Finding the Unicorn

Saturday – my last day in Hyderabad. Yesterday I went to the railway station and arranged my ticket (under the carriage ceiling, not above it) to Mumbai. I was amazed – tickets are applied for! So I picked up an application form and looked at it a little dazed. Within seconds a kind stranger offered to fill it in for me. Now that I have watched him do it I feel confident the next one will be a cinch – as long as I know the name of the train I want.

Afterwards I made a concession – I bought a thick, squishy pillow. Just need to get a pillow slip now.

Afterwards, still worried about not having found anywhere that serves the Hyderabadi Biriyani, I called the guy I was seated next to on the plane, Harsha. He was kind enough to offer to take me along with him while he did some errands, we checked out a new shopping centre that had newly opened last time he was home. I thought it would be a good opportunity to check the price of the Bird book I promised Marcos – not there. After that, a drive along the lakeshore to Secunderabad, to the Restaurant that is famous for it’s Biryani. Yum!! Afterwards we had Quarbani ka mitha, a dessert made from fresh dates and honey, also a specialty of Hyderabad.

Harsha dropped me off at my hotel and after a nap to sleep off lunch I went to the MPM mall with every intention of spending time on my blog and getting last minute supplies for the train ride. Only minutes after getting into the supermarket the power went out. I decided to stay waiting – at the expense of blogging – until the tills were operational again so that I could buy everything I wanted. I waited about 3/4 hour as it got hotter and hotter, before finally deciding to give up buying everything I wanted and settling for getting a couple of things from various small salls around he place. One thing you can’t buy – even from supermarkets – here in Hyderabad is yoghurt, of any kind. Apparently people don’t buy it, they always make it themselves.

After checking out of the hotel, I had an early dinner. I managed to find out that Ausralia had won the toss for the Cricket WC final but play was delayed due to rain, before leaving for my 10 minute stroll to the station.

At the station there were hundreds of people milling around at a platform with no train so I decided to have a gander around the place. Next time I looked there was a train and not many people so thought I had better see if I could find out where I was supposed to be. I found my name on one of the carriages and stowed my backpack with just enough time to buy a bottle of water from a vendor on the platform.

While at the station felt a few strange twinges in my gut….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under India, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.