Testing My Travel Luck

Today is my last day in the New Delhi office of the Public Health Foundation of India. I will be leaving for Hyderabad in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh this Sunday because our organization happens to be hosting a conference on "public health education in low and middle income countries" from August 12-14th. Even though I am coming back to the United States on the 13th, I still wanted to check the conference out for the sake of being able to hear at least a couple big public health figures speak as well as see another city/region of India.

Originally, I was going to meet up with a person from an organization called Acumen Fund, but it turns out she's going to be in Pakistan so it didn't work out. I luckily came across something else though. When I was having dinner with Dr. Seetharam last week, he introduced me to one of his friends who founded an organization called Modern Architects for Rural India. The people working in the organization are not "architects" per se, in that they are not designing buildings and building bridges in rural India. Instead, they refer to themselves as being "social architects," guiding people through different challenges in development work and designing initiatives that meet their needs. From what I've heard and read so far, they work ranges in areas ranging from HIV/AIDS to microcredit enterprise to sustainable agricultural development. Mr. Murali, founder of MARI, has agreed to let me visit some of the sites of the organization for two days, which is awesome news considering it will be a lot on the lines of what I saw when I was in Karnataka and Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement.

The travel schedule is going to be a little crazy. It will be a huge success if everything goes smoothly, but since I'll be new to the area, I'm a little nervous as to how everything is going to pan out. Because I'm not interested in spending 3,000 rupees to get around between Hyderabad and MARI (I should be brave enough to try some more conventional, everyday forms of transportation now), I'll have to try some new forms of transportation, like bus and train. I spent a couple hours at work today planning it out, so hopefully all will go as planned.

Sunday -
-7:30am flight from New Delhi to Hyderabad
-9:15am arrival into Hyderabad
-take bus from Hyderabad airport into city (about 1-1.5 hour ride without traffic)
-sight see around the city, try some biryani (Hyderabad special), shop for friends and family (I heard pearls are the specialty here, but can cost over 100,000 rupees).
-6:00pm get to the Secunderabad Train Station (hopefully I don't go to the wrong one, there's three) and get ready to board my train
-6:55 train leaves for Warangal (location of MARI)
-9:00pm train arrives into Warangal, take auto-rickshaw to hotel
-rest up and get ready for Monday!

Monday-day for field visits to the following sites:
-Parakala and Warangal, sites for HIV/AIDS work
-lunch with a couple staff members
-Visit to tribal habitations, which is a sustainable agriculture project
-Visit to Annaram, a women enterprise group working on nutrition for sustainable development
-back to the hotel and get ready for Tuesday!

Tuesday-busy travel day, again.
-9:00am-10:00am meeting with Mr. Murali, founder and chief functionary of Modern Architects for Rural India
-10:30am catch bus from Warangal back into Hyderabad
-1:30pm arrive into Hyderabad, take auto-rickshaw to Taj Hotel in downtown. This is where our conference on public health education is being held.
-until 6:00pm, attend different lectures going on and say bye to colleagues, contacts, and friends that I've made over the past seven weeks
-6:00pm take taxi to Hyderabad airport, which is technically not in Hyderabad. Hopefully reach by 8:00pm.
-8:00pm check in for Air Deccan flight back to New Delhi
-8:55pm flight back to New Delhi
-11:00pm arrive into New Delhi, take another taxi to (insert new apartment here).

Since I only rented my new apartment in Gautam Nagar for one month, that means it technically ends this Sunday when I'm supposed to leave. That leaves me three days short before I leave India. I'm going to meet with the landlord today to see if I can keep my bags in my room for a couple days at no charge. If that doesn't work out (as in they make me pay an extra months rent for 3 days), I'll have to look around for a place to keep my stuff and a place to sleep on Tuesday night when I return from Hyderabad. Though this is my last day in the office, I still feel like I have quite an adventure before me!

Props if you read this far!