Thursday morning and we are headed to the airport to fly down to Hyderabad today to go the Ayurvedic (ancient Indian medicine) clinic. We have one last fantastic breakfast in 
the Imperial’s beautiful 1911 room. We savor many treats, knowing that our diet will get much simpler when we get to the clinic.
We are continuing with our airline carriers, so we are on different flights at about the same time. Traveling domestically, the rules are a bit different. When I check my bags, I learn the weight restriction is much lower than the 50 pounds we are allowed internationally and had ensured we didn’t exceed. I am forced to pay 4,000 rupees ($80) for weight overages. The process of checking my bags, then going to a different counter for a cashier to pay the fee and then back to the bag agent, who can’t find my baggage stubs is incredibly challenging. My heart is racing, as I watch the clock, worrying that I will miss my flight. There is a helpful floating agent who is aware of my flight who somehow deals with these two characters who are flipping through papers, unable to find my bag tags.
The agent tells me to run, as the gate if VERY far away. Security is simple with almost no crowds compared to the US; I am through there in minutes. The gate is so far, let’s say United’s ORD Terminal C would have been a breeze. The flight is leaving in 20 minutes and I am seriously worried about missing it, as I completely out of breathe and have a long way to go. I see a golf cart with an attendant in the corridor, and ask for a ride and amazingly she whisks me off with two older folks sitting in the front seat! I am the last one on the plane and had it not been for the cart, I would have missed the flight. Without a working cell phone, I had no idea how I would have contacted Alan if I wasn’t showing up in Hyderabad as planned!
The flight is two hours. I have to admit I get a kick out of watching how everyone behaves. It is really mostly like being on a plane in the US including the announcements they make in the local language and then in English. The exception is my white skin, which makes me in the minority here.
I get my bags without a problem. Thank God, I am not sure how I would have explained that I didn’t have the proper paperwork! I have 45 minutes to sit and to work on the blog before Alan arrives.
The airport is modern, clean and beautiful. I notice most of the passengers passing through the airport are businessmen men dressed in western style clothes. The women that are traveling are dressed in traditional colorful Indian clothes and seem to be traveling with their families. I don’t spot what I would call any Indian businesswoman, but I not sure how I would differentiate them.
Alan arrives and I have to say, I am quite happy to see him after my challenging departure in Delhi! A man who doesn’t speak English has come to pick us up from the clinic. The car is incredibly small and he masterfully gets all of our bags in the car! I am in the back with the bags and Alan once again in the front.
The contrast once we leave the airport is striking. The scenery and poverty is as depressing as it was in Northern India. Yet, there is a different, darker look to the streets here. Hyderabad is in a different state, with a very different history and language. I see 
women in black berkas along the roads. We have clearly left Colonial India and I have to say it frightens me.
I reach for Fifty Shades of Grey to distract myself. I am sure there is a joke in there; I just don’t what it is! Maybe it is not a joke at all, just the huge contrast between the freedom women have in the west vs. the lives that Muslim women are living here.
We arrive at the clinic after a 40 minute drive. The clinic is in a gated community, called Sahara States. I missed the gates since I had my head buried in the book.
The next part of our adventures begins!