The Hyderabad trip that almost went the cliched Goa way!! 26th — 28th January 2018

After a year of really lot of ups and downs, or probably mostly downs, professionally and personally, I was planning for a Hyderabad trip with my friends. As is the case with most of the trips, the execution was going down the drains. However, the firm believer that I am of my plans, I decided to go ahead with it.

So all the planning of sight seeing ( with the help of two Telugu colleagues ), stay at a friend\’s, to and fro travel was done, or so it seemed! The online rail reservation waiting list refused to budge even a couple of places upwards, and I was left with a costly and time consuming bus option. I opted for an economical option instead.. shared cab from Pune to Hyderabad… It was one hell of a back breaking journey with very little sleep after a tiring day at office. Reached \”South India\” at 5.45 am the next day, a region that is infamous for being very much against the use of Hindi as a language.  By this time, I had gotten another bad news. The friend at whose place I was planning to stay, Lokesh, had gone for a 26th January Republic day special cycling event. I was all by myself in the wee hours, couple of kilometers away from my destination, in an unknown city, with his phone being unreachable.

I somehow managed to reach his place at 6.30 am after getting a local bus and an auto rickshaw. Woke up his room mate to open the door for me. His room mate was really considerate and courteous. I was in two minds, whether to take rest for couple of hours after an exhaustive journey or to head straight away to Ramoji Film City. The explorer and traveller in me, as always, got the better of me! Found out the buses plying to my destination with my Friend\’s room mate\’s friend, freshened up, had breakfast and boarded the bus at around 8.30am. Had breakfast at a roadside shop that seemed like a typical Anna place. Don\’t have the pics, as I didn\’t think that I would be writing about this one day!

Now, the introvert that I am, I don\’t talk to strangers on my own, definitely not in the first couple of minutes. But this day wasn\’t going anyway as I had planned. So, what the hell!! Instead of having the thoughts of me roaming all by myself at the film city, I decided to initiate conversation. Made friends with a fellow traveller, who as luck would have it, was going there for the second time, with his friends. Two problems solved, a group to roam around with, and a free tour guide!! 😛

An hour or so into the journey in the film city, we were shown a couple of locations where a lot of movie scenes were shot. Some of them were miniature versions of the Seven Wonders of the World, but the cinematography creates the perfect illusion.

We went to a Raja\’s palace…

and then to the DDLJ like railway station…

and then actually recreated the actual \”Chal Dhanno, aaj tere Basanti ki ijjat ka sawal hai\” wala scene…!!

Then there was the famed Bahubali set that was all over the place from the monstrous sized horses to the statue under which you could be stamped like an ant by human if they were for real.

But the most unexpected delight was the birds on display. Different coloured, sized, hailing from different parts of the globe, all there in this globalised IT village of Cyberabad!!







I





















I returned home to a special Republic Day lighting decoration as I left the Ramoji Film City World. When I started the day, I thought that I would crash down in the sun due to the lack of sleep. But that day, excitement kept me going on and on and on…









I don\’t know if it was because of the abuses that I hurled or the guilty feeling or just a friendly gesture, but my friend Lokesh agreed me to show the city around on the next day, or to be precise enough, be my driver on the already intricately planned trip that I had my mind. The couple of things that come to our mind after spelling out Hyderabad are Ramoji Film City, Charminar and Salar Jung Museum. But as I had researched already on TripAdvisor, Salar Jung didn\’t seem like a peculiar place. To be precise, it seemed like just another museum with all the swords and the crockery and the war armour so I decided to give it a miss, and went to a place called the Nizam\’s museum. There was the still operational manually operated elevator, and the golden and silver letter boxes, to the walking sticks laced with ruby and sapphire and pearls and what not!! Even the architectural models were made with gold and silver. It was totally worth the premium that I paid for taking my camera inside the museum.































As far as food is concerned the most synonymous dish with Hyderabad is undoubtedly is Biryani. So we went to this place called Paradise biryani which served a lip smacking one with a distinct mint+dahi+pepper chutney.

Then we went to this place called Chowmahalla palace. Chandeliers, reminiscent of a King\’s Darbar probably Mughal-e-Azamesque. Then we saw the fleet of the much fabled cars including Rolls-Royce.  As I later searched on the net, Nizam indeed was one of the richest person living on the face of this earth at the time.







O

























































On our way back, we passed the Telangana High Court which was another monumental building. Then we went to the famed Karachi Bakery, bought some assorted biscuits, and then it was time for some attar shopping. Pretty cliche huh? but it was worth it I tell you.

After a somewhat tiring and pretty fruitful day, we had a humble homemade chapati sabji as dinner and went to sleep with exciting dreams for the last day of my stay.

The next day\’s breakfast was at a place which seem like serving native food. We had Podi Idli and Nescafe. Then headed to Birla Temple. It is  atop a small hill which gives you a bird\’s eye view of the City. It is very difficult to even imagine how the marble stones and slabs would have been transported uphill more than 40 years ago.

















Then we went to some not so famous temples, more so for their architecture than some religious importance. The pictures will do the rest of the talking I guess.




























Then went to see Charminar.





























There were couple of places more on my to visit list but I decided to revel and enjoy the glory of the places that I did visit at leisure, so that I have something to look forward to, in my next trip!!

P.C.  Most of the Ramoji film city pics have been clicked by Mr. Satyadarshi Mishra and his friends.

Have you been to Hyderabad?? Do let me know your experience in comments.. 😊😊