Hyderabad Trip
July 13th, 2008This trip was unplanned and all suddenly emerged as weekend stress-buster trip. The 3 day trip started from friday evening. We left Bangalore at 7pm. Although, it was expected to reach by next 12 hours, bus took another two hours due to some unavoidable reasons.
Day 1: Our journey began with Golkonda Fort. It is located about 10 kms away on the west of Hyderabad. It is one of the magnificent forts that I have ever seen with splendid architecture. Fort is said to be 800 years old and built by Kakatiya King and later expanded by three Qutab Shahi Kings consecutively. As you enter the main gate, you will notice the magical acoustic system. A hand clap sounded at the main gate will be heard at the highest point of Golkonda which is almost a kilometer away. There are beautiful palaces, mosques and temples inside the fort. The whole fort has water supply system. When you visit, don’t forget to see the rock made small pipes attached to the walls of Golkonda fort. The fort is also designed to have well ventilation and flow of air. You can feel the breeze of air even at interior constructions.
After this, we moved to Charminar which is situated at the heart of the city. It is completely surrounded by shops of Lad Bazaar. Lad Bazaar is famous for pearls, diamonds, jeweleries and bangles. A must visit for girls. You can also see splendid view of Mecca Masjid from the western direction of top of charminar.
Birla Mandir is a temple built entirely with white marble. As you go up, temple gives a fantastic panoramic view of Hyderabad and Secundarabad.
Our last point of day one was Lumbini park. It is one of the beautiful parks of Hyderabad located at the banks of Hussain-Sagar Lake. The main attraction of the park is Laser Show. This multimedia show is first ever of its kind in India and is worth to watch it.
Day 2: Our day 2 started with Ramoji Film City. It is world’s largest film studio located 25 kms away from Hyderabad. It will take almost one day to see entire film city. If you have kids, don’t forget to take them there, they will surely enjoy it. By visiting, you can recap all those popular telugu films’ scenes and also some hindi movies. Buildings with each side having different architectures.. hospital, airport, railway station, library.. etc. You will see many such buildings.
After spending whole day at Ramoji Film City, we went to Hussain-Sagar Lake in the evening. This beautiful lake separates Hyderabad and Secunderabad. There is a magnificent Buddha statue in the middle of lake. We took speed boat race. Ride was fabulous. You can have the glimpse of night view of twin cities, buddha statue and calm lake.
Day 3: This was our last day at Hyderabad. we visited Shilparamam, an arts and crafts village. You will see many hand crafted materials here. There is also a rock gallery which has natural rock shapes and a village which shows village lifestyle. After this we left to Salarjung Museum. This museum is a must visit. It has so many things that you will feel tired to see all those. art pieces I couldn’t believe that it is one-man’s collections!. There is also one musical clock where for every hour a guardsman ,in the upper deck of clock , comes and strike the bell.
Rest of the day was reserved for some real shopping and some window shopping at the Necklace Road.
In total, it was rejuvenating 3-day trip. We travelled to all places through autos. Autos take you through shortcuts, inner roads of Hyderabad where you can see the lifestyle of urban Hyderabad.
All photos are stored at this link http://www.zooomr.com/photos/harsha/sets/33799/