Trip to India: Day Five

Sorry! This will be long because we did a LOT. It was my 16^th birthday, the second birthday I’ve celebrated in India. We started the day by sleeping in and having dosas for breakfast. At breakfast I was told that for my birthday I got ten shares of Apple stock, which is about 1300 dollars (YAY!). Dosas are a kind of Indian pancake or French crêpe. After breakfast, we started all of our activities. The first place we went to was the Birla Temple, which is a Hindu temple located near Hyderabad’s neighboring town, Secunderabad. It is a relatively new temple (only 20 years old) and is absolutely beautiful. We decided to walk into the temple, so we had to take our shoes and socks off. You are not allowed to take pictures in the temple so I was only able to take them outside of it. We climbed up the stairs and started to hear chanting coming from a short of shrine. It was a shrine for the Hindu God Shiva. They were decorating a statue of the God with flower necklaces and silks and were washing it. We walked around a bit more and got another great view of Hyderabad. We saw a huge lake with a giant statue of Buddha in the middle of it, which happened to be our next destination. We put our shoes and socks on and drove over to the lake to take a boat to the Buddha statue. Once on the boat, we waited for about 15 minutes and were on our way. We reached the Buddha statue about 15 minutes later and got off the boat to look around the island and take some pictures. It was a very small island with no residents or anything like that, just flowers and the Buddha statue. I took some pictures and while I was looking around the island my mom and I caught sight of possibly the most adorable child I have ever seen. I kept trying to take pictures of him because of how cute he was (seriously, he looked like a mini movie star) but it was very difficult to do it without catching the attention of his parents. Anyways, I got a few shots and we went back on the boat. The Buddha statue was great, and what made it really special was that the Dalai Lama himself had blessed it. We took the boat back and got back into Prasad’s car. We then went to a huge crafts and clothing store (possibly the biggest in Hyderabad) called Kalanjali to get a few things for family members and ourselves. I got a nice shirt and a little brass Ganesha. Ganesha is a Hindu elephant God and is known as the remover of obstacles. My dad keeps a Ganesha in his car to help him with parking, and whenever he finds a parking spot that usually wouldn’t be open he says, “Thank you Ganesha!” Tom Brady also keeps a Ganesha in his locker, which I thought was pretty cool. Anyways, back to our day. We ended up buying A TON of stuff at Kalanjali. It’s such a nice store filled with all kinds of different crafts and colors. After Kalanjali, we went out to lunch. We went to a place that my mom, sister, and my sister’s friend Nora had gone to when my sister and her friend where here. It is a place that our driver, Prasad (who is awesome), recommended. It looked quite, quite sketchy when he dropped us off, but my mom had been here before and she said that she thought the same thing when she first came here. We walked through the door into a dark room with some electrical stuff and then arrived at a few sinks, where we washed our hands. I wasn’t expecting a very nice restaurant décor-wise, but when we walked through the doorway I was shocked to see a huge restaurant that looked quite nice. For lunch, I had chole bhature which is fried bread filled with air and a spicy chickpea sauce with it on the side. It was AMAZING. Throughout the meal there were a bunch of waiters standing by us and constantly helping us. It was kind of strange, but I knew that they were proud of their food and just being nice. After lunch, we went to the Old part of Hyderabad to see Charminar, which is possibly the most iconic building in Hyderabad. It is Islamic architecture and looks amazing. It reminds me a lot of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris because it has a kind of arch part on the bottom and a roundabout surrounds it. Charminar is one of the most interesting parts of town in my opinion. To begin with, there are tons and tons and tons of people. When most people think of India and all its people, they are probably thinking of a Charminar-like area. The area is very Muslim, which is interesting because I do not usually see very many Muslim people. Everywhere there were women wearing burkas and hijabs and men wearing white. The traffic in Charminar is far worse than in any part of Hyderabad. It is basically always a traffic jam around the monument, and you have tons of stalls with people shouting all kinds of words and people everywhere. If you like hectic things, like me, then you will love Charminar. If you don’t, then it will probably be one of the worst experiences of your life. Prasad dropped us off because Will and I wanted to climb the monument. As we were getting out of the car Prasad said to us, “Be careful.” Charminar is a dangerous place because of the sheer amount of people there. There are lots of pickpockets who can easily take your things and crossing the street is almost impossible. We did have to cross the street, though, which was SO awesome because I like those kinds of things. It was like a roller-coaster ride, only more dangerous. My mom made sure to hold my hand, even though she didn’t need to… because she was worried about Will and I crossing the street. We were able to do it, though, without any problems. There are no sidewalks, so we had to walk on the street to get to the monument itself, because the entrance was on the other side. It was amazing walking on the street because of all the sounds and faces and cars. We got our tickets and climbed up the monument. My mom didn’t want to so she waited at the bottom. The size of the stairs, height-wise, was very large. They weren’t that wide either so it was difficult to get up to the monument and even harder to come down (there were no railings either). At the top, I got some of the best pictures on this trip yet. You can see the traffic stretch for miles and you can see all of the shops and stalls and people. I even saw a man on a camel! We made our way down and went back to Prasad’s car, which meant that we had to cross the street once again, which was just as fun the second time. So far, it was turning out to be quite a great birthday. We drove through al the traffic once again and ended up at a palace called Chowmahalla Palace. It was amazing how you could have thousands of cars and people just a street away from no cars and no people and absolute serenity. We walked through the palace and I got some great photos. The palace belonged to the Nizams, who were some of the richest people in the world and the sovereigns of the Hyderabad state for a long while. After the palace, we went back to the apartment to get changed and then went out to my aunt and uncle’s house in a place called Dream Valley. Once at the house, we knocked on the door and were greeted by a boy about my age who was one of my aunt and uncle’s servants. We said hello my aunt and uncle and Akash (once again) and talked to them for a while. I really like my aunt and uncle. They never seem to be too stressed out and are really fun to talk to. My uncle, uncle Shivanand, is a kidney surgeon. My aunt, aunt Sadhana, is the youngest sibling in my dad’s family. My aunt had the servant boy bring up two mangos for Will and me because she wanted us to learn how to peel them. You peel them with your mouth, which is pretty cool. Not trying to brag, but I got the hang of it quickly and got my mango peeled fast. The best part, of course, was eating the mango itself. I don’t was to disgust you with the details, but it was messy and delicious. There is nothing better than Indian mangos. Will ate his mango in a REALLY funny way. He kind of made out with it in a way, which Akash and I thought was hilarious. Akash started calling Will “mango boy” and the name stuck. We made a bunch of jokes that I won’t repeat about Will and mangos until it was time to head to dinner. We ate dinner at a place called Prego, which is one of the best Italian restaurants in Hyderabad. For dinner, I had spaghetti Bolognese which hit the spot. Everybody loved their dinner and we decided to have gelato for dessert. The gelato was also yummy, and just as we were getting ready to head out I piece of cake with a candle was put in front of me with the words, “Happy Birthday Christopher!” written on the cake. Everybody sang happy birthday (one waiter even sang it in Italian) and I dug into the cake. I had eaten a lot that day, but for some reason my stomach opened up a hole just large enough for the cake to fit into. Of course, just like the rest of the food, the cake was great. We left the restaurant with large stomachs and smiles on our faces and were driven back to our apartment by my aunt and uncle’s driver. We said our goodbyes to everyone, which is never fun, and headed upstairs to get some rest. Overall, it was one of the best birthdays ever. Having a birthday in a different country is unique, fun, and in this case, warm. It was great to spend time with family I don’t often see. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

My birthday cake: