14th - 19th Feb 2009

Went on a tour of the city on Saturday. It was pretty uneventful in them main to be honest as it involved the Fort (which I have done before), and the lake, again. The reason I visisted them again was simply that we had a couple of new pilots who wanted to explore a bit, having recently arrived in India, and I has the day off so I thought, why not?
The main difference this time was that this time we went into the park that surrounds the lake and took a boat ride which was actually quite fun. It was a speedboat, costing a whopping 200rupees for all 3 of us (less than 3GBP), and he took us right round the lake, stopping briefly so we could take some more photos of the Buddha statue in the middle from closer up. The driver sat at the back and steered the craft using the outboard motor. He must have decided, pretty much upon laying eyes on us, that he thought he could wind us up a bit because he kept swinging the tiller from side to side, making the boat swing violently. The motion of suddenly swerving was little more than irritating however, and that was only because I was trying to take photos, what actually scares you is the water itself believe me!
When you enter the park, and even when you are anywhere near it, the smell of the lake is quite off-putting. Our driver told us that, in the not too distant past, this was once a fresh water lake teeming with fish and suitable to drink even. He knows this because he has done both as a child. Now, it is a dark and disturbing shade of green, with a putrid smell about it. This is not due to algae, far from in fact as I doubt even algae could thrive in that water. That was what scared us when the boat was swaying, the fear that we could fall into that if we tipped over into the water we would probably end up going through some spider-manesque molecular transformation as a result of whatever chemicals and pollution are contained therein!
We ended our stay in the park with a quick stint in the cricket batting nets they had behind the boats where they fire tennis balls at you and, depending on where you hit them, you score a certain number of runs. I won (sorry Ian, had to get that in), and off we went to find a cold beer!
On the way back we went via “Tank Bund Road”. This is a major highway between the two smaller cities that from Greater Hyderabad (Hyderabad and Secunderabad), and passes right by the lake. It is so named because of the tank that was presented to the city in 1973 to commemorate 25 years of Indian Independence. As a responsible tourist, keen to ingratiate myself to the locals, I climbed on top of this tank, thrust my arm into the air and looked as though I was leading some sort of revolution. My friends took some great photos of me doing this (see my facebook page for those who have access). What the photos do not show is the traffic chaos I caused on this major highway as drivers stopped to look at this crazy paleface standing atop one of their national monuments…..oops!!!
I have decided that my next mission is to target the Indian Tourist Board and get them to change their slogan. Why? Well, there is a whole national ethic out here that simply consists of two words (three if you are a grammatical purist), and simply goes “that’ll do”
When they build something, be it a house or office complex, you find all manner of things odd. There will be wonky windows, and improperly sealed windows that allow the monsoon rains to flood the inside, light switches that are at a 45 degree angle and bits of steel re-enforcing jutting out from the concrete exterior that they simply paint over and hope you won’t notice………and so on.
The roads (yes I know, my favourite subject), were clearly built by “that’ll do constructions”. They must have been otherwise how else would you explain the poor state they are in?
They also regularly use internal sockets, outside the building and then fail to properly seal so that sufficient moisture can get into the exposed wiring to cause a short-circuit.
So, I suggest we all write to the people that promote tourism in India and suggest they go with the following new advertising campaign………..
“Visit India …………………..Land of that’ll do”
Got some great news today! I am going home…….hooray! Albeit, only for a week but still, it will be nice to catch up with the family and visit my little girl. Strangely enough, I am even looking forward to some colder weather for a change.
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Not sure I’ll still be saying that when I get there though?