As usual, the photos that we took can be found on Flickr. Some of the photos used in this blog post were taken by friends of ours or the wedding photographers and don't appear on Flickr. Those will be noted with credit when used.
Day 4 Event 1: Transit to Hyderabad
As noted in the previous entry, the wedding was now complete but the reception had yet to begin. The wedding was in Delhi, near the bride's family, and the reception was in Hyderabad, near the groom's, so the day after the wedding we needed to change cities. Google Maps claims this is a 26 hour car ride or 2 hours by plane; we flew. We were on the same flight as a substantial part of the groom's family and a few other friends, so we carpooled with them from the hotel to the airport and did most of the travel together. We spent a fair bit of time hanging out with the groom's younger brother and a friend of his Australia, which enlivened the whole trip.
We flew on the domestic IndiGo airline, which was a little different than most other flights we've taken around the world - for one thing, if you weren't seated in the front half of the plane, you actually went out on the jetway and entered through the rear door of the aircraft. In theory, this makes a lot of sense for quickly filling and emptying a plane of passengers, but too many people who had seats in the back still entered from the front - so now there was traffic attempting to go both directions down the main aisle of the plane, which neatly negated all benefits and probably made things worse. I think if they want that method to work it will need to be enforced at the gate. Second, the attitude and conduct of the flight attendants seemed a bit like time travel with how seriously and glamorously the enterprise of passenger jet flight was being held to be - they were very disciplined in uniform and in giving the safety presentation, though it was also obvious that age, gender, and appearance discrimination had been used in selecting the flight attendants - this may also have contributed to the sense of traveling back in time to a different age of flight.
On other interesting wrinkle was from the security screening in Delhi had all the women scanned for contraband in a private little cabin-box-thing instead of out in the open. Since there were about two screeners for women and about six for men, there was a substantially longer wait for women to be screened.
Day 4 Event 2: Hyderabad Arrival and Secunderabad Club
Arriving in Hyderabad, the traveling party needed to split up as most of the immediate family members of the groom were going to the 'farmhouse' (we'll get to that in a later entry) and the friends of the family, including us, were going to the Secunderabad Club. The family (mostly the groom's younger brother) had arranged for family and hired cars to regularly come to the airport during the day and to pick various expected guests up, but we were in the first wave and it appeared that the system may not have been up and running as expected - one car quickly came to take the family to the 'farmhouse' but the car for us was delayed or missing in action, probably due to traffic. We waited in the outdoor pickup area outside the airport, which was fine because the temperature was quite pleasant and we were still with friends. When a car finally came, getting all the luggage for several international travelers into it was a challenge, but we managed it and then piled in ourselves. The trip from the airport to the club is nominally less than an hour, but traffic was a major ongoing issue for the entire drive. With most roads in India not being super smooth, and the jerky stop-and-GO-GO-GO nature of most of the driving, we were starting to get carsick by the time we arrived, though also hungry because we were getting substantially into the evening.
The Secunderabad Club was an interesting choice for hosting all the foreign guests of the wedding instead of another hotel. The club is a walled compound in the city and was founded by the British in the 19th century. It is members-only and highly exclusive, with a multi-year waiting list. Based on what we saw, I believe it took a coordinated effort of multiple members of the club in and related to the groom's family to get all of us into the guest rooms there. My feeling is that it reflected on the prestige of the family to be able to host so many people there at once, and that it was seen as more fun and different for the foreign guests since it had a lot of athletic facilities and conveniences (like a store) on the grounds. You're not supposed to take pictures inside, but we took a few before we realized that - beyond our few, their website gives a reasonably good idea of the place.
Guest arrival and departure desk and lounge
The guest quarters are a series of buildings with common areas in the middle and guest rooms all around the outside - sort of a complex rather than a single building
Near the rooms was an outdoor breakfast patio - you could get the buffet or have the cooks make an omelet, dhosas, or some toast, but the lead time varied from 5 minutes to at least half an hour for no apparent reason
Ana was much taken with their actual boabob tree as apparently Disney's Animal Kingdom has a fake one and she's always wanted to see a real one
The overall club has a bit of a feeling of faded glory, where everyone is taking the place and the rules of it really seriously, but it isn't quite kept up to the level that would merit it. The hot water supply took several minutes to get going (though it was HOT when it came), the rooms were a little run down and musty, and the bars and restaurants weren't exceptional. However, we were very glad to have the experience of it versus a regular hotel and the place grew on us as we figured it out.
The first night, we really just needed to find some food. In what we were reading, the outdoor dining area was less formal than the bar and we didn't feel like playing dress-up, so we went there. It turned out that the outdoor dining area was on a nice lawn, but there weren't a whole lot of lights out there so it was dark. When the waiters came around with menus they had flashlights so that the customers could read them. We ordered a few dishes and some sodas and eventually a few more foreign guests found us and ordered as well, so the dining became more convivial. Fortified by the food and the company, we changed venues from the lawn to the bar, pausing to go put on collared shirts first since that was an inescapable rule of the bar.
The main club bar was fairly distinctive - huge high ceilings, wood paneled walls, and insignia from the British and Indian armed forced units whose officers had billeted at the Club over time (pictures). It also focused on whiskey, which was a plus for me, and we sampled a number of brands and types that are not commonly available in the US. I don't think we found any real winners (found some questionable ones) but it is hard to complain about sampling whiskey with friends old and new in an old British officer's bar in India. One interesting wrinkle is that cash is not supposed to be used to pay for things at the Club - we had been given pre-paid cards, but we had no idea how much was on them until we used each one. It turned out that you couldn't buy things with cash, but you could put cash on the card and then pay with the card, which turned the process of buying that drink from quick to extended and became a bit of a running joke for the group. We'd send one person up to buy multiple drinks, then everyone in the group would come claim their drinks and leave the one person the extended job of paying for them, and rotate around. We had a congenial evening.
The next day morning we were invited on a trip to the 'farmhouse', which was another of those 'close family only' events that all the foreign guests were included in. We'll pick up there in the next entry.
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