Woolly says – Our last day in Hyderabad had been most pleasant, our plan to go to the Zoological gardens had failed when we realised that it was shut, but as were used to that happening to us, we immediately implemented plan B and headed to the science museum. Sadly, we couldn’t take any pictures inside the buildings, but it provided hours of fun with the pushing of buttons and standing in front of optical illusions, before seeing a huge collection of Royal Doulton figurines and Worcester Plates and vases. The basement gave us hundreds more carved and sculpted Hindu Gods to admire, having sat happily with ice creams in the garden area before making ourselves comfortable in the planetarium which promised us a session of time travelling through the stars.
The music was very dramatic and factually inaccurate which made us chuckle especially when the ‘time travelling’ machine took us back to twelve thousand BC to visit Gobekli Tepe, a place that we have previously visited in Turkey and is dated back to eight thousand BC!
Woolly says – It had passed some time and feeling frozen to the tusks from the air con that had been venting during the show we declined the opportunity to see the second phase of the film and happily made our way back to the hotel to collect our baggage. I’d enjoyed Hyderabad with it’s fort and palace and as we settled into our bunks for our fourteen hour train ride it was a place I felt I could recommend. A good night’s sleep followed and as lunchtime approached and the snack situation became desperate we pulled into the blistering heat of Mumbai. No more rickshaws to speed us on our way only yellow and black cabs to navigate around the city. Mumbai, also known as Bombay (the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populated city in India with an estimated population of 12.4 million. It is also the wealthiest city in India and has the highest number of millionaires and billionaires amongst all the cities in India. As we pulled up in front of our accommodation it seemed doubtful that many of the trillionaires would be popping round to see us, the streets were filled to overflowing with humans, traffic and waste, the smell was mind blowing in it’s intensity and something that I wouldn’t want to get used to!
Parts of this trip had included some bad smells, but this was incredible, worse even than my small friend!
Woolly says – I couldn’t smell that bad if I wanted to! Having dropped of our stuff and eventually found a taxi we decided to see where the rich and wealthy were spending their time. My research told me that Marine Beach was four kilometres away which seemed unbelievable given that it took nearly an hour and a half to arrive there! The traffic spent more time in a stationary situation than actually moving, although it did give us a chance to look at some of the rather splendid buildings that grace the city.
Exiting our cab, I realised that the smell had followed us there and having checked under my armpits to make sure it wasn’t me, I settled for taking small shallow breathes as we looked out over the harbour area. Huge skyscrapers stood in the haze of exhaust fumes while a couple of intrepid fishermen swam in the murky depths to retrieve their nets, it might be the millionaire’s playground, but it didn’t appeal much to me. The area was noted for it’s art deco buildings and although we spotted a few there wasn’t much there and having taken a few snaps and found a peaceful place to eat we headed back into the mayhem of the centre to get ready for tomorrow and the delights that were to come….. I wonder if aftershave might help with the stench!