Our second day in Hyderabad, we took a trip to Ramoji Film Studio. Listed in the Guinness book of World records as the world’s largest film studio, Ramoji is something like a poor man’s Universal Studios. There is a studio tour, which is takes you around to look at the various film sets. Most of the tour was in Hindi, but we got the gist of what was said by looking at the sets. Unlike American movies, which are filmed a lot on location these days, almost all Indian films are made exclusively in studios. Also, the budgets are considerably lower, with the average film budget a mere $1 million, unheard of by American standards. Once you finish the studio tour, there is a theme park area, which has only three attractions. You visit the attractions in order, and are allowed to visit each attraction only once. After the attractions, one which was an eerie copy of “It’s A Small World” we decided to get lunch. We shelled out 99 rupees (about $2) for an all-you-can eat Indian/Chinese buffet. We had just sat down at a table to eat, when we were rudely interrupted by a monkey. He stormed right up to the table; stole food off Leon’s plate, then came after mine. I screamed and pushed the plate towards him. He grabbed a handful and jumped off the table to consume our lunch! Leon was yelling, “Bad monkey!” and I was afraid that he would get bitten. We moved and found a table inside, and finished our lunch. After a long bus ride home, we were exhausted. Another crazy day in India.
Our last day in Hyderabad, we visited the Golconda Fort. A huge fort overlooking the city, we walked for hours through the old ramparts and admired the view from the top. What a beautiful view! We left the fort and headed to the train station to catch the train to Bhubaneswar. We weren’t looking forward to the 23 hour train ride, but we were ready to move on and experience a new city.
Hyderabad |
No comments:
Post a Comment