As usual the days were passing with boring office and plain weekends. One day Shyam (well, her full name is Shyamala, my roommate for 4 yrs in Mysore) called up asking me to accompany her to Hyderabad for her visa interview. Frankly speaking, wanted to go to Hyderabad as I never got a chance to visit this happening city, as my Telugu colleagues say it so. I agreed up on and we planned to go 2 days in advance so that we can visit places over there and may be some shopping although Blore is no less than it for shopping stuffs. I was worried only about this 12 hrs lengthy journey in the bus as we could not get train tickets.
We had the bus at 9:00 PM in the evening from mejastic. This time I thought i'll ask my friend to drop me to the bus stand in Bike instead of taking usual BMTC Bus so that I can go with out any hassles or last minute rush. But all in vain, though we started at 8,the traffic made us to reach the bus stand only at 9:10 pm. Luckily Shyam had reached earlier with tickets so that she could stop the bus for me. As soon as I reached, every one in the bus were very happy as the driver was waiting for me to board the bus. talking in lighter side, I felt as if the world is stopping for me to move on.. he he h he... As usual A/C bus and coz i get sleep only after late nights, i forced the conductor to put some movies in the so called DVD Player. Was lucky to see some good stuff (AmruthaDhaare, a quite famous Kannada movie) and then sleep until we reached City of Pearls, Hyderabad.
As soon as we reached there, we had Shyam's cousin to pick us up from Bus Stand to His apartments. I was more happy that the family would be leaving to another city for a wedding leaving two of us behind all alone in the house for next two days. by afternoon, it was only me and shyam in an unknown city in an unknown apartment. We were not even sure of the area where we were staying but we had loads of plans to roam around the city with help of Anand (unfortunately, he was also out of town for some wedding) over the cell phone talks.
Both of us wanted to roam in the city in public transport rather than hiring a city taxi thinking of getting better view about the city. I personally feel that if u are travelling to any city in India, you should go by public transport to see the real India and i love such weird but interesting trips, I get to think a lot and may be learn a lot sometimes. We immediately planned to go to Birla temple and Golkonda Fort but then settled with only Golkonda fort for that day as we got ready to go out only at 4PM. But we also wanted to book travel to Film city for the next day. We somehow managed to get an auto near the apts and asked him to take us to near by travel center for film city tour. We booked the tickets and with the help of the travel center guy, took an auto to Medhipatnam after so much of fighting for the fare. At medhipatnam, we were not even sure of how to reach Golkonda and was trying to call up Anand that i heard some one screaming from a nearby TT that it will go to Golconda. With out second thought we boarded the TT and he took us to golkonda for for just 10 Bucks. By the time we reached, shyam was so tired that she had a Masala soda on road side vehicle which she said was awesome. well, i took a mineral water bottle (not coz, i hate road side stuffs but coz i dont drink soda). It took an hour for us to reach the top of the fort and in fact i liked it because it resembled my place, bellary with so many big stones. But it was not so beautiful as i had seen in many telugu movies. but then shyam was tired of seeing only stones and insisted that we will go to shopping rather than staying there. But then i called up this stupid colleague of mine who is from Hyderabad and asked him about the so called light and sound show which happens at the fort everyday. In his words, it is one of the very interesting thing to watch and not to be missed and its much more beautiful than the Musical fountain at Brindavan gardens in KRS, Mysore. Flattered by his statement we stayed back for the show to begin paying 100 rs per person. Let me tell you, the show was not even worth of 20 Rs. All I could listen to was the story of the fort but with too many unnecessary songs (like a Bollywood movie) and saw the mixture of different shades of light thrown on these age old stones in the fort and above that mosquitoes all over the place forcing us to hate the show even more. Finally, the show was over and we hurried to catch the same old TT to go back to medhipatnam. While we were seated in TT, i remembered that we dont know where exactly to go. All we knew is Ashok nagar, Gandhi nagar and RCTX road. but dont know either the street name, which main or the apt name.
We had the bus at 9:00 PM in the evening from mejastic. This time I thought i'll ask my friend to drop me to the bus stand in Bike instead of taking usual BMTC Bus so that I can go with out any hassles or last minute rush. But all in vain, though we started at 8,the traffic made us to reach the bus stand only at 9:10 pm. Luckily Shyam had reached earlier with tickets so that she could stop the bus for me. As soon as I reached, every one in the bus were very happy as the driver was waiting for me to board the bus. talking in lighter side, I felt as if the world is stopping for me to move on.. he he h he... As usual A/C bus and coz i get sleep only after late nights, i forced the conductor to put some movies in the so called DVD Player. Was lucky to see some good stuff (AmruthaDhaare, a quite famous Kannada movie) and then sleep until we reached City of Pearls, Hyderabad.
As soon as we reached there, we had Shyam's cousin to pick us up from Bus Stand to His apartments. I was more happy that the family would be leaving to another city for a wedding leaving two of us behind all alone in the house for next two days. by afternoon, it was only me and shyam in an unknown city in an unknown apartment. We were not even sure of the area where we were staying but we had loads of plans to roam around the city with help of Anand (unfortunately, he was also out of town for some wedding) over the cell phone talks.
Both of us wanted to roam in the city in public transport rather than hiring a city taxi thinking of getting better view about the city. I personally feel that if u are travelling to any city in India, you should go by public transport to see the real India and i love such weird but interesting trips, I get to think a lot and may be learn a lot sometimes. We immediately planned to go to Birla temple and Golkonda Fort but then settled with only Golkonda fort for that day as we got ready to go out only at 4PM. But we also wanted to book travel to Film city for the next day. We somehow managed to get an auto near the apts and asked him to take us to near by travel center for film city tour. We booked the tickets and with the help of the travel center guy, took an auto to Medhipatnam after so much of fighting for the fare. At medhipatnam, we were not even sure of how to reach Golkonda and was trying to call up Anand that i heard some one screaming from a nearby TT that it will go to Golconda. With out second thought we boarded the TT and he took us to golkonda for for just 10 Bucks. By the time we reached, shyam was so tired that she had a Masala soda on road side vehicle which she said was awesome. well, i took a mineral water bottle (not coz, i hate road side stuffs but coz i dont drink soda). It took an hour for us to reach the top of the fort and in fact i liked it because it resembled my place, bellary with so many big stones. But it was not so beautiful as i had seen in many telugu movies. but then shyam was tired of seeing only stones and insisted that we will go to shopping rather than staying there. But then i called up this stupid colleague of mine who is from Hyderabad and asked him about the so called light and sound show which happens at the fort everyday. In his words, it is one of the very interesting thing to watch and not to be missed and its much more beautiful than the Musical fountain at Brindavan gardens in KRS, Mysore. Flattered by his statement we stayed back for the show to begin paying 100 rs per person. Let me tell you, the show was not even worth of 20 Rs. All I could listen to was the story of the fort but with too many unnecessary songs (like a Bollywood movie) and saw the mixture of different shades of light thrown on these age old stones in the fort and above that mosquitoes all over the place forcing us to hate the show even more. Finally, the show was over and we hurried to catch the same old TT to go back to medhipatnam. While we were seated in TT, i remembered that we dont know where exactly to go. All we knew is Ashok nagar, Gandhi nagar and RCTX road. but dont know either the street name, which main or the apt name.
With strong mind, we took an auto to RCTX Road.. As soon as we reached there, asked driver to take the route to Ashok Nagar road, mean while tried calling up Shyam's cousin but went in vain as the number was not reachable (switched off).. Tried continuously for 15 minutes, and roamed in gallies of Ashok Nagar to find out the apartment.. Asked to the roadside people if they know any apartment with the name.. but everyone was kind of laughing at us...Finally by Gods grace, Shyam's cousin called us at the right moment... :) And we reached house before it was too late...
Next day, woke up early in the morning so that we could catch the bus to Film city at 8AM. I was so excited but.. but the excitement was completely gone when it took almost 3 hrs for us to reach Film City.. But got charged up after having Breakfast and snacks at Film City... The day went good, had lot of fun over there and reached home after a long tiring day..
Next day, Monday Shyam had her interview scheduled... By Sunday evening, There was huge chaos in Hyderabad, in fact whole AP for Telangana fight.. So we had difficulty on Monday to reach out to the US Consulate. We managed to reach by taking help of Shyam's friend. We had big plans of shopping in and around Amerpeth.. Since the people called for a Bundh in hyderabad, went back home after the interview and took some rest and got ready to leave to Bangalore in the evening.
This is how ended my Hyderabad trip.. All in all, it was not so good as i expected but we enjoyed it a lot though...
