For this part of the trip, we decided to move out of the Westin. It's a great hotel, but expensive. By stepping down a notch, we could afford more space for less money.
The Ellaa Hotel is in a section of Hyderabad called Gachibowli. It's a little further from work, but I was tired of living in the middle of an office park. This development was built about 10 years ago for the Asian-African games. To the west is a cluster of high-rise apartments. To the east is a large stadium complex - 1 indoor and 2 outdoor stadiums. They look nice, but I don't think they've been used at all since we arrived. that we can see from our windows. Right next door is a gated community of about 150 single-family houses. We call it The Village. The streets are tree-lined and lit. There's a green park surrounded by palm trees where people like to kick a soccer ball around. A security guard rides around on a bike. Weekend mornings, the streets are busy with people sweeping, washing their cars, walking with little kids. It's the nicest version of Indian life I've observed here, and I'm guessing it's very rare.
I had reserved an "Executive" suite here, but they were full when we arrived so we were upgraded to an "Ellaa" suite for the first few nights. This suites had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, dining room (with a table for 8), a kitchen, and a balcony. Wow. It was so big that you couldn't hear the front doorbell from the bedroom. Steve found this out the hard way when he locked himself out while I was sleeping. He had to call on the phone to wake me up.
After a few days, we moved to our "Executive" suite, with only one bedroom, one bathroom, living room and kitchen. We are especially glad to have a regular refrigerator, microwave, and electric kettle. Steve's first solo outing was to Hypercity at the Inorbit Mall where he picked up a toaster, bread and butter. He needs his daily toast the way I need my coffee.
Speaking of coffee: It continues to be a challenge. The first time I ordered a pot from room service, it tasted like reheated instant, leftover from the day before. Yuck. For awhile, I had to resort to making instant myself (at least it wasn't leftover). We went back to room service coffee, which had improved for some reason, but a pot only holds 3 little cups so I'd end up making instant too. So a few days ago, Steve called room service and ordered "two pots of black coffee, no milk, sugar please." As always, they asked, "For how many people?" so he answered "Four." We got one pot of coffee, with cream in it, and four cups. After that, Steve went back to Hypercity and bought some kind of make-your-own drip coffee that the store guy claimed is very popular with Westerners. It's pretty good.
The Ellaa has several restaurants and we have eaten at all of them. The food is.....interesting. Breakfast is always a buffet, featuring a mix of Indian and Western style foods. I still can't get used to idli (rice dumplings) and sambar (a spicy stew) for breakfast. I need to convince my stomach that it's time for lunch. They make fresh juices every day --grape, lychee, etc. Watermelon juice is still weird though.
We have been trying Indian foods like biryani (a Hyderabad specialty), tandoori, roti breads, etc. Even in its toned-down for hotel guests form, the Indian dishes are usually just too hot for my palate. We really expected to like the Kebab Pavilion. It's outdoors and looks very romantic in the hotel brochure. Unfortunately, our evening there was spoiled by unruly children running and rough-housing all over the place. And we thought American children were spoiled!
The hotel's Italian restaurant just opened. When we went, we almost had the place to ourselves. The food was actually not bad, but wasn't exactly Italian either. One night I had "Lasange" (lasagna) that seemed to be topped with a slice of Kraft American cheese. Hmmm.
I think we need to get out more!
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