Wednesday, August 1, 2001: On to Sangareddy, India (Penny)

The road from ICRISAT to Sangareddy was quite busy. Ok, that’s a little of an understatement; it was really busy! With busses and trucks (lorries) whizzing by at who knows how fast, it was definitely not a time to doze off. My mom does this thing when she sees something bad happen or come close to happening. It is like a quick breath of air sucked in through the teeth. Well I don’t know if it’s hereditary or what, but I have to tell you, I was definitely doing the mom thing on this highway. (To my untrained mind it seems like the art of passing here is mostly a game of chicken to see how close you get to the other vehicle without actually hitting them.) The road went from 2 to 4 lanes at any given moment.

About midday we stopped for lunch at a roadside stand. The whole place was painted like a bunch of huge Pepsi cans. This is quite a common form of decorating here. As we pulled off I grabbed my Pristine (our water purification), but it looked like it was going to take a little more than Pristine to make this place sanitary. The flies seemed to be having a convention on our table and the crows kept a close watch on us as well. I ordered chappatis (like tortillas, flat bread) but Tad went all out for some egg-fried rice and curry. The plates came out dripping with water, and I began to wonder about little amoebas and what-not in water… So after my chappatis, I was ready to hit the road, but Tad decided that this would be a good place to do some journaling and take a little break for an hour or so. I’m looking at him like "Are you out of your mind?"

At this point the crows are getting bolder and bolder and the flies decide to have their meeting right on us. You must remember, I’ve been out of India for a few years and even when we were here before, Mom and Dad were very cautious about where and what we ate. Tad on the other hand has been doing this for almost 2 years, and that has given him two years to "adapt." Although I was adjusting, I must say I didn’t picture this place as a nice afternoon breaking spot. Finally I got out the bug spray and some postcards to write as Tad happily typed away on his organizer.

Back on the road again we kept biking toward Sangareddy. It was overcast and it started to sprinkle. Finally it wasn’t just a sprinkle so we stopped at a stand to get our rain gear. Within a minute or two a group of guys came and started looking at our bikes. Needless to say, I was not in the mood for that. We decided it was best to keep going, so off we went through the rain. Going uphill something went wrong with my bike, so we pulled off, and by now it was pouring. Luckily, there was a building right off the road and the guy motioned us inside. It smelled like flour, dust and odd equipment. We were in a flourmill. It was about the size of a big garage, and it seemed to be a "bring your own grain" operation.

Outside little rivers began to form, picking up the red soil as they raced across the ground. We got out our biscuits (cookies) and shared them as well as some pretzels and mint chocolate patties from home. They thought the mint patties were a little weird I think. As the rain pounded on the metal roof we tried out our Lonely Planet Hindi/Urdu phrase book and were excited to find the family understood us to some degree. Finally the rain calmed and after some pictures we said goodbye and "Danyavad"- thank you, in Hindi. They had seen us in need of shelter from the rain, and without a second thought had let us wait it out with them. Thanks to that family!!

It was getting close to dusk as we pulled into Sangareddy so we were looking for a hotel. We met a guy who offered to let us stay with him, but I was not for that at all, so we went on looking. After Tad’s description of the first room, and then the second hotel not looking much better, we decided to take the guy up on the offer. I didn’t feel comfortable at first, I mean we don’t even know this guy, and we are staying at his HOUSE!! AHHHH!! But Tad seemed to be comfortable with it, so I agreed. The man had a nice apartment and even had a collection of English tapes that he was listening to. We set up our tent, partly to keep out the mosquitoes and partly to give me a false sense of security. We took our host out to dinner and then quite exhaustedly went to bed. It had been a good, but long day.

Penny