As many of you know, I was in Hyderabad India during the first two weeks of 2007. The stated and official purpose was to attend the ICON and IJCAI conferences, and in fact that really is what I did, but of course it was also an opportunity to see just a little bit of India, and that was quite exciting.
I took some photos and have posted them here: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/553738802sQbDkv There are no comments or anything that makes it clear what these photos are about, but perhaps a few remarks here will help you understand what you are seeing there. I stayted at a very nice hotel (the ITC Kakatiya Sheraton), and there are a few photos there. I visited the historic center of Hyderabad, which features a very large mosque as well as the famous landmark Charminar, both of which appear in quite a few photos. I also took some photos from the bus that took us from the hotel to the conference site, those are all of the street scenes you will see. There were also two different cultural programs, one during the opening reception and another at the banquet, both of which featured various forms of traditional dance, so you'll see lots of photos of dancers. And then the banquet itself was at Chowmoholla Palace (at night) which was quite a splendid setting. So, that's a bit of what you'll see if you look at the pictures. My time in Hyderabad was from Jan 3 until Jan 13. I left Duluth on January 1, and of course it's a long journey, and since I was traveling with the clock the hours raced by which led to me arriving at around 1am on Jan 3. I went directly to my hotel, and attempted to sleep, but of course my body was in a totally confused state, so I tossed and turned and watched TV...late night TV in India seems to include a lot of cricket, and in fact I ended up watching quite a bit of that because it was sort of entertaining (in the way that confusing and bizarre rituals can be entertaining to the uninformed) and I never sleep well when I travel, especially when I'm 11 time zones from home it seems. Anyway, the conferences actually started on Jan 4 and didn't end until Jan 12, so that actually left very few free days for exploring, and as a result I wasn't able to do a whole lot of sightseeing. My conference schedule was actually fairly busy....on Jan 4 I gave a keynote talk at ICON, and then on Jan 6 I gave a tutorial at IJCAI on SenseClusters, and then on Jan 8 there was a workshop on dealing with noisy text where I presented a poster. So those three days required my attendance at these events, and of course on most of the others there were things going on. But, on that first day, Jan 3, I had some waking hours during the morning when I went out to explore my environs, and that was quite interesting. The conferences themselves were actually held somewhat on the outskirts of Hyderabad, ICON was at IIIT-Hyderabad, and then IJCAI was at the convention center, both of which are close to each other on the western edge of the city (or what seemed like the edge to me, I'm not sure if we were really on the edge or not). In any case, the area near the hotel seemed fairly nice, somewhat busy. There were some nice stores in both directions from the hotel, to one direction there was a rather upscale shopping area that featured a LifeStyles Department store, which had a Cafe Coffee Day place inside of it which I visited a few times. Then in the other direction there was a rather busy street that had many shops on it, everything from silk stores to restaurants to an internet place that I visited from time to time (Web Land). Also, the hotel was not too far from the Hyderabad Central Mall, which is a fairly new development that was rather nice, and quite upscale again. However, getting to and from these upscale places was always a bit of an adventure. First, nobody seemed to walk on the sidewalks. Everyone was walking along on the street, and at first I would take the sidewalks, but nobody else did...so I felt a bit odd. But then when I was walking on the street the cars and motorcycles and auto rickshaws would race by, and well that wasn't too comfortable either. But, finally I just ended up walking on the street like everyone else, and I survived. Then, I kept getting lost, and I quickly realized that the streets are not laid out in a grid fashion, and so my usual strategy of making three right turns or three left turns to get back to where I started just didn't work....and well, a few times I got lost to the point where I was a little alarmed, because I ended up in these predominantly residential areas that were at times not too nice, and it was clear that I didn't belong there, and yet I could not have been more than a mile from my hotel, yet it seemed like a world away in some cases... But, I was always sensible, I mean I only went walking in the daytime, and mostly in the mornings, before any miscreants could wake up I hoped...and indeed, except for a few puzzled stares I never had any trouble as I wandered around my little neighborhood. Second, I discovered the auto rickshaw. What a wonderful invention. :) There are in nearly all the pictures I took on the streets, because like motorcycles they are just everywhere...and they are like taxis, you get in them, there is a meter that computes your fare based on the distance you travel, and it's quite inexpensive and something of an adventure. The traffice makes it an adventure, and the fact that most of the drivers really and truly don't speak that much English does as well. So I walked a lot, and I traveled by auto rickshaw a lot. In fact, I left the conference early on the day of the banquet to go back to the hotel and rest a bit, and so I traveled to the banquet by auto rickshaw, and in fact it was nice because the driver was able to drive me directly into the palace grounds (after I produced my invitation). I was nearly the first person to arrive, so nobody witnessed my grand entrance, but I rather enjoyed it. The center of Hyderabad features Charminar and the Mosque, and I visited both of those sites early one Saturday morning...It's a very interesting area outside of those monuments because it is predominantly a Muslim area, so the women are wearing veils or burkas, and the men are often wearning white garments and white hats, and it was just a curious (and novel) experience for me to be in the middle of such an environment. That area features a bazaar and many street vendors, so it was quite interesting to wander around and see what people were selling (bangles and used books were among the more common items). It was also the case where a few wrong turns put me into some suddenly surprising situations...I went off the main street where the bazaar was and suddenly found myself surrounded by sheep, and they were apparently being shorn to make some sort of bedding... More to come... Ted
