Unfortunately, I was really in a foul mood for this entire trip (As was my business partner). I would have gone to Mysore, but me body was so sore from traveling and my head was reeling from the work part of the trip, I pretty much just hung at my hotel when I was in Bangalore.
My view from the hotel room in Bangalore. Notice the nice pool and hot tub behind it in the middle - relaxing, eh?
You too can enjoy the soothing sounds while relaxing at our pool and hot Tub for $450/night, and yes, it was like this all night.
All in all, Bangalore was a nice place, but super-expensive. The upshot was that our hotel had 5 ultra-fancy restaurants in it and I ate like a pig - not to mention looking, smelling and acting like a pig. I could post more pictures from inside the hotel, but what's the point. Anyway, next we were off to Hyderabad. We took the local airline for that, which was an experience - similar to the local Philippine airlines. The flight was delayed 3 hours. We learned later that all flights are late. This is such a norm that in Hyderabad (Unlike the Philippines), they only post flight numbers - no departure times.
Turns out that January 15 is a holiday in India (nobody bothered to tell us until we already had everything booked), so, that's the day we went sight-seeing. First we went to Necklace Road which circumnavigates the Hussain sagar lake which was hand dug by peasants in 1562. It has a budda in it which was put up in 1992 and blessed by the Dali Lama. We then went to Lumbini Park where you can catch a boat to the Budda statue.
If you want closer photos, let me know and I'll post them. We then went to Birla Mandir Hindu Temple. Interesting things to note, it was entirely made of marble, it was a Hindu religious holiday when we went, no cameras were allowed AND the guard at the top was using the same Damascus steel, 1898, Remington side by side double barreled, dual trigger hammerless shotgun that Grandpa Masters used to hunt with... yeah (You'll have to take me at my word since there were no cameras allowed ;-) )! Here's an ok wiki of Birla Mandir.Next we went to India's version of disney world meets Universal Studios. We spent as little time there as humanly possible. It was nice, but we really were more interested in old stuff... We then checked out Charminar. It's surrounded by a bustling market. I don't have a good picture of the monument. Next time I go to Hyderabad, I'll go back and check this thing out. It's a mosque built to commemorate the eradication of the plague.
Pretty ok street shot near Charminar:
From there we went to the place we were most interested in and spent the least amount of time - Fort Golconda. It was the excavation site of the Hope Diamond and was for years the only known diamond mines in the world. We had a kick-butt tour guide, but no time. He was tough to keep up with. I have very few pictures that came out since it was getting dark. This is from the top looking down at the Harem Quarters.
I'd rather talk than type :-) So, if you want to know more about it, read some wiki pages and/or call me.
3 comments:
Reminds me a lot of Cairo - especially the marketplace with portions of the old city, and definitely the SOUNDS of the constant flow of honking traffic.
hilarious video!
I knew the video would be appreciated. True story - I was talking to M on the phone when I was in Bangalore when she told me "Shut the windows in your hotel room, the traffic is annoying". The sad truth was... they were already shut!
-P
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