It was our last day in Hyderabad. We were at City Centre Mall to check out an Indian restaurant recommended by a local. City Center Mall is supposedly quite a happening shopping complex located in Banjara Hill, a more upmarket area of Hyderabad.
We took an auto rickshaw (or auto, as it’s more commonly known there) from our hotel, Gunrock Manor in Secunderabad and it costed us about 130 rupees (RM9). We really didn’t know how far City Centre Mall was from Secunderabad so we decided to pay what we were comfortable with, ripped off or not. Turned out it was quite a distance.
Anyway, Sahib Sindh Sultan, the Indian Restaurant we wanted to check out, was closed -__-
It wouldn’t open for another 3 hours so we decided to explore the busy streets and find other meal alternatives. As I was exiting the shopping complex, I noticed a couple of sitting stools just outside of the main entrance with a few young Indian boys hanging around. There was a huge catalogue of henna tattoo designs.
And then it hit me. How could I leave India without getting a henna tattoo? So I sat down, placed my hand on one of the boys’ lap and armed with a mini piping bag, he proceeded to tattoo me.
# – It started out small.
# – And he gradually filled in the design with more patterns.
# – More and more.
# – Almost done….
# – Done! Forgive my inept expression in this picture please, was a little too happy :P
# – The finished result. Very intricate design! I was so impressed that he managed to come up with this in less than 10 minutes.
I had to walk around with the moist henna paste on my hand for two hours to allow it to dry.
# – After 2 hours, you can see that the paste had hardened. Then it’s very easy to peel the paste off and wash my hand.
# – The final result.
Best 100 rupees I spent there.