To read about my previous trip, please visit
This was my second trip to Hyderabad, but it felt like the first as I had almost forgotten the previous one, except for some memories of Salar Jung Museum and Golconda Fort.
When I saw that Monday was a holiday, first thing I did was open Google Maps to check which places I could visit in three days. After browsing through multiple locations in and around Western Ghats and nearby areas, I finally zeroed in on Hyderabad. My previous trip was rushed and felt more like ticking items off a list rather than experiencing the place, its culture, and food. So this time, fewer points were chosen and made enough room to enjoy the food. Railway tickets and Rashtrapati Nilayam tickets were booked in advance — everything was ready.
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder once said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
I can’t fully agree with the statement, but my plan had to change even before the trip began. We were so delayed leaving for Bangalore City Station (SBC) that it became nearly impossible to catch the train. Since we didn’t want to abandon the trip altogether, we decided to go by car. One advantage of traveling by car is that we could carry more items. The downside? I would lose two nights sleep. On top of that ORR traffic consumed a lot of time. Finally, we reached KR Puram. Instead of taking the usual route, we decided to try the newly opened Satellite Ring Road (SRR). Leaving KR Puram behind, we rushed toward Hoskote and entered SRR. The road was good and mostly empty, which helped us to connect quickly back to NH44 after Devanahalli town.
Time for dinner. We stopped at a good-looking, famous roadside restaurant and placed our order. Along with other dishes, my Hyderabadi biryani also arrived. I stared at it for a moment — it was sticky rice in a greenish color. Did they give me something else? The biryani was overcooked and drenched in palak (a spinach verity). Suddenly, I was hit with déjà vu — memory from more than one and half decade agao. Back then, I lived in Electronic City (Bangalore) with roommates. Among five of us, two (Nixon and Sushanth) lived outside the southern states before. In those days, a Tamil lady came to cook for us every morning and evening — we had to buy the groceries, and she would cook. Sushanth was interested in trying palak curry; he was talking about it for sometime and bought it as well. At that time, I wasn’t familiar with palak, and apparently, neither was she (though she was a good cook otherwise). Sushanth handed her the palak and asked her to cook it. When we returned in evening, there was a green, watery substance waiting for us. Sushanth’s eyes bulged at the sight of the tragic condition of his palak!
Back to the present — I called the waiter and asked about the sad state of the biryani. It looked terrible and tasted even worse. I’ve had Hyderabadi biryani from Meghana, Kritunga, Biryani Zone, and many other restaurants in Bangalore. None of them served it in greenish with such a bad taste! The waiter insisted this was how Hyderabadi biryani is actually made and claimed he had worked at 15 restaurants and all of which cooked and served it the same way. I sincerely hope I never set foot in any of those 15 places. Divya and mom's dishes weren’t great either, but at least not as bad as mine; but both of them didn't finish it.
We left the place and entered Chikkaballapur district. Bangalore’s famous tourist and trekking spot — Nandi Hills — is located here. Chikkaballapur is also the birthplace of legendary civil engineer Sir M. Visvesvarayya. The next district was Anantapur. Penukonda Fort is not far from this highway. Divya, Niha, and mom were already in deep sleep before Penukonda. Divya most of the time never admits she slept while in car - it's just closing the eyes and thinking deeply.
Road was quiet and we crossed Penna River near Pamidi. Penna originates in Karnataka and flows into Bay of Bengal. It’s this river that carves the beautiful Gandikota canyon. Gooty, Dhone, and Kurnool passed by. If it had been daytime, I would have spent some time exploring Kurnool — maybe next time. Kurnool, also known as the 'Gateway of Rayalaseema', was capital of Andhra Pradesh for three years in the 1950s. Next came the legendary Tungabhadra River. The famous capital of the Vijayanagara Empire — Hampi — is located on its banks. Telangana border wasn’t far now.
The NH had changed a lot. When I last drove this route toward Gandikota, there were hardly any restaurants or tea stalls. This time, there were many. I wasn’t expecting such a long drive and had barely slept the previous night. So a few short breaks were necessary in between. Its always better to stop and take a short nap rather than believing that one can drive well, even if they are sleeply. It doesn't matter even if you are so close to home/destination. Always take break when you are sleepy. Just before the Krishna Bridge, saw a roadside tea stall near a petrol pump. I stopped there and slept for a while. Almost half an hour passed and I woke up had a lot of coffee and resumed the trip. Coffee was really good by the way. I wish I’d crossed the Krishna during daylight — maybe next time. With construction underway in many sections, our speed dropped in between. Signboards for Mahbubnagar, Shadnagar, etc., came and went. Finally, after sunrise, we crossed the Outer Ring Road and entered Hyderabad city.
Salar Jung Museum
After breakfast we left the hotel. Our first stop was at Salar Jung Museum, located on the southern bank of Musi River. It’s my favorite place in Hyderabad. I couldn’t complete the museum tour during my last visit.
Museum is named after Mir Yousuf Ali Khan (Salar Jung III), who served as prime minister to the Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab Sir Mir Osman Ali Khan Siddiqi (Asaf Jah VII), in 1912. Salar Jung resigned in 1914 and devoted the rest of his life to art and literature, collecting artifacts until his death in 1949.
The museum is divided into three main galleries: Central, Eastern, and Western.
Central Gallery includes: Founders’ Gallery, Indian Sculpture, Indian Textiles, Ivory Carvings, famous Veiled Rebecca sculpture, Arms and Armor, Metal Ware, Modern Indian Paintings, Miniature Paintings, Walking Sticks, Toys & Dolls, Flora and Fauna, Silver Gallery, Carpet Gallery, Jade Gallery, Bidri Ware, Kashmir Gallery, Utility Items, Manuscripts, Coins, and the Children's Gallery.
Eastern Gallery includes: Chinese, Japanese, Eastern Porcelain, and Far Eastern Statuary.
Western Gallery includes: European Paintings, Glassware, French Gallery, Clocks, Porcelain, Bronze Sculptures, and Marble Sculptures.
The museum also houses two major libraries. The English section has about 40,000 books, and oriental section has 19,000. Manuscripts are preserved on parchment, textile, palm leaf, paper, glass, wood, and stone in languages like Arabic (25,000+), Persian (4,700), Urdu (1,200), Turkish, Dakhni, Pushtu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Telugu, and Oriya—covering over 84 subjects. There are over 1,500 calligraphic panels and albums of miniature paintings from various schools.
A crowd favorite attraction here is the musical clock, where a small soldier comes out every hour to strike the bell corresponding to the hour. At noon, the place is packed with people waiting to see the soldier hit the bell twelve times. The action is also displayed on large TV screens.
We moved slowly through the galleries. There’s so much to see — it takes time to appreciate the artistry and understand the historical significance of each piece. This time also, we couldn’t finish the entire museum. Divya, mom, and Niha got tired, and we had to leave many galleries for another time. There's ample parking inside and outside the museum. There is a North Indian restaurant behind the main building, which took forever to prepare and serve the food.
Charminar & Beyond
Next on the list were Charminar, Mecca Masjid, and Chowmahalla Palace. We followed Google Maps, but traffic near Charminar was heavy, and there was almost no parking. If you plan to visit, I suggest using Uber, Ola, or an auto instead of your own vehicle. We eventually dropped the plan and headed to Lumbini Park. By the time we got close, it was night.
Google Maps led us to the wrong location — we ended up at the Boat Club road which is close by. It seemed like other visitors made the same mistake. The roads were so crowded that missing a turn meant circling the entire stretch. Eventually, we reached NTR Marg and then turned onto PV Narasimha Rao Road. When we were about to enter Narasimha Rao Marg, a lady driving her scooter in the wrong direction crashed into the right side of our bumper and fell. She apologized, and even the traffic police scolded her, but the damage was done — the inner plastic panel broke. When you overtake car from the left or right or you drive any commercial vehicles, please be careful with cars. There are a lot of plastic parts which broke very easily but very costly to repaint and replace. I once saw an auto rickshaw jumped ahead from left side when everyone else was waiting for red signal to change and pulled apart the bumper of the car standing on the right side. Nothing happened to auto as parts are mostly metal; but car was new and its bumper was broken. Auto guy didn’t even bother to stop!!!
Incidentally, this road — PV Narasimha Rao Marg — is named after the former Prime Minister. There’s also an expressway in Hyderabad named after him, but few institutions or roads carry his name outside Hyderabad. That’s unfortunate. Many people give full credit to Manmohan Singh for the 1991 economic reforms, forgetting that Singh was Finance Minister under Rao. It was Rao's government which backed and initiated these bold reforms — dismantling the License Raj, promoting foreign investment, liberalization, globalization, and more. His government also launched the Look East Policy, strengthened ties with the U.S., normalized relations with Israel (now one of India’s key defense partners), passed the Panchayati Raj Act, and liberalized foreign exchange management. It was also under Rao's government Indian state took back the fight back to militants in Punjab and finished insurgency as key threat there(Punjab was under president's rule from 1987 to 1992) and cracked down heavily on Kashmiri militants.
We stopped near Hussain Sagar Lake and viewed the Secretariat. The new B. R. Ambedkar Telangana State Secretariat building was beautifully lit. Next to Secretariat was NTR Memorial and Garden, took a left turn, and saw a grand statue of Ambedkar. We parked the car in a groud next to statue and got out. Divya, mom, and Niha were exhausted — ready to eat anything. Divya was sad about missing Charminar, but the prospect of Hyderabadi biryani from the famous Paradise Biryani on IMAX Road cheered her up. Niha, unbothered by worldly concerns, just looked at us hoping something would soon fill her empty stomach. The biryani took a while, but it was really good.
Sajeev
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