Hyderabad: Day 3

At devotion, I couldn’t help but notice how HUGE the ants are here. SHEESH! My timing for my trip to Hyderabad was perfect because they had scheduled trips to see different sites around town for all the people in the various programs…and I got to tag along. Today was a temple day. First, we went to a Hindu temple. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in/on the temple (it was more like a terrace with several shrines neatly arranged on top). So, I got this shot of the staircase that led to the top. As you can see, the colors are BEAUTIFUL!!! We took off our shoes downstairs and walked around to all the temples. Some chose to receive blessings by the monks seated in each. I kept thinking to myself, “Don’t drink that…your belly’s gonna be rumbling tonight!!!” Folks asked questions then we were off to the second temple. If ever you see a man walking around with a beard and a turban with a bump on the top (his hair in a bun under the turban), he is probably a Sikh. Their temple was being rebuilt across the street so they set up shop in an open room on the second floor of a building. To enter the temple we had to wash our feet and cover our heads. The basin can be best described as 3 inches of murky water in a cement trough built into the floor. Once again, my mind was racing with thoughts of how parasites live in water and can ever your body through your feet. Once I had thoroughly freaked myself out, I quickly stepped in, stepped out, and shuffled my feet to the door in an effort to leave any uninvited guests outside. They told us before we left the institute that we would need to cover our heads but apparently the men and one of the women forgot so there were given squares of material as we entered the temple. I’m still trying to figure out if this was coincidence or not, but the woman who forget hers was given a raggedy, dirty, smelly piece of cloth that she perched on her head while sitting there frowning and saying, “Oh my God, it smells so bad. Why does it smell so bad?” Meanwhile, the rest of us are on the floor cracking up. The guys looked like the cast of a cheesy Egyptian themed high school musical because their pieces of cloth were hot pink and orange with gold toile around the border. They pushed the corners behind their ear and the sides stuck out making it look like a pharaoh’s headdress. We got to take a picture with the head priest (in the middle). In front of him is their holy book under a cloth and in front of that is the weaponry that we never really got a clear explanation about….hmmmm. On the way home from the temple visits, we had a little dance party on the bus. We hit a bump and Sohil went to catch Jyostna and ended up cutting his finger open on something. I told him he was going to need stitches and he was like, “No, no. That’s what I’m afraid of.” Cate and I left and when we came back he was gone. I guess he had gotten enough of bleeding half to death and they took him to the hospital.
Not that everyone else doing something is justification to do it, but I hopped on the back of Cate’s scooter helmetless and we went out to have a lil bday dinner for me. On the way, we sang at the top of our voices, laughed, were rained on, and saw various wildlife…like this random camel! We had chicken, fish, shrimp (all in different amazing sauces) and naan. Then we walked down to Baskin and Robbins (3rd to McDonalds and Wal-Mart when it comes to global domination…we have all of them here in Japan too) for some ice cream. One of the guys who worked there had the most beautiful eyes and Cate pointed out to me that he was wearing eyeliner so we asked him about it. I forgot what it’s called but he’s Muslim and it’s holy powder. I don’t think that I mentioned that it’s currently Ramadan. Despite the fact that most of the Muslim folks we saw were fasting, a large number of the men didn’t see anything wrong with shaking hands and being extra friendly with the foreign ladies…tiss tiss tiss.