Nelson’s Weblog

I tried to see all of the famous sites of Hyderabad this weekend. On Saturday, I went to the seven Qutb Shahi Tombs and Golkunda Fort. My first stop was the tombs. From what I understand, they are tombs for seven Qutb kings, who ruled the area about 500 years ago. Someone also told me the fifth king is the one who built Charminar, which is where I went the next day. Anyway, the tombs are now mostly falling apart, but they are still pretty impressive. While I was walking around the seven tombs, I could see a big fort up on a hill about a kilometer away (functioning on the metric system these days), so that’s where I decided to go next.

The neatest thing about the Golkunda fort is the acoustics — you can clap at a spot near the entrance gate and hear it at the very top of the citadel, and the other way around works too. This would seem to be handy to help ward off invaders, but apparently not handy enough; emperor Aurangzeb conquested the fort in 1687.

Climbing the 380 steps to the top of the fort (and back down) sure worked up my appetite. Hyderabad is famous for its biryani, so I decided to go get some at a place near the fort. Most people eat it with their fingers, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Here’s a picture of a spoonful of my chicken biryani:

On Sunday, I visited Charminar. Here’s how it looks from below:

I really like the combination of square and curvilinear forms in the structure, but the best part about it is they let you climb up to the top. Upon hearing this, I went straight to buy my ticket:

There are really narrow, spiraling staircases in two of the towers. When you get to the top, you have a really great view of the streets below. It’s pretty scary because there are no railings, but luckily nobody pushed me.

I posted a lot of pictures here already, and I plan to keep updating that album during my trip. I must say that India is beating my expectations so far. Keep the Palak Paneer coming.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 8:36 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.