Getting To The Heart of Hyderabad

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When I travel I like to have time to walk, to get away from the main tourist attractions and look deeper into the soul of the city I’m visiting. Sometimes I don’t like what I see, it can be disturbing and uncomfortable. But it’s also the only way to connect with the people and create some memorable interactions, and there’s no better place than India to experience this.

We have seen everything in Hyderabad, all the tourist attractions we’re interested in that is, so today decided to return to Charminar and spend some time walking deeper into the streets and laneways that branch off this main thoroughfare.

We left our hotel this morning, deciding to hail an auto rickshaw from the street. There’s plenty available and every one of them will stop and ask us where we’re headed. The first driver told us it would cost R2000, over $40, to take us to Charminar, we just laughed and walked away. The next guy said R120, just $2.45, for the same trip, so he had our business..

We spent hours walking through the streets, dodging traffic and stepping over and around goats and piles of litter, camera in hand. We’re an object of curiosity, and often people will stop and look at us, as if we’re the last thing they expected to see, especially this far away from the tourist attractions. We always show people the pictures we take of them and get the strangest reactions sometimes. One lady laughingly threw her hands over her face, embarrassed to see herself on a camera screen. The man in the white turban in the photos, preened himself when I asked if I could take his photo. He twirled the ends of his moustache, poked at his teeth and readjusted his clothing. When he saw the photo I took he made appreciative noises and gave a thumbs up, letting me know what a handsome man he still was. His friend was laughing in the background, as we all where. A memorable interaction which surmounted the language barrier.

We stop to talk to anyone, sometimes their grasp of English surprises us and sometimes we have problems understanding each other. Everyone is very accommodating and happy to pass the time of day with us. Sometimes just a smile or a hand raised in greeting is all that’s needed.

One place I had in the itinerary which we hadn’t yet visited was Purana Pul, Hyderabad’s first bridge over the Musi River and one of the oldest in Southern India. Built in 1578 it’s made of stone with 22 arches. So, we negotiated a rickshaw fare and headed into one of Hyderabad’s oldest and poorest neighbourhoods.

I had seen photos on the internet so had an idea of what the bridge looked like but that must have been a very outdated photo, the reality was very different.

Our rickshaw driver pulled up in the middle of the road, traffic swerving around us, and said ‘this is Purana Pul’. We looked around and couldn’t see a bridge, but paid our fare and got out anyway. He was right, the old bridge was there. The newer road had been constructed alongside Purana Pul and we couldn’t see the stone arches I knew the bridge had from that side.

For photos we had to walk across the bridge and take them from the opposite side. A fruit and vegetable market was in progress on the bridge, every inch filled with delapidated stalls and tired looking people. We walked through, got our photos and left straight away. Huge pigs were rooting around in the mud in the river, scrawny and malnourished dogs roamed freely. We didn’t need to be here any longer than necessary.

When we got back to Charminar, we were hot and hungry so started to look for somewhere to eat that didn’t involve sitting on a tiny plastic stool in the sun. We ended up at Anwar Cafe in Hotel New Udupi, in their luxury section where we were ushered, and had a battered laminated menu handed to us. This section had air conditioning, padded bench seats and possibly cleaner tables. It was vegetarian, so we ordered a fried rice dish, washed down with cold Pepsi, a small thing we really appreciated. We took two more Pepsi’s with us, the bill was $4. Ginny had bought two sets of melamine cutlery, complete with storage containers, which we pulled out and used. Once again, trying to lessen our chances of getting sick.

After lunch we jumped into yet another auto rickshaw and sat through the voyage from hell, as the young driver swerved his way through the traffic, sitting on his horn. He did get us back in one piece, and then had the audacity to demand a double fare, indicating what he quoted was per person. We didn’t pay up, we gave him the agreed price and left him to it. We always ask the fare upfront so everyone has clear expectations, and we won’t be intimidated into paying more than that.

This evening we headed back to Charminar. I had read that it was lit up with coloured lights between 7-9pm nightly so thought it would be worth seeing, Well, there were no coloured lights but everyone in Hyderabad must have been there. Laad Bazaar had doubled in size, all the shops were open and music was pumping from loud speakers set up around the streets which were heaving with people and traffic. We browsed with no intention of buying, returned to the street food stand we ate at earlier in the week for dinner and eventually found a rickshaw driver happy to brave the mad crazy traffic and get us back to the hotel.

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Photos

Rubbish in the streets
The rubbish is raked or dumped in one spot for collection. We saw goats eating vegetable rubbish from here.

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