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Astonishing Andhra!
We start this blog in the knowledge that, so near to the end of our journey, having seen so much in Andhra Pradesh, ... we have no photos.... yes, in a frenzy of 'tidying up folders' on the laptop, Sundeep deleted all the photos. To those of you that have enjoyed seeing our photos, rather than reading our blog, well, we are very sorry and sad.... but read on....
Andhra Pradesh was India's largest Muslim ruled princely state, which was only integrated into the rest of India at the time of independence, after its desire to merge with the new Pakistan was quashed. A state that was once the stage for some of the world's wealthiest people - the Deccani Sultans... the architecture and the Islamic and Persian symbols are still testament to the princely rulers.
Parts of the state are still no go areas, especially in the north west, where there are Maoist Naxalite rebel armies... fighting for what , we are not quite sure, but it meant that we could not visit some places that we had planned, including Srisailam National Wildlife Park.
Anyhow, using Hyderabad, the state capital city as our base, we ventured far and wide....
If you are having trouble picturing it, Hyderabad and Secunderabad, is a connurbation, two large cities melding into each other, a bit like Leeds and Bradford.... yes spot the yorkshire lass amongst us. The connurbation includes a fantastically named region called Cyberabad, after many multinational software industries have set up bases here. For those following the news, its also the home of the Satyam multi-million dollar scandal - with the auditors PWC also implicated in the biggest governance scandal to hit the international India Inc. sector.
We've mentioned crossing roads in other blogs, but nothing.. nothing, no nothing prepared us for the main road just outside our hotel.... we'd never seen anything like it. Whatever time of day, the cars, buses motorbikes were relentless, in fact the friendly hotel porter had to help us across the road when we had no other choice but to cross. Even Sundeep in her unending shoulder shrugging 'it'll be fine' attitiude was rigid with fear at the prospect of it.
However, once across the road, the wonder of Hyderabad was there for us to enjoy and take in. Shops, public buildings and road signs were in Urdu and English, and Col had the delight of putting her Urdu reading skills to use. The Deccan architecture was evident in many everyday building, as well as the gorgeous Palaces, Secretariat and other public buildings. It was really delightful to be in a place where the architecture had been appreciated and to some degree preserved.
The city centre was built around a lake, in the middle of which was a 17m high statue of the Buddha, that was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama. In conversation with the tourist officer, we had a laugh about the fact that the statue had been a politician's whim, (taking years with many disasters along the way) to bring in more Japanese tourists and that Buddhism had never directly been part of the city's history! The three of us agreed that it looked nice though.
Having said all that the museum and its contents were well laid out and preserved with a detailed history of Buddhism as well as the actual history of the state .... there was also a reproduction of the Buddhist murals from the Ajanta Caves commissioned by the monarch in the 1920s.
Whilst there we visited the Old City and the Chowmahal complex of palaces. The palaces are beautiful, with a real feeling of lived-in decadence. There was also a rather cute display of classic cars from the Rolls Royce to Bentleys, owned by the previous monarchs... reminded Sundeep of Coventry's attempt at tourism with the Musuem of Transport.
Nearby we visited the Char Minar gate of the old city designed to keep watch, it holds up to ten thousand people at prayer time and is stunning. The views of the traffic chaos below were amazing. The merchants along the main road were aggressive in their approach to selling, enlisting the help of children to block our way and force us into their shop... Col was not proud when she boomed out a gigantic 'MOVE' at sucha moment... it worked though... they scarpered pretty quick. Right next to the palaces were the two Jama and Mecca Masjid's which were built in the 16thand 17thcenturies. It felt as if the whole area had some degree of planning involved, in terms of what buildings went where in the Old City, unlike, perhaps modern day India.
Due to lack of time, we opted for official state tours ... god forgive us and thank you for keeping us safe... to other places in Andhra Pradesh. There was the famous Buddhist site of Nagarjunakonda, nearby stunning waterfalls and you should've have seen the longest dam in the history of god knows where. These were enjoyable but it did feel like they were slightly contrived to attract tourists. At Nagarjunakonda the remains of a highly cultured Buddhist civilisation were uncovered in 1926, evidence suggesting it had lain undisturbed for 1600 years. The findings were subsequently drowned by the creation of a dam. The remains were taken to an island in the middle of the dam and the settlement was recreated there for tourists. It was pleasant.
Our next state tourist board visit was to Ramoji City Film Studios. This god-awful place is worse than any incarnation of Granada Studios. We should have heeded the travel books comment about the 'sherbert dipped shrines to the many uses of plaster of Paris' - this was exactly what it was... think Trafford Centre, then multiply. I am sure if we were more into South Indian soaps we could've appreciated a sneaky look behind the scenes, but alas we were left feeling embarrassed about visiting.
However, the highlight of our trip to Andhra Pradesh and perhaps event of our whole visit ... just let us stop there for a cry at losing the photos... was Pulicat Lake. Almost impossible to get to, we stayed in a marriage and pilgrim capital Tirupati, the nearest place we could find decent hotels. Even then, we had a 2 hour bus journey each way to get to the bird sanctuary... definitely worth it. Dropped off by the express bus near a tea stand in Tadi, the locals again in a small village welcoming and friendly. Chatting away in Tamil and Telugu, we in English and broken Hindi, we had a great start sharing our breakfast of a packet of biscuits. We got a rickshaw, eventually, after much haggling and questions as to why we wanted to go there, to the bird sanctuary. On arriving, seeing the stark bird 'hide' (a 20ft concrete tower, enough to scare any birds in the vicinty), we were worried that the journey had been a waste of time. It was marshy and un-chappalable terrain, despite being in our walking shoes.
On the point of resigning ourselves to a gentle walk around the periphery, if we could find it,... out of nowhere, an old fisherman, smelling strongly of Toddy, the local liquor, approached us asking if we'd like to go out on his boat where we'd also be able to see the pelicans and migratory flamingoes. At first stunned, then quick to accept, we boarded his home made fishing vessel complete with home made sail to speed us along, and the customary mobile-wielding autorickshaw driver, to traverse the streams and waterways. It was a dreamy hot midday, the vista was flat land, water and horizon. We saw flocks of goggly eyed pelicans, amazing clumsy looking birds taking flight and landing ....and we saw wild flamingoes. Hundreds of them just standing in the water together... it's hard to describe in words seeinganimals in their natural habitat that we only get to see in captivity... their wings weren't clipped they were just doing their thing... where they wanted to. We saw many other birds as well, sandpipers, plovers, kingfishers, kites, egrets, storks, cormorants, bee-eaters etc. All whilst gently being bobbed along by the old fisherman on his boat. It was idyllic.... magical even. At the end of the journey he was thrilled with his extra cash and we had some fab pictures (take a minute to cry) and fantastic memories... despite the lack of photos we feel transported back there as we are writing this and we knew even then that no photo could do justice to what we were experiencing.
With this wonderful memory, we made our way across 500km west to Maharashtra for the next leg of our journey and headed for Mumbai via the ancient sites of Ajanta and Ellora. We may have some photos for the next blog which will be our last one.
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