Charminar

Hyderabad - Today, we had our breakfast on the Executive floor on the 8th floor - spread is not as wide as downstairs but I still had my delicious mangoes.  One of the chosen by the waiter and it was really sweet.  I was told that the best season for mangoes are in the months of April to June.   Prior to that the mangoes are sour.

This time our taxi arrived on time and we reach our customer destination a bit late as the taxi driver was not sure where this Ascendas IT park was.  Completed the meeting and decided to use the same taxi driver to bring us to Charminar.  Booking another taxi is a lot of hassle and takes a long time for the taxi to arrive.

The town around Charminar was crowded with lots of people as it is the focal point for people to buys their groceries and stuff.   The Charminar was build by Mohammed Quli Qutub Shah in 1591, built in granite, lime, mortar and around which the state of Hyderabad sprung up.

Charminar

Charminar is a square structure with 4 towers in the four corners of the square, each of whose side is 20m in length.  We were queuing up to enter the Charminar until a tout pull us a side and said 'foreigner' come! come! - so we followed him to the front of the queue but the catch is that foreigners pay 20x the price - 100Rp for foreigners and 5Rp for locals.

View from the top of Charminar

View from another side of Charminar

Mecca Majid in the background

Mecca Majid is a mosque and a walking distance from Charminar.  It was named because the bricks were brought from Mecca to build the central arch. 

Mango hawker taken whilst waiting in front of the traffic police station

Went also to Nazim's Museum - below the museum is a school and we were the only people in the museum.  Entrance fee is 70Rs per person and the guide at the entrance made the museum a very interesting experience.  His knowledge of the artifacts and collections was very good and as a reward a 100Rs was his tip.   This museum had a man-pulled lift which I was told is the only such lift in the whole of India.  Amazingly it is still working.   I pulled one thick rope and the lift lowered, and another thick rope at the other end and it goes up - quite easy due to the physics of pulleys.

 Hyderabad Food Market

Did not have time to go to Chowmahalla Palace and Salar Jung Museum because it is closing soon so we decided to go back to Mariott.  Maybe next time....

My Silkair plane on the Hyderabad International Airport tarmac.