After Mumbai we got on a train and spent 17 hours travelling to Hyderabad. 17 long uncomfortable hours. We arrived into Hyderabad at 06:30 in the morning and were immediately set upon by a swarm of auto-rickshaw drivers. We had already decided to walk the 20 minutes to the hotel but we were accompanied the entire way by the drivers seeing if we had changed our minds in the 5 seconds since they last asked. We checked in to the 'hotel' (more borstal than Bellagio) and after 3 hours of shut eye we headed back out hoping our initial view had been jaded by sleep. Again we were followed by an entourage of auto-rickshaw drivers, crossed paths with an angry policeman and ducked round people trying to force purchases of pearls, gold and what looked like wedding outfits. After we successfully negotiated lunch we went to have a look at a massive Buddha statue which is in the middle of a lake. 

On the ferry over to the Buddha we realised that a the passengers were more interested in us than the 60-foot statue. We were ordered to stand in the middle of the boat the only seeming reason being so that everyone could get a good look at us. When we arrived on the tiny platform the Buddha stood on, there was no escaping... A group of kids were the first to brave actual conversation. They followed us around asking us questions about England. They were friendly and nice but I wanted to point at the massive statue and tell them to take pictures of that rather than us.  We however dutifully posed for about 7 different family photos including two with the official 'Buddha platform photographer'.


Here are some of our new friends.

After walking around Hyderabad for some hours and finding everything shut because of a festival we decided to cut our losses and get on another train to Hospet...