OK, I think of myself as reasonably well
traveled, but I had not really gotten out into that part of the world
which is best described as the masses of humanity going about their
daily lives. We are definitely sheltered in America and don't
appreciate simple things like clean water. Today's story will try
to show some of what we experienced seeing Hyderabad, Charminar, the
Sundar Jung museum, the Quth Shahi Tombs, Golconda Fort, and the areas
in between.
You may want to do some Google searches on some of these places if you
want some more context. I don't really have a good map to show
the relationship of these places to each other. Hopefully I can
fill in the gaps when I return.
We tried to adjust to the time zone change as best we could. We
decided to get some sleep, but not too much sleep, so we decided to
meet at noon for lunch. I actually got up around 9:30 and had a
little (complimentary) breakfast in the coffee shop, which is really a
nice restaurant. An omelet, some meat balls (spicy), some sliced
fruit (funky), and some indian rice porridge (tasty), along with
bottled water and darjeeling tea.
When Rachel and I went back for lunch I was going to try something more
interested but not being hugely hungry went for the french toast, which
they serve with honey, but asked if I wanted syrup, which I did.
The Maitre D' went to the back and found an old bottle of "American
Style" syrup which looks like it's been around for a while.
tasted fine, but I stuck with the honey after all. Rach had a
fruit salad which was 1/2 a pineapple with various fruits in it in a
yogurt sauce.
Then it was off to our tour. We were picked up on time by the
young man who met us at the airport that morning, with our appointed
guide, John Wilson. Yes, that's his name. We had a car with
a driver and they proceeded to take us on a drive around Hyderabad to
see some of the sights. While we had to see Charminar, which is
the old city, and its bazaar, mosque and memorial arch, there was a
museum he thought we should also see, and since that closed at 4 we
went to that first.
The drive to the
Salar Jung
Museum was interesting to say the
least. It took us about 15 minutes and we went by the large lake
that separates Hyderabad from its twin city Charminar, and that has a
huge statue of the Buddha in the center. Couldn't get a decent
shot at 40 mph in this traffic, so here's a pic from the tour book:
The
Salar Jung Museum
was fascinating, though we could not bring a
camera inside. Salar Jung III was Prime Minister of Hyderabad
from 1899 to 1949 and collected huge numbers of historic and artistic
objects of Indian, European and Eastern origin. We only saw the
Indian floor because that's what we particularly wanted to see, but
apparently there is much more to see. Some examples of amazing
objects in this museum are the items made of Ivory, including a prayer
mat made of shaved strips of ivory woven together, balls of ivory that
have been carved in extraordinarily intricate ways so that there are
six carved balls all within a single ball, but they were never
separated and carved - all were carved within as a whole! You
have to see it to believe it. The wood carvings of furniture and
artistic objects are amazing and show incredible skill and dedication -
entire chess boards carved out of mahogany that would fit into a 1 inch
cube, wooden Buddhist temples carved out of single blocks of wood where
you can see individual leaves in the bodhi tree - spectacular.
There are also exhibits of incredible metalworks that take years to
produce a single silver-coated goblet, textiles that would make a
fashion student weep, and stone carvings of various deities going back
2500+ years. Although the sign "do not touch the exhibits" is
everywhere no one seemed to pay attention. We got a nice overview
of the basics of the Hindu religion, and how Brahma, Krishna and Vishnu
are related, as well as the story of the god Ganesha and how he got his
elephant head. A very interesting visit -
check out the link to the
museum site.
Of course we were driving everywhere, and this is probably a good spot
to show you what driving in Hyderabad, and presumably much of the rest
of India is like. This is a city of 6.5 Million people and
apparently only a few were out on Sunday. The driving is crazy,
and although there is an order to it it's much more fluid than we're
used to. Center lines and lanes are more recommendations that
laws, as is a red light. Might makes right is more the order of
the day, as is that the larger vehicles rule the road. And yet
with all this we saw no accidents, though almost every turn is a near
miss.
Here's some quick shots of what driving around is like - what you see
as you look out your window.
Hyderabad is primarily a Muslim city and although you do see plenty of
Hindus, and the occasional Christian (John our guide is one), much of
the architecture and daily life revolves around Islam:
This is the typical kind of yellow cab you see all around the city:
Arabic writing is everywhere, and it is not uncommon to see
fully-covered Muslim women:
Finally we parked at the Bazaar at Charminar, which is both an area of
the city as well as the location of a monument, which is next to a very
large mosque. This is what the bazaar looks like - people selling
everything from food, phones, bangles, beads, clothes, pots, pans,
etc. They've been doing this for hundreds of years in this
spot. Some of the food looks like it's been here that long as
well.
This is a monument to the victims of a plague which came through the
area in the late 1500s, or according to other books, to the sultan's
mistress. Sorry for the rotated pictures, I'll change those when
I return.
We were definitely a curiosity - an unusual and occasionally
uncomfortable feeling. We don't speak the language and we
certainly don't fit in- most just observed from a distance, some
would come and smile and nod, others would ask for money, treats or
chocolates. The little girl followed me everywhere and wouldn't
go away until John gave her 2 rupees. She had an older sister,
maybe 9 years old, who actually argued with him, saying "she would hold
Ma'am's hand" if we didn't pay her.
This is the mosque, which holds 3,000 inside and 7,000 in the plaza
outside. You have to leave your shoes outside, and I was not sure
about doing that, expecting them to be gone. But we paid a woman
10 rupees each to hold our shoes and they were there when we
returned. That's about 25 cents. If you look at the picture
from the book below, the side building holds the tombs of the Nizams,
who were the rulers of Hyderabad from 1724 until the Indian Army forced
union in 1947. At least one had a makeshift shrine on it, and
some locals asked us to throw flowers on it.
Women can't enter the mosque, so it was up to me to do it. It was
closed when we got there, but they opened it for me and John. The
large covered item hanging from the ceiling is one of about 6 Belgian
chandeliers, used mostly during Ramadan. You can also see some of
the fancy work on the ceiling. I made a 10 rupee donation to the
shrine, in the center of the wall on the picture with the
chandelier. I was quiet and respectful and let John do the
talking.
By this time Rachel was starting to get approached for money by the
locals so it was good we got out when we did. John got a shot of
us with the Charminar in the background (notice we're still barefoot),
then took us over to a black marble bench where, if you sit on it,
tradition has it that you will return to Hyderabad. We did.
Back to recover our car, pay off the little girls with their 2 rupees,
and get some water (12 rupees = 25 cents), then off to some
shopping. Below is the Osmania Hospital, built in 1925.
We then wanted to do some shopping, and Hyderabad is one of the world's
premier places to buy pearls. For hundreds of years it's been a
common trade route and the locals have built a reputation for having
the best expertise and workmanship. We saw some amazing items
with beautiful workmanship, and in colors ranging from white, to cream,
to peach, to bluish, to grey and black. This shop apparently has
a great reputation, and the owner proudly showed us his photographs of
important people who have shopped there, including Hillary &
Chelsea, Jonathan Bush, and a large photo album with business cards
from many companies you have heard of, and who we do business with. So
we felt pretty comfortable that it was a place of good repute.
Plus he has a shop on 47th street so if we have any problems we can
stop there too. But you'll have to wait until we return to find
out what, if anything, we bought.... (Ooh, the anticipation!)
After this we asked if we could go by Golconda Fort, which was another
option we started the tour with. Rachel didn't want to do that
because you have to climb 400+ stairs to get to the top and we're just
adjusting to the heat, which was in the low 90's and humid but not
dreadful. But since they were driving we thought we'd like to see
it, even if it's closed and we can't go inside. There was
originally a 12th century mud fort here, which was rebuilt over 62
years from 1518 to 1580 and has mosques, palaces and gardens within
it. It also protected a huge hoard of diamonds, includig the
Kohinoor diamond, which is now part of the British crown jewels.
Here are some pictures of the fort, and what you see around it or going
to/from it:
The moon rising over Golconda, and Rachel with John, our guide.
On the way back to the city from Golconda, we stopped at the Qutb Shahi
Tombs, which is where the rulers prior to the Nizams were buried, so
this dates from the late 1500s to early 1700s. We had to pay 20
rupees each to get in, and that included a single camera.
Apparently it would have been more if we brought two...
Some of the tombs are in better shape than others;
This is the tomb of Queen Hayat Baksh Begum, built in the late 1600s,
outside and inside. In the foreground on the left picture is a
small mosque the emperor had built while the tomb for his wife was
being built, so he could worship while supervising the
construction.
The emperor's mosque:
He also had a larger mosque built next to the tomb, which has some
beautiful stonework:
Here's some views of downtown Hyderabad from the Queen's tomb, and what
the area looks like.
Then it was back to the city. You've already seen pictures of
what the traffic is like, but you haven't seen it until you've seen it
in full motion. So for your final viewing pleasure, those who
would like to download a few meg of AVI files can see and hear what
Hyderabad traffic is really like. Enjoy!
"This is only 10% of the traffic as on a normal
day" (5.6 MB)
The ins and outs of traffic (7.2 MB)
We returned about 6:30 and decided to go to one of the hotel
restaurants for dinner, at 7:30. I was watching some cricket and
I started hearing these odd noises outside. I hit mute, noticed
it was 7:00 and listened - it was the call to prayer on loudspeakers
outside. I guess we really are in a Muslim city....
Dinner was very interesting, at Dakshin, the "Finest South Indian
Restaurant in the land". We had fantastic service, drank a bottle
of red indian wine (sweeter than the offered Australian wine), and had
some pretty spicy foods. They start you off with 4 chutneys of
varying spiciness, from a little hot to pretty hot. They served
us some roti and little spicy rice cakes and also some dried peppers
that had been soaked in yogurt then dried. I was doing pretty
well until the peppers, and the beginning was fine - but the end where
all the seeds accumulated put me over the edge! Rachel did real
well and tried everything. For dinner we ordered some prawns,
mine in a masala sauce, and Rachel's in a milder coconut milk
sauce. Both were excellent and Rach even had a few of my masala
ones. They also served us paratha, a nice folded bread, and some
fried banana cakes. MMM... For dessert Rachel ordered a
sweet coconut milk pudding which was as sweet as the spicy food was
hot. Too sweet for me, so she ate both.
After that meal, it was back to the room to get ready for our first
work day. We'll see what that brings!