1 overcast Saturday Evening, 2 motorbikes, 3 friends, 4 Minerets , 5 months late....

I have been in hyderabad for over 5 months now and that is how long it has taken me to make my way to the most famous part of town, "Char Minaar" or the Four minerets which are the most prominent icon of Hyderabad. Its the old part of town which is majestic and built in a time when there were kings and queens ..

It was on a overcast saturday evening that me and two other friends decided to make the 20 km trip and get transported into a completely different world.. there began our adventure...

We left at about 6ish in the evening not thinking about the peek traffic we would face and more importantly not really knowing the way to the place.. we figured that we could ask people on the way where Char Minaar was , surely everyone in Hyderabad could point us in the right direction..after close to 45 minutes on the motorbike i noticed out surroundings had changed there was an old world feel now and people were moving at a different pace.. the buildings were looking more ornate, even though they were probably in need of repair .. but i love all things old so it was a treat to my eyes to see the majestic city around me, the hussle and bussle of people and the thousands of lights slowly going on getting ready for the night shoppers..

As we saw the four minerets we all smiled, partly for having made it in one peice and partly for not being disappointed at the site..just beneath it we were stuck in traffic which gave me a good chance to take it in and also look at all the exciting shops around me and all the trinkets.. i ear marked a few for shopping when we found parking ..

We finally found some parking inside a hospital. It was a calm place in the midst of so much activity and you got the best photo opportunity for the char minaar from there .. being the Japanese tourist that i am i made the most of it.

Our obvious next stop was FOOD.. it was everywhere.. hundreds of fruit vendors selling the reddest pomingenates.. we went looking for Haleem thinking that Ramzaan had started.. only to find out that it was still two days away.. although disappointed we thought we would have a glass of the famous lassi and head to the famous Bangle Bazaar..

Girls, if you ever want to go crazy come to this place.. hyderabad's famous bangle bazaar.. there were ladies in burkhas everywhere and shops filled with glittering bangles. Bangles that were full of glittering gems and stones .. i have been to a few shopping places around the world but never have i seen such beautiful bangles.. the catch is though you have to know how to bargain and we soon realised this.. i ended up buying a beautiful maroon bangle set studded with maroon stones.. the shop keeper gave me good wishes too saying now that i have bought the bangles marriage can't be too far away .. ;) ..

The shop keeper gave us the old world hospitality.. insisted that we stay for some special hyderabadi chai..in the mean time he told us where we would get the best food in this part of town.. 'Shahdaab'was the place we needed to head to and he gave us the exact order "one plate chicken chilli fry with two naans followed by a mutton biriyani' .. we found and auto and headed directly to the place all the time thinking of the chilli chicken fry and mutton biriyani .. all i can say is when we got there , ordered and ate we were not disappointed at all .. it was by far the best biriyani i have had..we did make the mistake of ordering something that wasn't recomended .. we should have stuck to what the local recomended..

As we headed back the clouds arrived .. and it started pouring .... this was going to be a long journey .. we decided to head back regardless as we had assignments to finish (you must have been wondering what happened to the assignments) .. stuck in traffic with water upto our toes we could do nothing but laugh.. the rain got so heavy we had to take shelter at a local shop.. there were going to be atleast another 2 stops like this.. just as we were about 20 minutes away from home one of our tyres got punctured... we went looking for a puncture man .. his name was mr. Syed who was kind enough to help us out ...

All in all it was a fun day to remember .. and i got a beautiful set of bangles to remember it with.