Farewell To Hyderabad

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Today is our last day in Hyderabad and we have no real plans. Ginny has finished the novel she bought from home so we decided to head to the Taj Mahal Hotel in the neighbouring district of Abids. I knew there was a Sunday Book Market held on the footpath outside this hotel, so it seems like a good place to start on the hunt for a new read.

We were early, we saw more boxes of unpacked books than anything else but Ginny did find a Maeve Binchy novel which fit the bill. There were a lot of stands selling men’s clothing here, all piled up on the tables. The scooters belonging to buyers were parked along the side of the road in front of them, with absolutely no regard for the safety of pedestrians. Everyone walks along the road anyway, and with nothing else on our agenda we joined them and continued to browse the stands along the roadside, eventually walking all the way to Koti, the next district. We don’t worry about getting lost (we were), there are so many auto rickshaws in this city, getting a ride back to our hotel is never a problem.

We ended up at a local market which was held under the metro overpass. Hyderabad’s metro is relatively new, opened in 2017, and all the stations are above street level. We were amazed to see a row of buildings along one side of the market from which the front wall of the first and second floors had been demolished, exposing now empty rooms. There were shops still trading from the ground floors, so the buildings haven’t been completely knocked down.

The Koti area seemed to be the place to buy books. We found stacks of them piled up on the footpath, a lot of old reference books mainly which will probably never find a buyer. Once again we had lots of selfies with the local lads and lots of conversations. Everyone wants to know where we come from, where we’re going, how long we’re staying. When we say we’re from Australia, the guaranteed answer will be ‘Sydney Melbourne’. Apart from a German man and his son, whom we were chatting with in our hotel and who actually lived in Hyderabad, we haven’t seen any other foreigners here which surprises us.

We have missed lunch, with our wandering, so decided to return to the hotel and see what’s on offer there. It’s 3.00pm by now and lunch has been well picked over so we headed out again to a small grungy cafe down the road, where we’d been buying bottled water, and ordered vege rice from their menu. It came with a 250ml bottle of Pepsi and cost R60, just over a dollar each. It was delicious, with the usual chilli bite, a big meal which I couldn’t finish.

We have spent hardly a thing on food since our arrival, all meals costing a dollar or two. We have bought bananas and oranges for snacks, indulged in cornetto ice creams for 40 cents each and have muesli bars from home which live in our backpacks. We are eating less and walking more, doing at average of 15,000 steps a day.

We leave Hyderabad by train later tonight, with a private driver pickup scheduled for 7.00pm. He’s early, and waiting at reception at 6.30, when we come downstairs, so we waste no time in getting underway. Bags are stashed in his SUV and his driver heads to Kacheguda Railway Station from where we are catching the overnight sleeper train to Hospet Junction, which departs at 9.10pm. From Hospet we will find our own way to Hampi, half an hour away.

Our driver is responsible in getting our tickets from the ticket office for us, which were booked and paid for months in advance. There was a mix up here, which I found rather stressful, phone calls were made, my booking email checked, and then he disappeared to sort it out, leaving us in the waiting room with his driver. Finally he returned with a printout of our booking information. I breathed a sigh of relief... He got us on the right train, pointed out our berths and left. His wife was in hospital due to deliver his second child and he had better places to be.

Our train left on time. We are travelling in 2A class which is two tier berths with air conditioning. We had the lower bunks and the upper ones were occupied by two Indian men. One spoke limited English and disappeared during the night and other was an engineer heading back to work for the week. He spoke excellent English and actually gave us his phone number, saying if we had any problems in India to give him a call.

Due to a two hour layover at Guntakal Junction during the night, time spent waiting for another train which was to be coupled to ours, we’ll be late arriving in Hospet in the morning, which is probably better than the original 6.15am arrival time.

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Photos

Old lady in the street
She couldn’t speak a word of English but gave us a big smile and a rose heads from her basket

Electronic Repair Shop
I love the spiral staircase he’s using as a display counter