Day 1 – Hyderabad

Landed about 4:00 AM. The flight from Dubai to Hyderabad was nothing great. The airport was decent and clean.
The immigration check was a breeze. On the way out to pick up the luggage one has to go through X-Ray to get the hand bags inspected. The person there was not too happy about the two Laptops and all the Jewelry so he tagged the custom clearance receipts. The luggage had all arrived by the time we got there. A couple of guys helped us load the bags (9 in total) on two carts. The kids had to go to the bathroom badly and the toilets in that area were closed. So Pallavi had to find toilets outside the airport immigration area. Welcome to India.

On the way out the guys looked at the tags and asked us to speak to the officers. It took some convincing for the two laptops and after he could not argue the point the focus shifted on Jewelry. After about 40 minutes and some more convincing they finally let us go. Lesson learnt here is if you have Jewelry more than worth 20K wear it. For whatever reason the police guy at the door wanted money and I had no clue why. The relocation person was waiting outside with my name. We got to the Toyota Innovas and loaded them and drove to the service apartment/guest house. The ride early in the morning was not bad at all as there was hardly any traffic. I could say quite a few flyovers being constructed.

We got into the apartment and it was a world of difference. It was an exceptional 3 bdrm apartment fully equipped. All rooms had air conditioning, top of the line furniture and electronics. A couple guys were there full time to help with everything from cooking to cleaning to shopping etc.

Commute to office was challenging. The guy who drove me did not know the address and we asked about 10 to 12 folks before we got there. Though I grew up doing this all along all of a sudden it seemed weird not to be able to take a map and figure it out. We ate at Ginger Court which was decent.

In the evening we decided to eat outside. We went to a restaurant called Krisna Veg Bistro, a forgettable experience. Awful and cold food, not a great experience to start with.