Hyderabad, India’s fifth-largest city after Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai, barely registers on the radar of foreign tourists to India. There are, however, plenty of reasons why this once-sleepy city merits a place at the top of your to-go list for 2016. The city has a marvellous mix of sightseeing and shopping. Prices – for everything, from a medical treatment at the Indo-American Cancer Hospital, increasingly used by foreign visitors, to restaurants and the extraordinary Taj Falaknuma Palace – are way more reasonable than in India’s better-known cities. You’ll pay about half of what you’d pay in the UAE for top-quality luxury items, such as pearl earrings, handmade shirts and hand-embroidered silks and chiffons, and even less for Indian-grown cottons and linens, sold by the yard or made up into sheets and pillowcases that feel as fine as anything Frette produces. It’s also worth mentioning what the city doesn’t have. There are barely any tourists already inspecting the fabrics in the silk store your guide leads you to. No earnest guidebook-toters, loudly discussing the exhibits as you mooch through the museums. No selfie-snapping teenagers obscuring the view when you get to the top of the buildings that overlook the city. No voices chatting away in the background as you take your seat in a restaurant or check into your hotel. Heaven. So go now, before the hordes start discovering the city. Golconda tops the must-visit sights. One of India’s greatest forts, with five kilometres of crenellated walls overlooking the city, it was finished in the 16th century and built with such sophistication that it had embedded sanitation piping and acoustics so clever that a clap at the base of the fort could be heard a mile away at the top. The graceful 19th-century Chowmahalla Palace, originally used by the Nizams, or rulers, of Hyderabad, purely for entertaining, has been beautifully restored and now shows off rooms filled with jewellery, costumes, and black and white photos from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Then there’s the Qutub Shahi tomb, Salar Jung Museum, black granite Mecca Masjid mosque, and the 16th-century four-arch Charminar, Hyderabad’s equivalent of Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower. With its 56-metre-tall minarets, once the grand entrance to the city, it now stands at the centre of a swirl of traffic and market stalls.
Once you’ve devoted two days to viewing those then you can, with a clean conscience, throw yourself into shopping. You should, however, hire a driver and guide to help navigate the ever-manic traffic. Getting around will be easier when the Metro – a Bangkok BTS Skytrain-type system that will let you speed over the congested streets – opens next year. But before then, look forward to an unnerving, though fun experience of navigating the cars, bikes and crowds, and the odd cow or herd of road-crossing goats.
Buying pearls
Hyderabad was once the wealthiest principality in India, and famous for its diamond mines – which produced the 793-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond – and pearls. The diamond mines have long run dry, but the city is still a centre for pearls. A chain of 10 stores dotted across the city, all run by members of the Mangatrai family, may charge slightly more than small one-off jewellers, but it is reassuring to go away with a certificate of authenticity. At the branch I visit, the 21-year-old manager, Rajesh Gupta, mentions that he has done a six-month course in bargaining and negotiation at the London School of Economics. He grins when, at the end of our chat, I tell him he should have taught the course himself. Prices are fixed, he said, but for me... He explains the natural irregularities that make seawater pearls superior to absolutely uniform cultivated pearls, and mentions that LSE research shows that the result of most bargaining ends with the customer paying 84 per cent of the first price quoted. I didn't bother to check that the "special" price – Dh1,068 – corresponded to that.
Perfumes, rugs and carpets
Top-quality oud from Kashmir is around 6,750 rupees (Dh371) for a little phial at Cottage Industries, on Road 10, Banjara Hills, where you can also buy embroidered bedcovers, carved wood boxes, handmade wool or silk and cotton carpets. Khan, the manager, will happily give you a lesson, over saffron tea with cardamom and honey, on what makes these particular carpets good. The son of a master weaver, he explains that in the best carpets the knots are tied and cut at a 45-degree angle. This means that walking on them does not crush the fibres in the way that the upright fibres of a lesser quality carpet are crushed. The best wool rugs sell for about 24,000 rupees (Dh1,320) for one measuring 6 feet by 4 feet, while a fine-silk one with 900 knots to the square inch is for 650,000 rupees (Dh35,732).
Bangles
“How much did you pay?” asks Rajveer Kaur, Hyderabad local, expert shopper and marketing director at the Trident hotel. “Two for 350 rupees [Dh19],” I tell her. “Not bad. I’d pay 200 rupees [Dh11],” she grins. Choodi Bazaar located in Charminar, an area named for the minaret-topped Charminar arch, is the main market to buy bangles. Bangles, the insides lacquered, the outsides studded with cut glass, are a Hyderabadi speciality and come in every conceivable colour. In the surrounding streets, you can also find carved boxes, curly-toed leather slippers, beaded silk drawstring bags useful for storing underwear or jewellery, and handicrafts.
Cotton sheets and linen by the yard
Suraiya Hasan, the 83-year-old great-niece of an Indian freedom fighter, has played her part in helping to create a “new India” by setting up the Safrani Memorial School, while a weaving factory, Suraiya’s Traditional Weaves & Crafts (0091 40 2358 8542), located in the same compound in Raidurg, provides employment for poor widows. The fabrics these women produce are mind-bogglingly intricate – traditional Hyderabadi himroo, mushroo and paithani techniques are now rarely practised anywhere. The shop sells delicately printed crêpe silks woven in vibrant pinks, blues and purples or chic black-and-white-patterned silks for 800 rupees (Dh44) a metre, plain linen for 560 rupees (Dh31) a metre, and Indian cotton sheets for 445 rupees (Dh24) for a double.
Silks and embroidered fabrics
Though Indian designers such as Manish Arora, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Monisha Jaising all sell internationally, because most middle-class Indians still have their clothes handmade to order, every city still has numerous fabric stores – Hyderabad is no exception. If you found it difficult to control the urge to spend at Suraiya’s you will really be in danger at the treasure trove that is Meena Bazar, located in Begumpet. The beauty of the embroidered and embellished fabrics is enough to bring any textile lover to tears, so stay calm. In reality, you need to visit this shop twice: first to look, then, after going off for a coffee or tea to gather your thoughts, to go back to make a purchase. Women’s fabrics are sold downstairs, men’s upstairs, and there are tailors in the shop to measure you on the spot. They’ll even deliver your purchases straight to your hotel. Men’s cotton shirting or linen will cost about 800 rupees (Dh44) a metre, and wool suiting by Ascott & Angland is for 2,580 rupees (Dh142) a metre, while hand-embroidered silk chiffon in the women’s department will cost 1,280 rupees (Dh70) a metre. To have a shirt made costs 350 rupees (Dh19), a suit is for 4,000 rupees (Dh220), and a dress is for 500 rupees (Dh27). A ready-made, fine-wool Nehru jacket costs about 6,950 rupees (Dh382).
Where to stay
The Oberoi Group's 21-floor Trident hotel is in Hitech City, out in the new Hyderabad, Cyberabad, where, since 1995, a mini-Bangalore has been developing, with Microsoft, Amazon, Novartis and numerous other companies in information technology and pharmaceuticals occupying a forest of gleaming high-rises. Traffic between here and the Old City is so permanently ferocious that it will take your driver about 40 minutes of stop-start hooting and braking to get out here. It really is, however, worth the stay, if only to see the transformation taking place on the edge of Hyderabad. The 320-room Trident is home to the award-winning Indian restaurant Kanak. The biryani, considered to be a Nizami dish, is a must-have. Unusually, you walk away from Kanak feeling light and nourished rather than fat and bloated. "So many Indian chefs add a spoonful or two of butter or cream to every dish, but we try to produce subtle, spicy flavours through the use of spices, marinades and griddle cooking," says executive chef Manik.
The hotel’s spa runs a free daily morning yoga class at 7.30am and there’s a large clothing and trinket market a few steps away. Double rooms at the Trident start from Dh1,015 per night, including taxes.
The real star of Hyderabad, however, is the Taj Falaknuma Palace, first built in 1884. It is a building of heart-lifting beauty and craftsmanship, with frescoed or intricately panelled ceilings, a dining room that is home to one of the longest tables in the world – it can seat up to 101 people – and a library that is an exact copy of the one in Windsor Castle, complete with first editions and leather-bound volumes of a 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Step out of the marble-lined great hall and into the gardens where you'll find fountains and a variety of bird species, including peacocks. There are 60 rooms, each with high ceilings, a canopied bed and a glamorous bathroom decorated in glossy black tiles. As you eat breakfast on the restaurant terrace, overlooking the city 2,000 feet below, it's easy to imagine life as it was during time of the sixth Nizam, in the 1880s. Double rooms at the Taj Falaknuma Palace start from Dh1,255 per night, including taxes.
Taking a guide and tipping
Both hiring a guide and tipping are essential. Carry a supply of 50-rupee (Dh3) and 100-rupee (Dh6) notes to distribute to the eagerly helpful people you'll encounter – doormen, washroom attendants, the shoe guard at the mosques – and your path will be wreathed in smiles. Porters can be tipped 100 rupees (Dh5.5) per bag, guides 500 rupees (Dh27) a day, and drivers 600 rupees (Dh33) a day. Shashi Mohan Kumar, a 43-year-old guide for the whole of southern India, is highly recommended (0091 99481 25628, shashi_mohankumar@yahoo.com), and works with an excellent driver. Specialist food and history guide Jonty Rajagopalan organises walking tours of the markets as well as lunches and dinners showcasing traditional dishes at Kanak. Tours can be booked through Greavesindia.com.
Getting there
Direct return flights on Etihad start from Dh936, including taxes. Tour operator GreavesIndia.com is recommended for ground arrangements, tours and for booking specialist guides.
Read this and other travel-related stories in Ultratravel magazine, out with The National on Wednesday, March 23.
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