Sun, 20 Nov 2005
Charminar and Golconda Fort
I put up some more pics on my flickr account. I'm not sure I like flickr, but it'll do for now. I'll move the better pics to this site when I get back to the US.
Anyway, the pics are of Golconda Fort, Hussain Sagar, Birla Temple and Charminar. I spent most of Saturday tooling out at Golconda Fort. It's a pretty cool site. I'd highly recommend a visit out there if you ever get the chance. After the sun goes down they have a "light show", which is a show consisting of the telling of the history of the fort with music (from a tape/cd) while they light up the various parts of the fort with floodlights. It's actually quite nice. I got to see the sundown from up top which was great. The only downside was the smoke from the day's grassfires. I think you can even see the smoke in some of my pics. But all in all, Golconda's a very impressive place. Oh, there was another weird bit- when you're at the very top building of the fort- you can climb up to the roof terrace. But there's only one stairwell. So when you go in the stairwell (which isn't lit- remember you're up there as the sun's going down) you have to mind the people trying to come down the stairwell. Now there isn't really a nice sense of decorum with crowds at sites here. Let's just say a guy my size, trying to go up a tiny stairwell displaces smaller people who try to pass by in the stairs. I hope they liked the free belly rubs. It was a bit scary though, but I made it both up and back. Today I spent most of the day at Charminar, which is also impressive, but in a different way. It's in the historic center of Hyderabad. I've heard it referred to as the Arc de Triomphe of the East. In a way, it's quite similar. Fortunately at Charminar, there are separate stairwells for going up and down to the top. A queue does build up to go back down though, so you still have to be careful with all the people. Oh, one cool thing- Abdul the driver (aka The Transporter) took me to his favorite tea shop for a quick cup. The place was packed, so we had tea and biscuits in the car. It was great tea. I can't remember the name of the place, but it rhymes with cauliflower (Neaflour? Neiflour?). I'll get the name and remember it though. I'm pretty sure it was an Irani type cafe and our tea was either Indian or Irani with a bit of sugar and milk. Quite nice. I had asked The Transporter about the type of tea where they pour it from pitcher to pitcher in extended arms to whip it up with air and make it thicker. He was surprised I knew about it and promised to take me to another cafe before work sometime to try that kind. Unfortunately I'm back to work tomorrow which means I won't be able to do much touristy stuff. But I'll try to do some things during the daytime this week.20 Nov 11:28 | /travel/india | 0 comment(s)
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