Musings of an Idiot

Golconda

Feeling a lot better today and the fever has almost subsided. I still feel a little weak at the moment. Today was eventful and we first went to Golcanda fort and spent half the day there. Instead of taking a tour bus {after the bad experience at Agra} we just took an auto-rickshaw and went to the fort by ourselves.

The Golconda fort is an amazing place and it is an architectural marvel, especially considering that it was built in the early 13th century. We decided to hire a guide and the decision was based on Lance's ability to understand the guide's english but after the first point the guides were changed and I ended up translating everything for Lance. Maybe I should have charged them a fee for my services. There are so many things about the fort that will take a long time but here is a link which will give you an idea.

At the soldier's barracks is a 250 K.G stone, which was used as an entrance criteria for the army. Any person who could lift that stone with a single hand was enrolled into the army. Lance tried doing it and the last I heard from him he said he might have pulled a shoulder muscle while attempting to do so. We did the whole fort with the tour guide and decided to do it on our own a second time round so that we could take some snaps and also explore it at our own convenience. The trip was funny because at one point a whole range of people caught Lance and had their photographs taken with him. I waited a fair bit of time but it didn't look like they were gonna leave Lance, so I decided to join in the fun and took photographs of Lance with the other half of his endeavors. At one point, I was in doubt that Lance might actually become an international monument within the fort. :-) I definitely can't wait to upload the photos once we get back to NZ. The rest of the trip within the fort was pretty uneventful. And the fort still amazes me as always. If only they took a little bit more care about it as far as cleanliness is concerned - afterall it is a national heritage monument.

In the evening, we went to Charminar and did some shopping across there. Hyderabad is famous for its pearls and I managed to get some beautiful pearls. I am kind of pleased over here because noone looks at me as a 'foreigner' and they do treat me as a local. My hindi and telugu accent doesn't seem to matter much over here. Lance doesn't seem to understand me half the time because I am speaking in a very low voice as i am still recovering from the sore throat combined with my newly re-acquired indian english accent which will take a while to come off once I return to NZ. Atleast it shows that I am still learning something all the time...heeheeee....

We have a really early day tomorrow morning - with the flight check in time at 4.30 in the morning, so will head off for now. Back to the madness and chaos of Delhi.

Ciao,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 9:13 PM