We went to Hampi and Badami, then to Bijapur for a couple of days. Now we’re in Hyderabad. There are pictures of Badami and Hampi in earlier blogs, or you can search those words. Bijapur has a couple of sites from the time of Persian rule before the Moghuls. Its been hard to find an internet place that functions, and even here in Hyderabad where you’d think there would be amazing connection, there isn’t in the part of town we are in. They won’t let me tie up the line with uploading pictures, so there isn’t anything at this time from Bijapur. When I was in Hampi, I did upload a picture of the ferry across the river there and me maneuvering our bike in that…thing… that passes for a boat. They call it a coracle. They half built a bridge over the river five years ago, but cionstuction was stopped because UNESCO had reservations about whether it was a good idea to develop the area which is so rich in archeological treasures. I don’t know why they were making a special case out of this place, but the UN finally approved it. This all had something to do with assistence India was getting to build the bridge. That part I didn’t get an explanation for. Why did they need assistance with funding just this particular bridge? Oh well.
We spent Christmas Eve in Badami and Christmas Day and the day after in Bijapur. These are decidedly not Christian places, so our holiday was decidedly low key. There was a Christian church on the street where our hotel was in Bijapur, and they had lights up and music blaring. Other than that, it passed unnoticed except for some occasional reminder. I heard a cell phone ring tone with “Joy To The World”. Also, sometimes trucks and busses have backing up music instead of just beep-beep-beep. One small bus had “Silent Night”. That was about it for my Christmas.
That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time. We’re having fun, though it’s kind of weird again, doing things on something like a schedule because of my returning to the US and Myung’s going on to Nepal. We’re passing though Hyderabad now. There are thousands of people here now taking the exam for jobs with the railway, so we had to take a pretty grotty room. It’s so bad we’re just moving on tonight to Aurangabad. From there we’ll visit Ellora and Ajanta. There are a few things someone going to India should NOT miss, and these are a couple of them. Let’s see, my blogs about those places should be in last February’s list, if you want to go back and look at pics or whatever was on my alleged mind then.
Be well, all of you, and I hope you’re holiday season is wonderful.