India - Day 21 - Always wear sunscreen

I went to see one of the (few) sights of Hyderabad, the Golconda fort. I decided I was going to walk there. Managed to get lost on the way due to inaccuracies in the map - paved road went over to dirt road half the width of the original, but it was still marked the exact same way on the map.. also, Im quite amazed at what passes for a road worth marking on the map here. Add to that the simple fact that there are no streetposts and very few people can actually communicate in english (or read a map) and you see that figuring out where you are can be a pain in the backside.

Anyways, after backtracking my steps to the last good configuration, I finally found my way. The fort really was quite amazing. More amazing, however, was the fact that just outside the fort wall were the slums.. which gave it a rather remarkable contrast. Two locals showed me a way into the fort, which was literally just a few bricks being dug out under the wall so one could just barely climb under it.

The outer fort provided for some rather good photographs. The inner fort was even better, however, as it was located on a hilltop overlooking most of Hyderabad.
One thing I have yet to mention is that Hyderabad, being a city of 8 million inhabitants, has mostly very low buildings (2-3 storeys). This means that it does stretch out over a rather large area. However, that area is not nearly as wide as youd think - maybe 4-5 times the size of Tallinn. So people do live really densely in the slums - its not uncommon for a family of 5 people to live in a single room with a small kitchen corner and no bathroom.

The fort was located in the more islamic part of the town, so women in sarees were replaced mainly with women in burkas, and telugu signs were replaced by signs in arabic. Needless to say, I passed by quite a few mosks on the way as well.

After leaving the inner fort, I took a nice walk towards the main gate of the outer fort. The gate was very beautiful, although a bit in ruins. Id reminded me of one of the gates I had seen in Suzhou, being probably even more impressive. What was interesting, however, was that whereas in Suzhou, tourists had been all over the gate, which was purely a tourist sight, in here you had to enter a back alley to get up to it and I could enjoy the view in solitude. The gate, however, was still in use as it was situated on a rather active road. This meant I could also walk through it once I had walked on top of it.

Since I had walked for quite a long distance, I decided to take a riksha. I said before that in here, people do not expect you to bargain. Riksha drivers are a clear exception to the rule however.. they do not expect a foreigner to bargain, but if you use aggressive negotiation tactics (plainly walking away), they will let you know that they are willing to accept less. The minimum bid you should always start with here is "Meter" which means they have to pay according to what the meter tells. If they accept it, it would be polite to give them a bit extra.. even up to half of what the meter sais. They usually do not accept this however, but they will let their price down. You can then reply with something akin to "meter plus 20", which is usually still way better than what they are offering. All that being said - rikshas are very cheap and even their first offers would usually be considered dead cheap when compared to taxis in Estonia, not to mention anywhere else in the western world.

Ow yes, and in case anyone is wondering about the title - Yes, my face and arms are, in fact, quite red at the moment. 5 hours walking in the sun can do that to you here.

Edit: I went to dinner with an american I met at the inner fort. Took the scooter there and had a really close call in the traffic. Two cars were maneuvering on a rather narrow road, one trying to turn around and the other trying to get past it. I was approaching with quite a speed and just barely managed to slip by the two of them (they had a gap between them that was just over half a meter wide. I know because the scooter is just under half a meter in width).

Cases like this make me think I should learn to use the horn. Logic of its use here is very simple: you honk whenever you need everyone else around you to be aware of the fact that you are there. This applies to all the cases where you attempt to do something completely idiotic, like trying to drive past a bus by going into the other lane (although - lanes are a VERY loose concept here). It also applies to moderately idiotic things like driving past a 6"5' white guy with dreads on a scooter who is behaving rather erratically. Mildly idiotic things (such as driving here at all) also sometimes warrant a honk every now and then, just for good measure.

The american guy, who had stayed in Delhi for 5 months said that he also tried driving a scooter once.. and showed me rather nasty bruises and scars. He said he had been forced out of the road by a bus. He also said that his indian friends who owned scooters or motorcycles had all of them been in rather nasty traffic accidents. So yes, driving here is not really safe and I'll try to keep off larger roads for the time being, just in case.