17th to 21st Feb 2017
Hyderabad & Challapalli, Andhra Pradesh, India.
This 4-day trip was a mix of wedding invitees, catching up with a relative, new city travel & a make-shift vacation. Here’s what went down and how;
I journeyed by bus from Pune one night, and reached the city of Nizams the next morning, halting at Lakdi Ka Pul.
Day 1
Lakdi Ka Pul, one of the oldest suburbs in Hyd, derives its name from a bridge made of wood. Caught a local rickshaw and headed towards Secunderabad. On the way, I see Hussain Sagar which is a heart-shaped lake in Hyderabad built by Ibrahim Quli Qutub Shah in 1563. The lake is fed by the river Musi, and a large statue of Gautama Buddha stands in the middle at 58 feet, making it the world’s tallest monolithic statue of the Buddha.
Next, I reach Secunderabad Club, the wedding reception venue, and my stay for the night. Entering the huge & beautiful property, the first thing to come to my mind was “I should have carried my skateboard, the terrain is so marvelous” (it was a long debate with myself before I left without it). Next was all the serenity & greenery surrounding every structure. I finally reached my room and went to the backyard, where all I found was more serenity.
On the day of the wedding, the morning passed with the basics. The ceremonies were scheduled in the evening and I decided to make the most of the day, while I caught up with a relative, who at the time was stationed in the city. I met him at noon near the Secunderabad post office and started off towards the Char Minar, which is a 15th-century mosque located on the east of the Musi River.
The Char Minar has an interesting epic about it, here’s a link for further reading. We couldn’t enter the magnificent structure since it was a Friday afternoon and it was prayer time for the Islamic community. So we decided instead of waiting around for hours, let's move on to the next place, which was interestingly the Birla Science Museum. Besides a full floor dedicated to the working of physics and another floor to the ancient civilizations, the floor that stood out the most to me was the Dinosaurium. The space showcased fossils found in our own country. Right from clusters of dinosaur eggs to gigantic snail shells. The biggest attraction was the rare and magnificent fossil of the Dinosaur, Kotasaurus, belonging to the Lower Jurassic age, going back to about 160 million years. The fossils were collected from Yamanpalli in the Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh.
After which we visited the Birla Temple that’s a 5 min uphill walk from the science center. This (1976) temple is built on a 280 feet high hillock in the center of the city, constructed with a mighty quantity of white marble, popularly known for the picturesque view.
For lunch, we stopped at the famous Paradise restaurant, most known for the heritage it carries and the guests it’s hosted during its decades of service, and of course for the famous Hyderabadi biryani. Then I started back towards the club for the wedding reception, which turned out to be an absolute blast and went well into the night with a bunch of (well-informed, think journalists and lawyers) friends. Actually going into the morning with some good conversations & excitement for what was in store the next day.
Day 2
The next day, past sunrise we left for Challapalli, a small village near Vijayawada & Machlipqatnam. After a seven-hour drive & informative conversations, we finally reached the heart of the village, the grand ancestral house of the groom’s family. Spent the rest of the evening settling down in the quiet town. Of course, the village sleeps at sundown.
However the few of us star-eyed peeps, needed some more adventure to close on the celebrations of our friends' union in love, post midnight, when all the guests were gone, four of us including the bride & groom set out in an old school type offroader, through the dark terrains of farmlands & hills. Spent some time under the bright stars, and that was the best memory I took back from this travel.
Day 3
The next day again was an early one for a traditional pooja, a tasty heavy banana leaf lunch, and some packing. We had a lift from the village to Vijayawada. Caught a state bus, which was surprisingly super clean and luxury filled, and headed straight to Hyderabad. Reached our room at 2 am, ate some more, and called it a night. Two friends traveling back to the city with me had a flight to catch at 4 am in the morning and found their way out.
Day 4
I started my day a little after sunrise, first to the Qutub Shahi Tombs/ 7 Tombs, what a marvelous place!
Neighboring the 7 tombs is the Golkonda Fort, which was a citadel and fort in Southern India and was the capital of the medieval sultanate of the Qutb Shahi dynasty. The 12th-century city and the fortress built on a 480 ft high granite hill is spread across approximately 11 km. Magnificent diamonds are believed to have been excavated from the mines of Golkonda, including the Koh-i-Noor, the Hope Diamond, the Nassak Diamond & Daria-i-Noor, or “Sea of Light”.
After a long uphill climb in the middle of the afternoon heat, we descended down and hopped to the next spot, Chowmahalla Palace. The name literally translates to four palaces. It was the official residence of the Nizams of Hyderabad and remains the property of their heirs. This 18th-century cluster of structures originally covered 45 acres, but only 12 acres remain today. An interesting find was the clock tower that has been ticking away for the past 250+ years.
The palace also hosts an extremely famous collection of vintage and rare cars. Including the 1912 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost custom-built by Barker for the Nizam as a ceremonial coach, a Fiat limousine, a Napier, a Wolseley Ford Tourer, a 1952 Packard 200 deluxe touring sedan, and a convertible 1947 Buick among many more motor gems.
After a well-filled handful of days, I had a bus booked for my return home. Caught a late bus back, reminisced, and of course slept like a log most of the way 🙂 All in all the 4 days since I left home, felt like more than a week. Filling all those days with activity was one of the best things I could have planned.
Until the next step, keep the knees in motion!
Photo images were caught on a basic phone camera & owned by me.
