Trip to Hyderabad

From 17 to 20 August we (that's Yuki, Nienke, Ellen, Viefke, Marcin, Brian and me) spent a few days in Hyderabad. We took the night train, once again in sleeper class, and it took about 15 hours each way. But it was quite OK; the sleep was much more restful than on the Bangalore trip, since you could sleep through the whole night.

We had set ourselves a pretty packed programme for the two days we had, but unfortunately we forgot our Lonely Planet (the bible for India travellers), so we may have missed a sight or two. Brian had studied the Lonely Planet thoroughly beforehand, though, so we should have visited the most important places.

After we arrived, we first went to a big lake in the city centre with a large Buddha statue in it. We walked around and visited a nearby temple. The temple was very impressive: made entirely of white marble, quite large and set on a hill, so you have a lovely view over the city. Unfortunately cameras were banned in the temple, so I couldn't capture that beautiful view.

After visiting the temple, we went to an AIESEC apartment where we could stay the night. There we met Nienke, who had come on by plane because she'd had a spontaneous meeting in Bangalore on Friday evening. The AIESEC people in Hyderabad have very nice, large flats in a very exclusive area and pay quite a bit less rent than we do in Chennai. Oh well, never mind…

Free of annoying luggage, we set off exploring again. We went into the city centre and ticked off a whole lot of sights. We started with the Charminar, a monument whose purpose I didn't quite grasp but which looks nice. Right next to it is a huge mosque (the second largest in India) and a very impressive hospital. According to our city map, which we'd bought for 25 rupees, there was supposed to be a palace nearby too, but it wasn't quite that near, and when we finally found it, it was exactly 5 o'clock, and unfortunately the palace closes at 5. Well, bad luck… So the girls got to do some shopping at the bazaar while we boys waited for them over a coffee. Bangles and other jewellery didn't spark much interest in us…

After this shopping tour the appetite for shopping still wasn't satisfied, so we went to City Center, a big mall. There we shopped for a few hours first and then, very hungry and thirsty, had dinner. After this exhausting day we skipped any further parties with the AIESEC people and went to bed. After all, we wanted to get up early the next morning…

Sunday's programme was the fort and the tombs near the fort. The fort was very impressive. It sits on a hill with a very beautiful view over Hyderabad. We spent about three hours on the grounds of the fort, climbed the hill, and I took an awful lot of pictures. Brian and Marcin met a group of young Indians who were very excited about us foreigners and expressed it very loudly.

The tombs were quite nice too, but not as impressive as the fort. They were mainly huge empty buildings with a tomb in the middle.