Hanging Out in Hyderabad - the Birla Mandir, Lumbini Park and the Buddha Statue

Saturday afternoon in Hyderabad was spent at the Salar Jung museum.  It has a huge collection of sculptures, paintings, textiles, ceramics, clocks, carpets and so on from Japan, China, Burma, Nepal, India, Persia, Europe and North America.  It was all collected by Salar Jung III and is the biggest one-man collections of antiques in the world.

After the museum we went to the Birla Mandir, a Hindu temple built on a hill.  It was very beautiful and had a great view out over the lake.  It was built in 1976.

From the Birla Mandir we walked down through Lumbini Park to the Hussain Sagar lake and took a ferry out to the Buddha Statue in the middle of the lake.  Hundreds of labourers took over a year to create this enormous statue, which is the world's tallest monolithic statue of Buddha.  The cost of constructing is was around 3 million US dollars.  The statue was supposed to be erected in the lake in 1990, but an accident on the barge meant it tipped and fell into the lake, killing 10 people.  It was finally pulled out of the lake and erected 2 years later.

Hanging Out in Hyderabad - Chowmahalla Palace

On our second day in Hyderabad we went to the Chowmahalla Palace in the morning.  In Persian chahar means four and in Arabic mahal mean palace  so it's a place of 4 palaces.  It is believed to have been modelled on the Shah of Iran's palace in Tehran, and was the palace of the Nizams of Hyderabad while they ruled the state.  The palace is still owned by their heirs - who now live in Australia.

The Khilwat Mubarak is the heart of the palace.  There is a grand pillared Durbar Hall with a marble platform for the royal seat.  This is the place where religious and other symbolic ceremonies took place.  Throughout this hall there are chandeliers of Belgian crystal.

Outside this is the clock tower above the main gate.  It's known as the Khilwat Clock and has been ticking away for more than 250 years.  A local family of clock repairers winds the clock every week. 

Hanging Out in Hyderabad - the Charminar, bangles, perfumes and pearls

Our final stop for the day was the Charminar, right in the old part of Hyderabad.  It was constructed in 1591 as both a monument and a mosque.  It's one of the most recognized structures of India.  It was built to commemorate the eradication of the plague and the start of the second Islamic millennium year - in fact the city of Hyderabad itself was founded by Qutb Shah to celebrate this millennium.

Around the Charminar there are many shopping streets - the most famous things to buy here are pearls, bangles and perfumes (I bought some of each).

Hanging Out in Hyderabad - Qutb Shahi Tombs

After spending time at the Fort, we took a short ride out to the Qutb Shahi Tombs.  There are 72 monuments in this heritage park, which are now being renovated by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture - this renovation is expected to take around 10 years.  

The tombs are domed structures that are built on a square raised platform.  The architectural style is a blend of Persian, Pashtun and Hindu, with intricately carved stonework.  At one time the tombs were furnished with carpets, chandeliers and velvet canopies.  Copies of the Koran were kept on pedestals and readers recited verses at regular intervals.  Golden spires were fitted over the tombs of the sultans to distinguish them from those of other royals.

The restoration work so far has removed modern material like cement, and the original features are being restored with traditional materials.  Some of the Persian tiles have been revealed as part of this process.  

Tomb of Sultan Quli Qutb Shah

Hanging Out in Hyderabad - Golconda Fort

I went for a long weekend to Hyderabad with Jenni.  While it's now a booming cyber-city, it has a very long history and that was what we were mostly concerned with.

On the morning of our first day in Hyderabad we went to the Golconda Fort, which was once the capital of the medieval sultanate of the Qutb Shahi dynasty.  The fort area is huge.  It's full of pavillions, gates, entrances, mosques and domes.  

The fort used to have a vault where the Koh-i-Noor diamond was stored, along with other diamonds.

More Music

We enjoyed the Mahindra Blues Festival for the 3rd year - and luckily as we are now living in Bandra it's just a short walk to the Mehboob Studios, and Indian film and recording studio founded by director and producer Mehboob Khan.  Top of the bill was Joss Stone.  What a great night!  

A weekend in the wineries

For the second year in a row, we travelled to Nashik, around 4 hours outside of Mumbai, for the Sula Fest.  This is a 2 day musical festival in the Sula Vineyards.  As well as the music, we were able to spend a morning in the town of Nashik itself.  We also went to visit a mineral museum - Nashik is one of the highest cities in Maharashtra and lies on the western edge of the Deccan Plateau which is a volcanic formation, and many interesting minerals are found there.  

The city is situated at the foothills of the Western Ghats mountains on the banks of the river Godavari. There are many Hindu temples around Nashik, as it is a site of pilgrimage.  The Kumbh Mela takes place here once every 12 years and attracts over 100 million people.  The city also features in the Ramayana story.  On the Sunday morning we went there were many people immersing themselves in the water, and others using it for doing the weekly wash!

There were all sorts of weird and wonderful things on sale as we wandered around the streets.

We ate at the Sula Vineyards and also did a vineyard tour and sampled some of their new wines.

The Australian Band, The Cat Empire, were my favourite band at the Sula Fest, however all the bands we saw on Saturday were great.

The following day we went to another vineyard (York) which was actually much more picturesque than Sula.  We again had a nice tasting, followed by lunch.