Life in the City of Pearls: Sights Around the City

I am a little behind on my posts. Last weekend a group of rotators and I went sight seeing around Hyderabad. There aren't many monuments to see within the city but we saw the highlights. First we went to Lumbini Park and Hussain Sagar (a lake in Hyderabad built by Hazrat Hussain Shah Wali in 1562) .We had very low expectations for this area as friends and colleagues had told us that the smell was strong and there wasn't much to do here. They weren't wrong. Each of us paid 10 INR (approximately 20 cents) and for the girls this included getting felt up in the "security" station. There wasn't much to see and very people around. We had discussed going on a boat ride to the middle to see the monolithic statue of the Gautama Buddha. However, the pictures were clearly photo shopped to show clear blue water when in reality it was green and there was no way any of us were paying to go across the lake. We did snap some good pictures of the statue from a distance.

Buddha Statue built in 1992

Alissa (Minneapolis), Tamar (Chicago), and I

No way we were going anywhere near there

Can't even tell this is India

After this we went to Birla Mandir, a Hindu temple built in 1976. The temple has separate shrines for various Hindu gods and goddess including Shiva, Shakti, Ganesh, Hanuman, Brahma, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Saibaba. Selected teachings of holy men and Gurbani are engraved on temple walls.This sight did not disappoint. I wish were allowed to take cameras with us but as it is a functioning temple we were not. In addition to no pictures, we had to remove our shoes and climb barefoot. We went at 2 pm and man was the marble hot on our feet. We received many strange looks and I had a group of little girls who were enamored by my blond hair and wanted to talk to me. Here are the only pictures were able to snap from the parking lot.

We ate at a really nice Asian/Indian restaurant after this before heading to the Golconda Fort. The Fort is a ruined fort of Southern India and capital of medieval Golconda Sultanate. It is just outside of the city A history lesson on the Fort.The city and fortress are built on a granite hill that is 120 meters high with 380 steps and is surrounded by massive crenelated ramparts. The beginnings of the fort date to 1143, when the Hindu Kakatiya dynasty ruled the area. The fort became the capital of a major province in the Sultanate and after its collapse the capital of the Qutb Shahi kings. The fort finally fell into ruins after a siege and its fall to the Mughals.

The Fort rose to prominence as the seat of the Qutb Shahi dynasty around 1507. Over a period of 62 years the mud fort was expanded by the first three Qutb Shahi kings into a massive fort of granite. It remained the capital of the Qutb Shahi dynasty until 1590 when the capital was shifted to Hyderabad. The Qutb Shahis expanded the fort, whose outer wall enclosed the city. It was eventually taken over by the Mughals through bribes.

We had heard there was a light show at dark and arrived at dusk to give us time to walk through the Fort and then end at the light show. As a group, we decided a guide was worth it since it was getting dark and we would end up lost. Not sure if he added value besides guidance as the sun was going down. The light show wasn't what we were expecting. Light show to us implied a laser show but rather it was a narrative on the history of the Fort with Lights. We left after 45 minutes and many bug bites. Below are the pictures from this last part of our adventure.