Cycle India 2010

Thursday 10 January

Up at 4.30am for a 5am departure in a small fleet of cars taking us to a nearby small airport for a flight back to Hyderabad.

Always time for another diversion, especially when it involves breakfast! We stopped at the Nagarjuna Hospital, where the doctors who had shown us such fantastic hospitality during the ride worked. At an unearthly hour of the morning, there were nurses and other hospital staff lining the road through the hospital. We had breakfast with our recently found cycling buddies and then returned to the cars, only to find the road still lined with hospital staff. This was all too much!

Off to the airport and a short flight on Kingfisher (yes, the beer!) Airlines back to Hyderabad. On arrival in Hyderabad, we visited a school in the city that HEAL had recently become associated with through making contributions towards running expenses.

The school provides free education to children from a nearby slum area, who would otherwise receive none. It has tiny classrooms separated from each other only by 3-feet high walls, with children packed into them - it is a far cry from the relatively luxurious conditions of the Children’s Village. The school is situated on an expensive piece of land that it currently occupies for a low rent. Even so, the school is clearly in dire financial straights and, as the low rent is soon to end, the school has to reconsider it’s future and HEAL is closely involved in this process.

We were then off to our hotel in Hyderabad for television interviews (!), and then a couple of hours to wind down before our final evening excursion. Dr Prasad had received an invitation from the very wealthy owner of three private hospitals for all of us to attend a reception in the grounds of an exclusive club. That evening, we saw a very different side to India. This involved ridiculously opulent surroundings with very rich Indian people tinkling little bells to get their next gin and tonic.

I couldn’t really work out how this was meant to sit with all we had seen and what we were raising money for, but I am content to take Dr Prasad’s explanation which I think, in simple terms, was that it is better to work with these people than against them.

Whilst at the club, we did get the opportunity to watch ourselves on the equivalent of the Indian News at 10 – another strange experience. By this time, I had unfortunately picked up a bug and was starting to get the shivers and various other symptoms I won’t go in to.