india

Asia 2011 - India

Arrival in a new country is always exciting. This was my first time ever to visit India, and although I have heard especially cultural bits and pieces, I was as usual nowhere near "well" prepared.

How to fill out the registration forms (surprisingly needed in addition to the visa already gathered ahead of departure) when your only known address in India is on the laptop you completely drained the battery of during the flight? Luckily they tolerated the "address during stay" to be left blank.

I got out in the heat of Hyderabad in the late afternoon, got a cab, and had my host instruct the cab driver - over the phone via roaming to Denmark - where to drop me off. After a long ride with cows and beautiful dressed pedestrians casually crossing the high speed road and a short pitstop at an ATM, I finally met Pavithran. Until then we only knew each other from casual online chat.

(I should later learn that my first impression was quite unusual - not cows or clothes or chat, but roads capable of driving at high speed!)

Pavithran checked me into a small hotel and we visited his home. It was in the middle of being rebuild, so impossible to stay at as had been our original planed.

After a few hours of looking at the neighbourhood and talking about possible events during the week, we decided to cancel the hotel and instead go visit his parents in Khammam, some 5 hours away by bus…

This text is part of my Asia 2011 scriblings.