"With the onset of summer, our bookings are going full, we take people around for a four hour trip in the evening," says Partha Sarathy, a tour operator. Prabhakar, an official at the tourism department says, "The night tours have gotten an impetus because, as part of a tourism department project, all the monuments were lit up at a cost of about Rs 25 crore." Earlier, summers were a sluggish time for tourism, but of late, even the heat doesn't deter tourists, and such tours offer the perfect sight seeing solution. For those who come to the city with a strait-jacketed time schedule, it doesn't matter if they even just drive past some landmarks. "It is a boon for people like us who have little time to do touristy things," says Rajendra Sharma, an IT consultant from Gurgaon who has come for a conference.
The city tour conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Corporation in the evening takes only two hours and takes visitors on a whirlwind drive around some of the historical places and monuments. Even locals are using this to catch the essence of the city. Like Suresh Reddy, who took his new bride Uma on such a tour. He says, "We can go at leisure later, but this way she'll feel comfortable with the city." "We use a 36-seater bus to take the passengers to places like Charminar, Salar Jung Museum, Hussain Sagar, etc. Most of the days the bookings are full," says Prabhakar. And since the tour happens in airconditioned comfort, even after the summer enters in full force, they can continue. Such quickie tours follow the example set by cities like Paris and Milan, which offer such packages. But the question remains whether one can be satisfied with a partial glimpse of a city where almost every stone boasts of a rich historical past.
