Hyderabad Trip (June 29 - July 2)

It was 8 pm on Friday. We were on some road.. anxiously waiting for our bus to come. We've got our tickets in hand. We had no dinner, but I figured.. I was not hungry anyway. At around 8.40 pm, the bus came. It didn't look so bad.
It was six of us: Alicia, Aloka, Brian, Hexin, Samuel, and myself. I couldn't wait; in another 11 hours, we'd be in Hyderabad. I have planned to drink very little water throughout the night, so I wouldn't need to get down the bus for a restroom. It's not so bad, except the A/C in the bus was very cold, and the blanket was smelly, so my throat got dry.. :'(. But I slept quite well that night, thanks God.

It's 6 am then. I could see we're getting closer to the city.. but seemed like not yet reaching the city. I really needed to go to the restroom, ah. After another hour, the bus driver declared his final destination. Cool!

So why were we there?
For some people, they wanted to see another city in India; might as well since they're here. For me, yeah.. that, too; and I also wanted to visit my friend's mom in Hyderabad. Not sure how this would happen, but IF it happened, it happened.

The 1st Day: Saturday, June 30
My friend Aloka lives in Hyderabad, so we planned to stay in her house. We took two rikshaws to get from the bus station to her house. My first impression of Hyderabad was.. it's a hi-tech city, has wider and cleaner roads, and the roads are less crowded. Both rikshaws stopped on a small road junction. We then took a 500-meter walk to my friend's house.
Black steel gate, huge garden, tall trees.. and a simple-looking two-storey house with green colored outside wall. "Looks good so far," I told to myself.
Inside.. nice and clean marble tiles, curvy stairs, huge rooms with huge king-size bed in each, a wardrobe and a bathroom in each. Very nice, and very clean. The two ladies and myself stayed in a room. The two guys stayed in another room, while Aloka stayed with her grandma.

All of us took a shower and got ready for a brunch, yaaay, couldn't wait!! Aloka's mom had rented a van with a driver, for us to get around. That was convenient.
The place we had brunch was called Chutneys. We had different varieties of what I believe a common south-Indian breakfast: steamed dosa, uttappams, mango lassi, various chutneys, poori,.. yummy!! What did I have? uh.. I forget :p, but I loved it, yum yum!

Next, my friend took us to Charminar. It's a big tower in the middle of the city. Somebody told me that it's where muslim people are called for prayer. The admission cost is 5 Rupees for Indians, and 200 Rupees for foreigners. It's not very expensive, but I didn't go up the tower. I figured it's good enough to see the city from down there. Some friends who went up took very nice pictures, showing how crowded the area around it was.
Basically the roads around Charminar were kinda closed for vehicles --except rikshaws -- and it was full of small shops. There were also a lot of sellers on the streets who offered us bangles, necklaces, earrings, and other things. They could get buggy, too. One boy asked me where I came from, offered his goods, then kept poking me and asking me to buy something. He followed me even though I have said no and continued walking. He is a nice boy though. We decided not to stay there for long, so we called the driver to pick us up.

The first day was full of sightseeing. After Charminar, we went to Qutub Shahi Tombs. It's a huge garden with tombs for the seven Qutub Shahi kings. One of the kings was Muhammed Quli Qutub, who was the founder of Hyderabad city. The seven tombs are in different buildings and are separated by huge gardens. The buildings are not renovated, so they look very historical. Some buildings are locked, so we couldn't see the tomb inside. Some buildings are interesting, like the one in the picture. There is the tomb, and no ceiling.

I was tired already by the end of touring the tombs. But there is one more place to visit: Sri Venkateshwara temple.
This temple is located higher on the hill, and is fully made of marble. We could see the Hyderabad city from the temple, very nice. They did not allow us to wear shoes or sandals, and to bring handbags and cameras, so we left them in the car and carried our purses only. I liked walking around the temple, and watching the city from the top, but it started raining so it's time to get home :).

I gave myself a good shower that evening. Quite a tiring day. But I looked forward for dinner! :P
We had dinner at a fine restaurant serving northern Indian dishes. We ordered dum aloo, a chicken dish (don't remember what it's called anymore), several plain dosa, and two kinds of briyani. I have a friend from the US, who is really fond in eating spicy (hot!) food. She can chew a small green chili and not feeling it that hot. So everytime she will look for more spicy food. This time, she was satisfied, and so were all of us. The food was yummy, but too spicy for me...

Wasn't that supposed to be the end of the day? Nooo... some people were very energetic. They wanted to chill out in the bar. Apparently there was a new bar near my friend's house, called the F bar. I wasn't happy about it, but it's ok. We didn't spend a long time anyway, only an hour.

That night, the three girls slept on a big king-size bed. We were exhausted, so we slept.. soon. That day was fun. Hoping tomorrow would be, too.