Hyderabad battles Bangalore for the tech capital of India. There's an area basically where I'm staying informally called "tech city" housing all the tech company offices. Informally they call Hyderabad - Cyberabad. And by informally I mean this is what the stamp in your passport says. The juxtaposition of large buildings from many large companies (CapGemeni, UBS, PwC, Polaris, nVidia, InfoSys, Microsoft, Tata, etc.) against the backdrop of extreme poverty is mind-boggling.
By extreme poverty I'm talking about people standing around with nowhere to go, tent-cities of hundreds of lean-to's made of sticks and tarps & rugs for rain shelter, cows and camels and dogs and chickens and goats walking around in the road... yes, cows walking around in the road. I know the Hindu's revere the cow but I saw some hungry people today and all I could think of when I saw those cows was, "What part does the T-Bone come from?"
The taxi's are mostly these rickshaw type things with either two stroke or diesel motors (picture), they fit up to four passenger somehow.. but only of those people are under 100lbs. All the ones I saw had over 50,000 km on them. The operators are also mechanics in many cases, the engine cover has two quick hand fasteners to access it - so you know they are getting in there often. As I set out for the day the taxi was supposed to cost 110 Indian Rupees (INR), but the time we got to the gate of schol the driver was negotiating up. Since he spoke no English and I speak neither Hindi or Urdu - he brokered a message through the security guard I was now paying 150 INR for the trip. 150 INR is about $3 USD so I figured c'est la vie. Then when the taxi I was in broke down while I was riding in it, two others stopped within about ten seconds ready to steal the passenger (me) away for the fare. I ended up hiring another taxi for the rest of the day since his rig seemed pretty reliable and I was pretty sure after a couple hours cajoling he was going to cave and let me drive for a little. It worked! Seven hours driving me around and also showing me how to drive his taxi cost a whole $10 USD. Traffic is crazy, the air is polluted, cars and taxis and people riding three-up on motorcycles, lanes don't exist and you're literally inches from the next vehicle (or pedestrian) at all times.
Invariably words fall woefully short of capturing this experience. You really need 3D and five senses to even capture the images. I put my camera away half way through the day there's really just no point. I saw a fort built in the early 1500's to house the Qutb Shah kingdom and the kings 360 wifes (and their eunich security guards), the tombs of Persian royalty from around 1700 (picture). A mosque built of white marble offers the best views of the city but allows no pictures. I saw a giant statue of Buddah sitting in the middle of a giant lake.Taking a plane tomorrow to Northern India to Agra where the Taj Mahal sits.
