Two trips into Hyderabad later....So on Tuesday we ventured into Hyderabad. We began our excursion at the gates of Chaminar,the beautiful turkish gates of the Mughal kings who moved the capital of Andra Pradesh from its previous location at the Golkonda Fort on the hill overlooking today's modern Hyderabad. We surveyed the marketplace from above, and obliged the few onlookers requesting photos with us before venturing down the winding stairs again to navigate the busy bazar. The word "Bazar" comes from Hindi and means a marketplace with different vendors. We found Justin some super cheap "slippers" aka flip flops with the help of our driver who steared us away from a overpriced pair. Then I was lured in by a bangal cart and did some bargaining of my own. We then discovered a banana wallah who sold us the smallest and sweetest bananas I've ever tasted.
From Chaminar we moved onto the gates of Golkonda Fort. We climbed hundreds of steps to survey the beautiful city views in the Andra heat, we were quite hot. After our fort hike we navigated an hour or so of traffic with the help of our gracious driver, Prashantragi, and ended at Paradise Hotel, the most famous restaurant for Hyderabadi Biryani. For all of you wondering hotel is one of those cultural phrases that could mean hotel as we think of it in the west, but also can just mean a restaurant. You can tell the difference with whether or not the word "residency" is used. Justin was fascinated by all the separate gender hostels and businesses. For example you'll see a photo store that takes pictures of just ladies, or a ladies dress and saree shop, or a gent's hostel.
Before going back to the resort we made our way to the beautiful Birla Mandir, a hindu temple made completely of white marble set high on a hill overlooking Hyderabad from the south side of the city. This was our first temple visited in India, besides the small village ones near our resort. The small village ones we didn't really feel we could get the whole experince as they were locked up behind gates, and there weren't priests there to give their blessings. At Birla Mandir we began by ascending the many steps until we reached the Sai Baba shrine, and then made our way through the beautiful gardens or "baghs" to the interfaith explanations of religion. It began with Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. There was a small blurb for each religion with the main teachings from the major texts, and then a sort of synopsis of how to live a good life from the perspective of some great teachers of each faith. It is so amazing to see it simplified like this and realize how similar the world's major religions actually are. Leave it to the Hindu temple to spell it out for me.
All in all I think we are close to adjusted to India. We have had time out on our own away from the protective walls of the resort, and guided ourselves to and from the crazy city and traffic of Hyderabad. What first seemed liked streets we could never attempt to cross we are now forging and making our way slowly out of our shells into the Indian unknown.
