i went into the office on sunday to check emails and catch up on this blog (the wi-fi at the house was down...another thing going the way of hot water)...ken came by to see what i was doing in the afternoon and let me know that steve was going to go to golconda fort...seeing as i hadn't done any sightseeing...and that the fort was somewhere i wanted to go...i gave steve a call...we called up ismael and a driver was waiting for us as soon as i got back from the office (i had decided to walk home to practice my hyderabady shuffle)...
about half an hour into the trip...we spotted a tipped over stake bed truck on the side of the road...apparently...the water that was rushing down the street that crossed where he was driving had softened up the road so much that the truck lost its footing and the rushing water tipped it over...i immediately grabbed for my camera...and the driver was kind enough to slow down...unfortunately...i didn't notice i was still in playback mode and that the camera hadn't fired...with several cars behind us honking like a flock of geese...i didn't have a chance to take the picture...i did notice though that my camera battery was almost dead and didn't realize till much later that i had left the camera running after i had downloaded photos for the previous three blogs...no worries...i thought...i'll just grab my backup battery...much to my dismay...the backup battery was in the pocket of my backpack that was comfortably napping back at home...crap...i'm gonna have to shoot quickly and turn the camera off after every picture...
after several detours due to the minnesota-esque series of lakes we had to cross...we arrived at golconda fort...made arrangements with the driver to pick us up in about an hour and stepped out of the cab...now i understand why it was such a great idea to have a pre-arranged guide while krissy and i were traveling through northern thailand...i'm the type of person who appreciates history...but sometimes i just want to go look at places...read the signage along the way and take pictures of the buildings/ruins...no matter how many times we told the gentleman that attached himself to us like a conjoined twin that we didn't want a guide...he kept reminding us that he would "tell us the story of the fort real nice and make us feel real happy" and if we didn't accept him as a guide all we would see "is a bunch of rocks"...he kinda had a point there...after haggling about the price for a bit...we were on our way...
golconda fort was started over 800 years ago and changed hands between indian and persian dynasties...the majority of the construction happened during the qutub shahi (persian) dynasty around 500 years ago...the last of the shahi kings...muhammed quli qutub shah...was a highly suspicious king (you would be too if you had 360 wives) so he built many "enhancements" into the fort...because golconda was the center of the diamond trade in india he had to worry about invaders from all sides...he created these domelike structures (as pictured in the middle) that would amplify loud enough to cross the whole complex and echo the sound of someone clapping (if they were standing directly in the center)...muhammed also used this technology to spy on the citizenry by placing these domes throughout the complex...there is an area outside the king's chamber however where if two people stood kitty corner from each other (back to back) and whispered into the corner...it would amplify the sound just enough so the other person could hear...get caught speaking too loudly about the king and it's off with your head...his speaking chamber was set up in such a way that when he came out to address his citizens...they could only see his head from the square below...making it much harder for the daggers that were thrown at him on fairly regular intervals to strike their intended target...steven's and my sense of the stories about this king was that if you were hated so much and people were constantly talking shit about you or worse...TRYING TO KILL YOU...wouldn't it be time to find another line of work???...
another interesting architectural feature was found in the queens' chambers located (coincidentally) 360 steps above the floor of the main chamber (one step for each wife)...they had developed a series of breezeways that keep the area quite cool...i was pretty amazed at how people came up with such things so many years ago...there was also a hindu temple (pictured on the right) that had been built before the fort itself...even though shahi was muslim...he liked the temple so much that he let it stand...
after golconda...we headed to the tombs of qutub shahi...this time we were able to actually convince the guide that we didn't want a tour...the tombs are for the seven kings of the qutub shahi dynasty along with the daughter of muhammed and the builder of the charminar (another site i hope to see before i leave)...structurally they were very beautiful...each tomb had a solid black granite tombstone that was intricately carved...unfortunately...i didn't think it would be appropriate to take photos of the tombs themselves...the last tomb that we came to had a group of guys playing cricket on it (right)...i thought...wow...these guys are into cricket so much they'll play on someone's grave...
this weekend...jihad...greg and i are heading off to bombay (mumbai) for the long independence day weekend...pooja warned us to stay away from large crowds as indian independence day has been a particularly busy day for terrorists in india...our goal...to sneak on a set of a bollywood movie and become an extra (that would be sweet!!!)...pleasant dreams...
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