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.

India - Day 19

Today was a rather busy day (by my current standards). At 10.30 I went to Nandita (one of Tom's neighbours, an older woman) only to find out that the driver had not arrived yet (so I managed to hear what was cussing in Hindi judging by the tone used). At about 11 we went shopping with her and Tom's other neighbour, Shiika (the one with the huge library). I managed to get quite a few souvenirs for both myself and some of my friends as well. When in the car, we also had interesting conversations with Nandita about charities and how to keep them going. Her main idea was that one has to always train ones own apprentice, and she cited Jesuites as very famous successful example of being able to keep things running for years on end, from one leader to another.

They left me at a souvenir shop (well.. an art shop, as it also had statues way too large to go in airplane luggage) I was approached by someone asking if I do acid and whether I would like to go to a rave. I declined, in case anyone is interested.

Me and Tom were then invited to Pat for pre-dinner drinks. We went with the scooter. I asked jokingly whether I could drive and he said sure, go ahead. We arrived in one piece, although I did manage to scare Tom considerably by my driving style. We drove past Sandhya on our way and when Tom asked me to pull over and I did, he looked visibly distressed.. and nervous laughter followed, from both of us.

Gabe was also invited, although he arrived a bit late. He had actually phoned me earlier to ask whether I would like to go out with him and a friend of his he had met a week ago. Sadly, that didnt work out because the friend had had a busy day and wanted to rest.

For dinner we went to this rather weird chinese-indian-european place. Portions were big, but prices were similar, being comparable to those found in above-average places in estonia. Tom said he was paying, however. During dinner it turned out that Pat had also had a rather crazy life, having stayed with headhunter tribes in South America and having had to watch a building she was supposed to be in be blown up in a terrorist attack, while being next door and recovering from a hangover.

The drive back on the scooter was similarly distressing to Tom, especially because I took all the turns at considerable speed and the last left turn was quite a close call because of that. When he got off, he said "You really are insane" and Im quite sure he did not mean it as a compliment, although he did admit that in here, being a bit crazy is quite useful for driving. Thankfully, the streets were rather empty today, as I do have to admit I did not plan on cutting things so close (it was actually a byproduct of me not being able to account for the extra weight of another person on the bike).

Also - I am reading Penrose at the moment and I, as a computer scientist with a small amount psychology background, do not agree with his ideas of conciousness, or, rather, think they are completely ludicrous and that he understands nothing of either what computers are capable of or how human mind works.