Customs on arrival was a joke

My first reaction on arriving at Hyderabad International Airport, "Oh God, I took the wrong flight from Frankfurt. I think this is Kampala -- in the 1980s". Agreed, I was never in Uganda in the 1980s, but I am pretty sure this is what it would have felt like. For a city know for high tech, the airport was as low tech as it gets. The advertisment for Satyam being the official IT partner of the FIFA world cup was the only sign that I was in the right city.

Having said all that, the arrival into Hyderabad was fairly smooth, with none of the problems people had warned me about. The customs official looked at me, then at my passport, then my bags and commented "Sardarji, come from US in 1 piece, but baggage 2 piece". I obliged with a a hearty laugh, and he returned the favor by waving me though the green channel. That was Lesson No. 1 - laughing at jokes by customs officials makes for a much easier time through the green channel.

My driver, a soft spoken young man named Zameer, was already waiting for me. I tried to help him load my bags, but he would have none of it. I felt a little guilty about letting this scrawny little man lift these bags that I had some 24 hours earlier filled with all the rocks I could find in the Bay Area, but I was too tired to protest and my back was too thankful that he was there to load them into the car.

It took us 20 minutes to get to the lovely guest house (more on that later). Disguised as discussions about accommodations in the city, a flyover accident last year, and his Urdu medium education, I brushed up on my Hindi conversation skills. As I hit the pillow, still thinking about our conversation, I cold hear a voice in my head say "Yup, still got it".