at the one intersection.

Some bus driver deciding to make his way through and yes, the white hat in front of the bus is a traffic cop.  Not sure what he was doing there because he was not regulating the traffic!

We did eventually got through.

You can buy anything in India, even a Porsche!

One Third Down!

We would have arrived tomorrow, Feb 21st four months ago.  That is a third of our time in India behind us, thirty four more weeks and counting.

This past week was the last week we could spend some time with Erik.  We did not get to spend much time with him though due to official duties but the breakfast we had with him at Westin Hotel was a nice goodbye.  

Friday was the first day for both of us to have felt a little off, we felt a little jittery and nauseous.  We are not sure what it was and I doubt it was something we had at breakfast since I started feeling weird before breakfast.  Fortunately we dosed ourselves with everything we had and soon felt better.  If there is one feeling I hate then it is that nauseous feeling.

Teresa gave training to some of the local employees at her company that will be going to the USA for a couple of weeks.  The idea behind the training is just for them to be prepared what to expect and what would they experience differently from India.  One of the persons that was also part of the trainers group mentioned to us that there is another lady that is from South Africa working at the office.  He got them connected via email and we met up with her on Saturday at Beyond Coffee.  We had a lite lunch and a couple of cups of cappuccino and enjoyed her company quite a bit.  She was born and raised in Cape Town and it is always interesting to meet up with new people.

The previous two weekends we did not choose the most healthy options to eat and decided we will do the correct thing this weekend.  For lunch on Saturday each of us had a chicken sandwich and for Sunday we decided to go to News Cafe and enjoy a salad each for lunch.  We did go to Beyond Coffee again after lunch for yet another one of their delicious Cappuccino's.

Beyond Coffee is not to far from us and one of the partners of the shop is an American.  We have been there before for lunch and in one of my earlier entries wrote about it.

We did not take too many pictures this past week but I am posting a couple of pictures we took a couple of Sundays ago when we went on a late afternoon drive. 

We took this picture with Teresa's cellphone.  A convertible auto rickshaw.

This was a meat pie I made earlier the week using ground lamb and samosa pastry sheets. 

Hussain Sagar Lake with the statue. 

Something we have not seen to much of, people having fun with a boat on the lake.

We do not know too much about this old tank except that it is by the lake for all to see.

Some important person's Tomb from way back when.

More of the parks next to the lake.

Walk ways with benches at the lake.

Another view of the statue.

Not are they only used as family cars but also pickup's.  Note, the driver is talking on his cellphone.

More of the "up to code" electrical works.

A rare sight, an ambulance.

Do not know why I always complain about not being able to buy meat, here is a perfectly good butcher shop.

Rocking at Hard Rock Cafe!

Wow, another quick week!  I am starting to like this, one day its still Monday and before you know it your driver looks at you first thing on a Friday morning waiting graciously for his weekly tip.  After this past week he certainly deserved it.

On Monday evening we had the privilege to host my brother in law for dinner, I made a quick pasta dish since we did not have much time.  It does make the life more interesting and enjoyable when you have family over, even if it is only for a short time and they are not really here to visit.  

The rest of the week was just ordinary except for Thursday evening when I joined my brother in law for dinner at News Cafe.  It was fun meeting up with him again, it was just unfortunately that News Cafe staff decided to give us the worst possible service you could imagine, they kept forgetting about us.  The food however was good as usual.  

Saturday Teresa and I took it easy for most part of the day, we went for a nice workout in the morning and our driver picked us up the late afternoon for a drive.  He went to show us where the zoo was and Falaknuma Palace.  The Palace dates back to the late 1800's and host one of the largest dining room tables that seats a hundred people.  Interestingly the wood was imported from South Africa.  The palace was taken over by the Taj Hotel group and opened up as a hotel in November 2010 after being renovated.  It is one of the more expensive hotels in India and a lunch or dinner there could set you back a lot of money and you have to reserve your seat a couple of days in advance.

The zoo is one of the larger zoo's in India, they host a white tiger and you can go on elephant safari's.  I am not a big fan of any zoo but we will go for a visit soon since Teresa will not forgive me if we don't go.  You will read all about the zoo trip soon so stay tuned.

Our driver then took a nice scenic route back home from the palace and showed us one of the lakes outside Hyderabad.  The timing worked out great since we had a chance to view a beautiful sunset over the lake.  From there we went home quickly just to change into fresh and little less casual clothes and went to the Hard Rock Cafe.  Why we have not gone there sooner I don't know, the service, food and music was just top notch.  The only downside about the place is that it takes a good 40 minutes to drive there and no, it is not that far it is just the crazy traffic.

Sunday we got to spend the whole day with Erik, we picked him up early Sunday morning and drove around for a short while, visited the Arts&Craft market and went for lunch to Angeethi.  Angeethi is a North Indian cuisine restaurant and the food is pretty good.  After a huge lunch we went back home and just relaxed until the evening.  For a lite dinner we went to La Cantina at the Novotel for a couple of snacks to round of the weekend.  

Some of the many construction sites

Entrance to the Office Park where Teresa works

Some roadside accommodation 

More of the road side accommodation 

Some local buildings

More local shops

Don't look at the up to code electrical wirings 

More of the local areas we drove by on Saturday

Well, who needs a Minivan?

I don't even trust proper scaffolding, luckily I don't have to get on these

Kid camel rides for only Rs5 (Rupees)

Half build buildings, no problem

The police academy, wonder what they learn there.  How much bribe to accept for each crime??

These little three wheelers are real little work horses

Falaknuma Palace

Our sunset drive by the lake

Hard Rock Cafe

Best burgers we have had in India