Hyderabad

The second steps of our Indian trip was: Hyderabad!

As we are trying to be as ecofriendly as possible we decided to travel by train within the country during our trip. We therefore took the sleeper train called Hyderabad Express, not so express as it still took us 17h to reach our destination, from Mumbai. To get the perfect Indian train experience, our train also got delayed by 1h30...

The first part of the journey was very nice, I felt like I was in a movie enjoying the beautiful landscape by the wide open door of the wagon, hair in the wind...
A little while after the sunset our "berthmates" decided it was already time to go to bed, we therefore had to stay in our upper bed until the next morning. The comfort of the train itself was very good (we took second class A/C), expect maybe for the beds being quite hard and the ride being quite rough and shaky at times.
   


 

We arrived around 6am at Hyderabad and after a well deserved nap at our hostel we went exploring the historical centre. Hyderabad has a very different feeling than Mumbai, a lot less of colonial architecture but an impressive range of Islamic one, dating from the 16th century.
Our only free day to explore the city was a Friday so mosques and palaces were closed to visitors for the prayer, but the bazaar and markets were very busy and vibrant.





 
Charminar Monument & Mosque



The most popular tourist attraction in Hyderabad is the Golconda Fort. 
Built approximately in the 12th century the fortress has been the capital of few different dynasties. Golconda is a sprawling complex built on a hill whose walls contain an entire village with temples and mosques. 
Technically advanced for its time, the fort is known for a magical acoustic system: a noise from the entrance can be heard at the highest point about a kilometre away. We learnt that later during our visit, and realized the dozen of tourists clapping were not mad but just trying to try that out.
We stayed after the sunset to watch a sound an light show narrating the intricate history of the fort, but it was a bit much for me and fell asleep half way through...
 











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