In Hyderabad

What struck me most about Hyderabad as soon as I stepped out of the airport was its wide roads and smooth flowing traffic. This, in spite of it being a work day and morning traffic. I guess being from Bangalore does that to you - it seemed quite unbelievable. On my way I passed by beautiful bungalows in Banjara Hills & Jubilee Hills and true to their names, these places had been hills as I could still see some rocks being cut to make space for another bungalow. But for me the best place was the sprawling campus of ISB in Gachhibowli. On entering the campus, for some distance you don't see anything except greenery and after about half a kilometre, the main structure - the Atrium suddenly appears. It is a huge circular building where classes and most of the academic activities are held. The circular courtyard is so huge that there were children practising roller-skating :). The weather was extremely good the first day making campus tour by Rajesh & Anshuman very pleasurable.

After seeing the new Hyderabad, it was time to discover the old one the next day. Unfortunately, it was hot, sunny & humid but that did not stop us from heading to Salar Jung Museum at Dar-ul-Shifa. It is a palace owned by the Salar Jung family who were the Diwans of Hyderabad Nizams. The museum houses personal collection of luxurious artifacts of the family - from Persian rugs, ivory horse-carriage, marble statues, paintings and sculptures from all over the world (Europe, China, Japan, Egypt). The main attractions in the museum were an Italian sculpture of 'Veiled Rebecca' whose sheer veil was so fine and her coy expression so real that Amit almost fell in love with her. The other main attraction - the tower clock was a little disappointing.

Once out of the museum, we headed straight to 'Eat Street' immediately owing to our hunger pangs. Eat Street is a food court like those in shopping malls - except there is no crowded shopping mall to spoil the fun .. just the beautiful (and a little dirty & sometimes stinky) Hussain Sagar lake along side. All three of us (Rajesh, Amit & me) ate almost everything that was available - frankies, button idlis, roomali rotis, paneer butter masala, Chinese, kulfi, falooda, rabdi ... yummm!

A short walk to the near-by Necklace Road MMTS station in hot sun was more than welcome. And there I saw, arguably the cleanest train station in India. It was quite unexpected because MMTS is not a metro rail but a regular local train service. It took just a 20 minute train ride to reach Hitec City which earlier in the day we had covered in more than 2 hrs!!

Next - Shilparamam.