The Grand Solitaire

Diwali -- Festival of lights !!

by regina.williams

Diwali is one of the biggest festival of Hindus, celebrated with great enthusiasm and happiness in India. The festival is celebrated for five continuous days, where the third days is celebrated as the main Diwali festival or 'Festival of lights'

The best time to visit to celebrate between Oct-Nov especially during evenings...

Hungry kya??

by alycat about Dominos

Fast food, really fast. They claim that no one "delivers" better. Pizza's, indianised with hyderabadi delicacies, burgers, spicy tit bits and all that your mum asked u not to eat....

Home delivery aswell.

Ramoji Film City

by Donna_in_India

Ramoji Film City is the largest film studio complex in the world in terms of size - 2,000 acres. Only about 60-70% of it is actually developed while work is progress for expansion. It is said that you can walk in with a script and make a complete movie here - all pre and post production work as well. There are many sets - London Street, Hollywood sign, Japanese gardens, airport, hospital, etc., etc.

There is a stunt show (that was pretty bad) and a "technical" show (use of blue screen, adding in sound, etc.) that is similar to/copied from a show at Universal Studios.

I originally wasn't keen on going since I had been to several U.S. studios but it turned out to be very interesting. I even recognized a few sets from some Bollywood movies I'd seen. It is however, not nearly as good as say Universal Studios. Funny enough but all our guide wanted to know from me was whether Ramoji was bigger than Universal. In this case, bigger was definitely not better!

There is a small area with some very small children's rides and 1 simulator type ride (which we did not go on). Other than that it was mostly looking at the sets and seeing the 2 shows.

It is a little far out of the city - took us about an hour on Sunday with light/no traffic from Banjara Hills. We hired a car which waited for us. I believe there is also bus service (check the website). We arrived by about 11 just in time for the shows. You can easily spend about 3 hours here - more if you want.

There are also 2 hotels within the property - Tara and Sitara.

So although not as good as Universal, it made for an interesting day and I would recommend going if you haven't been to any other studio or have an interest in movie making, especially Indian movies.

Admission is Rs 300 for adults and Rs 200 for children for the guided tour. We took the special package tour (less time involved) for Rs 850 for adults and Rs 700 for children. The package included the tour in a small A/C bus and a buffet lunch at the Super Star Restaurant that was actually pretty decent. Tickets are available online.

Hyderabad

by syed-arshad

"The Charminar"

I was born here, lived here all my life, I love this place, I wish one day i will "see" HYDERABAD
A multi cultural multi lingual historic yet modern city. It is the fifth largest city in India, known very well for its exotic food, culture, friendly and helpful people and software professionals of late.
Hyderabad is a 400 year old city which once was called Deccan it is believed that the KOHINOOR diamond ( The largest known diamond, now sitting on a Crown in Tower hill, London) was found here.

People here are fun loving and easy going. Life mostly revolves around small Irani Cafe's which serve nothing but tea and cookies. One can see couple of cafe's at conner of every street.

~~~~~
Don't believe the Book,
Don't believe the Signs,
Don't believe the Words,
Don't believe what you See,
Don't believe what you Hear,
Believe your heart
~~~~~