2013 Trip to India

So my Project Manager asks me to step into an office. On arriving I was told I was heading off to India for 4 weeks and they wanted me to fly ASAP. They suggested Sunday night. This being 4pm on Thursday mind you. I said I'll have to get back to them as I will need to see what I need to do before I left. Having just been side swiped less than a week earlier I needed to organise to get my car to the panel beaters not to mention I needed to organise a real estate agent for my newly vacated property.

I somehow managed to get everything organised. Dropping off my car keys to the panel beaters on Monday and signing up a real estate agent on Tuesday. Flying out on Wednesday morning.

I'm not ashamed to admit I was a little apprehensive about this trip. But as a keen traveller I couldn't turn down to get another stamp in my passport. This is probably the last trip I'll make with this passport as it expires this year.

My flight was with Singapore airlines. So I flew from Melbourne to Singapore where I had a 4 hour stop over then Singapore to Hyderabad. On my Melbourne to Singapore flight. I experienced my first aborted landing. The plane came down and it felt like we were centimeters above the ground. But we never touched down... We kind of skimmed the runway for what seemed like a long time. Having flown quite a bit I knew something wasn't quite right and I heard the engines spin up and the nose of the plane pulling up. We had to loop around to come down for a safe landing. The experience wasn't scary just interesting. The pilot came on the PA system to reassure his passengers... But he had a touch of concern on his voice... I assume that was from the stress
of the aborted landing.

So I arrived in Hyderabad on Wednesday night. On Thursday night I thought I would go for a bit of an adventure. I asked the hotel where I can go for a bit of a walk to explore. He suggested I take an "auto" (aka Tuktuk in Thailand) about 3km south to a restaurant that serves bryani. I followed the instructions ate my dinner. The bryani was nice but the place wasn't very clean so I won't mention it's name.

After dinner I thought I would go for a walk. Having a quick look on my phone showed me that the hotel was to the north west of the restaurant. So I made my way in that direction. This is were I found a night market. Definitely not one for tourists. There was fresh produce and household goods. Pedestrians and vehicles shared the road which made for an interesting walk. Having to dodge holes in the ground, cars and motorbikes. I noticed that there were a lot of young children manning these stores.