My daughter has been playing tennis for many years now. But it is only recently we started to travel for matches and one of the stops was Hyderabad. And that is how we caught the beautiful glimpses of Hyderabad. I also feel we will travel a lot for tennis in the coming years, hence the tennis travel series. It helped immensely that my nephew Dilip, previously known as Brat 1 on this blog now works at Hyderabad. After the tournament we had a home to crash and enjoy the place with his expert guidance.
We did not do too much. Though we (Chhavi and I) walked a lot with wrong footwear and we ate a lot of good food! Dilip always wore the right footwear! We are eagerly waiting to go back to play another relevant tournament in Hyderabad so that we can stay back and enjoy again!
The first place we visited was Hussain Sagar Lake on a weekend. It is a beautiful place and that is why it attracts a lot of people particularly on the weekends! We quickly exited out of the boating area as the crowd was too hot to handle. We then went in search of food, which is going to be a separate post. We did find good food and a bit of adventure around it.
The second place we visited was the KBR National Park, on the next day. Dilip did ask us if we would go with casual footwear as we were visiting a park! Now I thought of a park as garden and not a national park! And we paid the price for not wearing shoes! Out feet complained a lot by the end of the day!
Dilip and Chhavi walk with a purpose! It is as if they are preparing to participate in an international walking event! I always lag four or five steps behind in spite of trying my best. And in casual footwear it was even more difficult for me to keep up with them. After half an hour, I reminded Dilip that he needs to trek with Youth Hostel Association of India (YHAI) again. Their moto is to enjoy the nature and not run from place A to B. I started sitting on the ample benches provided by the park and enjoying the nature. And there was a lot to enjoy!
The park was full of flowering gulmohar (delonix regia) trees which made for a pretty picture, provided these two would let me pause. If I stopped for a picture I was immediately 10 paces behind!
I have to say the park is really user friendly. A lot of people use it for walking and jogging. There are signposts all around. But much credit to them for providing RO Water all around the park. I can’t even remember how many times we refilled our steel bottle on that hot summer day!
Dilip moved out for work when Chhavi was really small. But these two bonded right from the beginning. It was lovely to see them enjoy some time together again! As our stroll around the park was coming to an end, we went out to look for food again!
When we left from Gurgaon, the weather was atrocious. Hyderabad scored a lot of points for having milder weather and much less pollution than the National Capital Region (NCR). We rally enjoyed the blue skies which remined me of the old movie, ‘Hyderabad Blues’.
We move to bigger cities often in search of better jobs and opportunities! And then we end up selling our soul to being stuck in traffic. The traffic in Hyderabad is increasing but I have to say it is still a lot better! As I said earlier in the post, we are waiting to go back and play a right tournament again. Because that would also mean staying back and exploring the city again!