This is the second to last post about India and is mainly a photo dump. Hope you guys aren’t bored of my India posts. So far I blogged about my trip to India generally, then I detailed my trip to Golconda Fort and to The Seven Tombs. Today’s post features my trip to the Chaminar.
The Chaminar was built in 1591 and it’s both a monument that tourists visit and a mosque for locals. It was beautiful and larger than life. Pictures do not do this structure any justice and there is no doubt why this is one of the main attractions in Hyderabad.
Unlike the other places we visited, the Chaminar wasn’t in an enclosed area with an entrance fee. It just stood there … in the middle of the town. There were so many roadside shops and vendors peddling goods in the area near to the Chaminar. It was actually crowded. There were soooo many people that it became very difficult to get a picture of the whole Chaminar. In fact, I don’t think I have a picture of the full structure. The picture above I found on the internet just to show you the entire structure. Here are some photos I took:
My personal favourite pics that I took:
Fun fact: Hyderabad is known as the city of Pearls, and surrounding the Chaminar, there were dozens of shops selling pearls. We were told however, to make sure we bought from an authorized jeweller to ensure the pearls we got were authentic. I actually bought the cutest Pearl ring for myself and pearl chains and bands for my sister and mum from a jeweller.
After the Chaminar we headed back to our villa. On the way there we saw this van:
Let’s ignore the fact that “Please” is spelt wrong because English is not the first language in this country and in fact most locals speak no English at all. What made us laugh is that the sign was asking people to honk their horn. If you have ever been to India, you know that you do NOT need to ask anyone to sound their horn because there is a constant sound of honking horns everywhere you go (YouTube it). I just had to snap a pic!
One more thing. When we got back to the villa we had this for dinner:
Curried Chicken Pizza!!!!
Interesting to say the least!
Check out my other posts about India here.
