Day 88, Hyderabad [Thursday 28th February 2008]
Previous day: Day 87, Hyderabad [Wednesday 27th February 2008]
Next day: Day 89, Kolkata (Calcutta) [Friday 29th February 2008]
Up early. Breakfast around the corner at Kamat, where I get my favourite — chow chow bath and coffee. Then we get the bus to Ramoji Film City, about an hour's ride away from Hyderabad. The tickets are Rs. 300 to get in.
First impression — it looks good, with big, white gate displaying the Ramoji name in huge letters. The surrounding country is dusty, hilly and boulder-strewn. It looks like a set for a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.
The park itself is full of pastel painted sets and themed areas like 'wild west' and 'Mughal era'. They clain it's a working studiom but I'm not so sure. It looks suspiciously like a standard theme park. And it quickly transpires that the park is not very busy. Whole areas are quiet and unoccupied, waiting for vsitors to arrive so they can be brought to life. Everyone who arrived on our bus is herded from one show to the next, and if you stray off-course you'll find the area deserted, fountains turned off, shops shut etc.
We get a 'backstage tour' of the various film sets — a Hindu temple, an airport, a hospital, a European street (it looks more like Miami) anda jail. It's hard to tell if any of it is actually in use, but the tour guide says they do use it for TV shows.
Afterwards we wander around the impressive Mughal garden set, an enormous area with tiered lawns, banks of patterned flowers and gleaming white marble. From a fake Mughal terrace we watch a mass of excitable Indian boys down below, dancing together fully-dressed in a musical fountain.
We get a rammed bus back to the city, Kate does some shopping for a salwaar kameez in Big Bazaar and I browse the VCDs in Planet M (from Rs. 49, bargain!). I have a plateful of ragada samosa standing outside the mall, and after a cup of tea we head back to the hotel.
Next day: Day 89, Kolkata (Calcutta) [Friday 29th February 2008]
Previous day: Day 87, Hyderabad [Wednesday 27th February 2008]