Moving On

Moving On

Monday, Nov. 20, 2006--Gulbarga (Cont.)

I ate a mini-meals at one of the vegetarian restaurants for lunch. That's just the wording used here for the set luncheon plate. It had rice and about 4 sauces. It was good and filling. Then for dinner, I ate at the Garden Restaurant at my hotel. I had vegetable fried noodles which I seasoned with both soy sauce and green chile sauce. Then I followed that with a thick, rich banana shake. Ummm.

Had an interesting visit with several of the guys who work at my hotel when I returned. There was a reason for it; I could tell that they try to be friendly to the foreigners in hopes of getting a nice tip. Of course, they HOPE that someone will just hand them a bundle of dollars and solve all their problems. But they are nice guys, and they weren't pushy about talking about how difficult things are for them financially. It's obvious that they are poor, however; they wear rather worn clothing. What surprised me was their ages. I knew they were young, but I just figured they were young college boys. Instead, they represented three grade levels in school--one in Standard 8, one in Standard 9, and one in Standard 10. They were 14, 15, and 16 years old respectively. What a shock to find that out. India has a new child labor protection law. But they are good about passing laws that sound good and then never enforcing them here. And those laws were passed because kids were missing school. These guys work and sleep at the hotel and then leave at 10 a.m. for school each day. I don't imagine the law covers child labor in that case. Anyway, they asked about where I had visited. I showed them on the map. Then they told me places I still should go. Finally, we took some photos of me with each of them and them in groups. I promised to send them copies when I get home.

Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006--Gulbarga to Bidar

I thought I would get out of the hotel this morning before the boys saw me. But two of them were already at work in the hallway when I left my room around 6:45. They rushed to help me carry everything downstairs. They were so pleased when I gave each of them 10 rupees for helping me. That's just 21 cents U.S., but this is a country where even a teacher is lucky to make $100 a month.

The roadway was nice all the way from Gulbarga to Bidar. What a relief. It even had striping!! We made the trip so much faster than we would have on the types of roads I've been encountering.

My guidebook had warned me that there are no nice hotels here in Bidar. I found a decent one, though. It's not as nice as where I have been staying, and it costs more. But it's still reasonable. And it is cleaner than some places where I have stayed. It's near the bus station, so it will be easy to leave when it is time to move on to Hyderabad in a couple of days. But it is far from town. It takes quite a walk to get to the walled city. I explored part of it around noon, but I could feel the heat and decided to postpone any more exploration until tomorrow morning.

I returned to the area of the hotel and had a paper dosa (very thin and crispy with two sauces) for lunch along with a lemon juice. I asked for a sweet juice, but they brought me the salty version. It was a surprise. It tasted like a margarita without the tequila. In other words, it tasted like most margaritas that one gets when ordering in a bar or restaurant since they tend not to put enough tequila to make a difference anymore. It was delicious considering that it cost me just 21 cents.

Oh, my hotel is owned by Hindus. There are some rules posted on the wall in the lobby: Absolutely no alcohol to be brought onto the premises. No card playing on the premises. No non-vegetarian food to be consumed on the premises.