Days 68 to 71 – Hyderabad
Day 68 – Thursday, 2nd Jan 2014 to Day 71 – Sunday, 5th Jan 2014
It’s Thursday morning 10 am, our train – Falaknuma Express has pulled into Secunderabad station. We head to the prepaid auto stand for a ride to our host’s place. All autos are waiting in a line but none seem interested in seating us. Each auto driver hints us to take the rickshaw behind them. We obliged for a few times but found it weird as this is a prepaid stand. Eventually, we found out that our host’s house was quite near to the railway station and the drivers weren’t interested in the low fare. We had to have a local traffic police interrupt and seat us in the next rickshaw.
It’s 2 pm and post lunch, we leave to tour some part of the city. We visit Hussain Sagar Lake. There is a monolithic statue of Buddha. We enjoy our walk around the lake perimeter.
Buddha statue
We visit NTR gardens and Lumbini Park in the evening. There is a water laser show at 7 pm at Lumbini Park. It’s very nice and worth a visit if you are in Hyderabad.
laser show
It’s 8 pm and we meet our friends – Pooja and Kuntesh at a restaurant. It was good to meet our Mumbai friends in Hyderabad – a small reunion.
friends reunion
It’s Friday 7 am, Khyati and I are at the breakfast table with our host’s – Satish Bhai and Anisha Bhabhi. We plan to visit the very famous – Ramoji Film studios. Ramoji Film studios is around 35 kms South East of Hyderabad city and we take public transport to reach there. Plenty of buses and taxis ply this route.
As we reach close to Ramoji film city, we can get a feel of it’s grandeur. It’s set in a sprawling 1600 acre area. Wow!!!
at the park entrance
Ramoji film studios has large resemblance to Universal Studios, Los Angeles. There are movie shows, film making shows, studios, grand theme park and plenty of rides. A day spent here is less. You need more than a day but Khyati and I make a tactical plan and cover almost 90% of the attractions by evening. A must visit is the red bus tour which takes us through the various film studios and sets.
During the New Year season, Ramoji Film City had a Winter fest and there was a special dance and music show and a carnival parade. It was wonderful to spend a day here and we really enjoyed our visit here.
at the Mahabharat film studio
winter fest show
It’s 8:15 pm and we are back at the main entrance of Ramoji film city and hail a state bus back to Hyderabad city bus stand. We call it a night around 11:30 pm.
For Saturday, we plan to tour the old Hyderabad city. It’s 10 am and Satish Bhai drops us in his car to Salar Jung Museum. Salar Jung Museum used to be the palace of the Nizam’s. This grand museum holds artifacts, paintings and collectibles from all over the world. The collection is amazing and we enjoy learning the history through the audio tour provided.
Veiled Rebecca statue carved out of marble
We walk through the old part of the town and visit Charminar. Charminar is a tall monument and signature of Hyderabad similar to Taj Mahal of Agra. We climb to the top of Charminar and enjoy nice city views.
Charminar
We visit a mosque – Jama Masjid next to Charminar and then walk through Lad Bazaar – bangle market. The entire street is filled with bangle sellers. Khyati is lured by many vendors to try their colorful bangles.
It’s 4:30 pm and we take an auto to Sudhacar museum. Note the ‘car’ in Sudhacar. It’s the mastermind of a man named – Sudhakar who is passionate about making cars. He holds a Guinness book of World record for making the biggest tricycle. It’s the wackiest collection of cars – we saw a cigarette car, cricket bat car, Ganpati car, Ladoo car, etc. What creativity and innovation.
cricket bat car
burger car
We have a chance to meet Mr. Sudhakar, a true gentleman and he showed us the garage area where they are building new innovative cars.
wanna ride?
In the evening, we leave with the family and Satish Bhai gives us a wonderful tour of the new city and various pockets of Hyderabad – Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Cyber city, etc.
We enjoy a good dinner with the family –
at Cream Centre, Hyderabad
It’s Sunday, our last day in Hyderabad. We have the morning free and we visit Snow world. Snow World is a nice replica from the West, they have built an indoor snow area. We are provided with warm clothing, jackets, gum boots and let inside the snow world. The temperature inside was maintained at -6 deg. Quite cold but we enjoy the artificial snow, snow slides and rock climbing here.
MVI 9824 from Paras Mamania on Vimeo.
at Snow world
There are a few other attractions at this venue – they have built a Rainforest, mirror museum and a horror world. All the attractions draw huge crowds and it’s 2 pm by the time we finish our visit here. We head home and have some lunch.
We have a few hours before our train to Chennai. Stay tuned for upcoming posts – Chennai and Mahabalipuram.
Hope you enjoyed our write-up of Hyderabad. Please let us know by leaving a comment.
Best wishes,
Paras