Hyderabad was a short (meaning long) train ride away from Bangalore, which was a short (meaning not too bad) ride from Hassan. As I was heading to Hyderabad the Sunday after the big (meaning 2.5 million attendees) Art of Living Celebration in Bangalore, those people stuck in my berth either attended the festival or wanted to know more about it. The conversation never changed...my music was the only escape from an Art of Living praise-a-thon that lasted about 20 hours. Sheesh. Still, as we approached Hyderabad and its sister-city, Secunderabad, something amazing caught my eyes that told me we weren't in the deep south anymore. All the railway station signs weren't only written in Telagu and English. They also had Hindi and...gasp...Urdu as well. Heading further north (ie the Hindi) and into Muslim territory (ie the Urdu). This brought a great smile to my face.
I liked my hotel. In the Abids area, and thus between the Charminar and the Birla Mandir, as well as near a mall, the hotel gave me a double room with a TV, Western toilet, and hot shower. And I didn't have to pay over my budget! It was really nice. As soon as I settled in, I was out the door and on my way to the Charminar, the key site in Hyderabad. As I was walking the 2 kilometers to get there in the blazing (meaning heatstroke-inducing) sun, a sudden realization came to me. Charminar...char minar...four towers...really? As I crossed the Musi river, which was more like a sludgy trickle than a river, I pondered my realization. There, on the bridge, I saw two of the most amazing buildings ever: the High Court and the Osmania General Hospital, both build in the Indo-Saracenic style also used for the Gaddige tombs in Madikeri. I was awestruck, not only by the architecture, but by the fact that I had literally walked into a Muslim-heavy area. Men were dressed in white kurtas with scullcaps, and women were wearing black burqahs (hijabs) that only revealed their eyes. I wondered how the women didn't die from getting so hot in that sun with the black all over them. This scene was in vast contrast to the Abids area, in which women tended to walk around in jeans and t-shirts. And men, no matter where they were, could easily wear brightly colored shirts. In fact, nothing was weirder than seeing a woman in full burqah walking next to a guy in a bright, sleaveless shirt with shorts. Such gender differences.
Anyway, the Charminar. Actually, first, I went to the Mecca Masjid, a huge mosque that could fit over 10,000 people. The style was quite nice, though a little boy, Salman, leeched onto me during my time there. After the Masjid, I lost Salman by going up the Charminar (which in fact does have four towers) and not paying for his entry. He almost gave me away about being a foreigner, but luckily I understood enough Hindi to get by. After taking in the fairly unimpressive Charminar, I ate a bit of biryani, which Hyderabad is famous for, and then walked to the Salar Jung Museum. The Museum had some interesting pieces, but after walking for so long and the getting little sleep the previous night, I was in no mood for museums. So, I half-assed it. I saw the exhibits without reading anything and without really looking too hard. After, I walked to the High Court and to the Osmania General Hospital (above) before walking back to the Abids area. I used the internet at Reliance WebWorld (in which Vikas was very helpful), grabbed an iced mocha at the attached Java Green, and then went back to my room for the night. I watched TV and ate leftover biryani. A nice end to a nice day.
The next day, I took it slowly. I really had no interest in seeing too much, particularly since I gained an extra day by deciding not to take a daytrip to Nagarjunakonda...a trip that would have required six hours of traveling in one day alone. So, by the middle part of the day, after having a spot of lunch, I headed out in the other direction. While the day before I walked south with the distant Charminar guiding me, this day I ambled north with the Birla Mandir as my landmark of note. Along the way, I passed by two other amazing Indo-Saracenic buildings, the AP (Andhra Pradesh, for you uninformed) State Museum and the Legislative Complex (which also had the biggest Gandhiji statue I've seen thus far). I saw the Birla Planetarium atop a nearby hill, but couldn't figure out how to get there. And I refused to use my Lonely Planet, simply because it is more fun to try and get it on my own. So, I walked a long way around, walked up a random street, and amazingly ended up at the Birla Mandir, which is on another hill. I deposited my camera beneath someone named Frank. Once I entered the Mandir, which is pan-Hindu though dedicated to Sri Venkateswara, I went straight to the altar dedicated to Sidhi Sai Baba (the original Sai Baba), and made a comment to a guy about it being a very hot day..."right Frank?" So, this threw him for a loop, and after I explained how I knew his name, we became fast friends...well, kinda. A Canadian from Gwelf (outside Toronto), he had been traveling for a while, and was a staunch vegetarian. Just as normal, he asked plenty of questions about the Hindu things we saw at that amazing temple. The Mandir had beautifully simple yet complex marble carvings of scenes from the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Puranas, as well as tributes to all the major gods, Hindu saints, and even the Buddha, Sri Mahavira, and Guru Nanak. We spent lots of time at the relatively small temple. After leaving to try and find the quirky (supposedly) Health Museum, Frank made me try fresh sugar cane juice. While pure liquid glucose may sound good to some, it made my stomach a little uneasy. We then found our way to a now closed museum, and stayed in the nearby park for a couple of hours. I watched some Muslim men and boys play catch with a ball, a game that lasted for at least 1.5 hours. Frank then brought out his hackie sacks and started juggling (above) and doing a little hackie. As the sun started going down, he then turned to stretching and yoga, which garnered some attention. After the sun was gone, we walked back to the Abids and to my hotel, which he was amazingly staying at as well. We then did dinner and then wandered the Abids for a while. We stopped back to Java Green (he hadn't slept much the night before, as he was taking a night train from Hampi), where I once again met Vikas. He told me to come back the next day to burn a CD. After this, we explored the nooks and crannies of Abid Circle, and met a boy named Ifran, who I'll talk about in the next post. Let's just say that he'll be forever memorable. And that was it.
The next day I burned two CDs, a process that took way too long. Vikas did his best, but the power kept going out. I felt bad for Vikas, but he was very patient. By the time we finished, it was too late to do much of anything, so I just went back to my hotel, chatted with some guests for a while, and really did nothing for the rest of the day. Oh, of course, though, I chatted with my friend Ifran. On my last full day in Hyderabad, I went to the famous Golkonda Fort (above). In order to really understand everything, I hired a guide, who showed me a couple of cool things, like the spot where the 360 queens whipped servants who prayed in the queens' particular masjid, or the high court with acoustics so good that even the slightest sound echoed. I came across a group of guys...I saw them everywhere. Where I was, so were they. I took their picture a couple of times, too. Then, after leaving the Fort, I ate lunch at a small restaurant. While there, they showed up...much to all our amusement. I then walked the 1.5 kilometer stretch to the tombs of the Qutb Shahi sultans. The tombs were cool at first, but then got a bit monotonous after a while. I returned back to Abids, met Ifran, had dinner, and then called it a night. The next day, I checked out early, said farewell to Ifran, went to Secunderabad, and caught my long (meaning way too long) train to Ahmedabad.
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