Thursday, January 19, 2006
Beware the ice
It's hard to believe this is the 7th post about my India trip and I'm still not done with day 2! That's right, the events in this post are still from last Saturday, my second day in Hyderabad.
So, we were actually in a hurry to wrap up in Mebaz because there was a pretty large get-together of both expats and locals from the office later that evening at the Bottles And Chimney Club. We were trying to get there by 9pm but with me going crazy buying up everything I could in Mebaz we didn't make it until nearly 10pm. Walking into this place was a bit shocking. I had just spent all day taking in very foreign sights and was finally getting adjusted to the Indian scenery so I was completely unprepared for...
...a completely ordinary looking Western club!
It actually felt a little surreal, like I woke up from this weird India dream and was all of a sudden back home in New York. I opened up the drinks menu, and lo and behold, all the same mixed drinks you find back home - cosmos, mojitos, you name it. They even had white russians! Naturally, that's what I ordered, completely forgetting where I was for the moment. However, the white russian turned out to be a bad move for multiple reasons. First of all, they made it with some kind of chocolate syrup all along the sides of the glass which is just completely perverse. It still tasted mostly OK but as I got toward the bottom half of the glass it finally dawned on me that I was in India and there was ice in my drink. Indian ice is made from Indian tap water, which was now melting into my drink. Just as the thought crossed my mind I got a funny feeling in my stomach.
I'm still not sure how much of it was psychosomatic and how much of it was the ice water actually churning my insides but I completely panicked and didn't touch the rest of my drink. After a trip to the restroom and realizing I wasn't actually going to die I started to feel a bit better and was able to enjoy the rest of the night. Unfortunately, the music they happened to be playing that day was pretty much completely atrocious. I really wish we had gone on a Friday night when they play house and trance, but that was not meant to be. What I ended up having to dance to was a bunch of strange dance remixes of no-longer-popular songs along with some local dance pop mixed by the most incompetent DJ since DJ AM. Ugh, but I still had a good time and danced up a storm!
Even more weird than the terrible music, the strangest thing that happened was when at 12am they announced last call for drinks. This alone I could excuse, I don't really need to be drunk to dance and have a good time, but at 12:15am they announced last song! The music was off and the people in mass exodus from the club at 12:30! Somebody mentioned a trance club nearby our apartments that was supposedly open till later, and I was really in a mood to dance to something good, but nobody really seemed into going and I was still feeling a bit reluctant to go off on my own so I hopped in the car back to the apartment.
Besides, it was time to get back since we had to get up early the next day for our trip to the Monkey Temple!
So, we were actually in a hurry to wrap up in Mebaz because there was a pretty large get-together of both expats and locals from the office later that evening at the Bottles And Chimney Club. We were trying to get there by 9pm but with me going crazy buying up everything I could in Mebaz we didn't make it until nearly 10pm. Walking into this place was a bit shocking. I had just spent all day taking in very foreign sights and was finally getting adjusted to the Indian scenery so I was completely unprepared for...
...a completely ordinary looking Western club!
It actually felt a little surreal, like I woke up from this weird India dream and was all of a sudden back home in New York. I opened up the drinks menu, and lo and behold, all the same mixed drinks you find back home - cosmos, mojitos, you name it. They even had white russians! Naturally, that's what I ordered, completely forgetting where I was for the moment. However, the white russian turned out to be a bad move for multiple reasons. First of all, they made it with some kind of chocolate syrup all along the sides of the glass which is just completely perverse. It still tasted mostly OK but as I got toward the bottom half of the glass it finally dawned on me that I was in India and there was ice in my drink. Indian ice is made from Indian tap water, which was now melting into my drink. Just as the thought crossed my mind I got a funny feeling in my stomach.
I'm still not sure how much of it was psychosomatic and how much of it was the ice water actually churning my insides but I completely panicked and didn't touch the rest of my drink. After a trip to the restroom and realizing I wasn't actually going to die I started to feel a bit better and was able to enjoy the rest of the night. Unfortunately, the music they happened to be playing that day was pretty much completely atrocious. I really wish we had gone on a Friday night when they play house and trance, but that was not meant to be. What I ended up having to dance to was a bunch of strange dance remixes of no-longer-popular songs along with some local dance pop mixed by the most incompetent DJ since DJ AM. Ugh, but I still had a good time and danced up a storm!
Even more weird than the terrible music, the strangest thing that happened was when at 12am they announced last call for drinks. This alone I could excuse, I don't really need to be drunk to dance and have a good time, but at 12:15am they announced last song! The music was off and the people in mass exodus from the club at 12:30! Somebody mentioned a trance club nearby our apartments that was supposedly open till later, and I was really in a mood to dance to something good, but nobody really seemed into going and I was still feeling a bit reluctant to go off on my own so I hopped in the car back to the apartment.
Besides, it was time to get back since we had to get up early the next day for our trip to the Monkey Temple!
