💬 Best time of day in Hyderabad is 11:30 pm on a weekday

Mine is late night. About 11:30 on a weekday, after the traffic has gone and the roads finally breathe. I don't live there full time anymore, but when I visit I do this every time. It's the first thing. My cousin picks me up on his bike, helmets on because I promised my mother, and we ride to Tank Bund. The road is empty. The lake is dark. You can see the Buddha statue lit up from far away. We stop at a stall that stays open till 1. The tea there costs 15 rupees and tastes like a dare. The owner's son runs it at night, 19 years old, playing old songs from a phone speaker, quite low. We don't talk much. My cousin scrolls. I look at the water and the lights on the other side. Sometimes a bus goes past, empty and lit up like a fish tank, and the driver waves at nobody. In the daytime I can't stand this city for more than a few hours. The horns, the heat, the signals. But at night it feels like the same city took off its shoes. I can't say it any better. I was in Riyadh for 7 months straight last year and I thought about those rides constantly. Not the biryani, not the family. The ride. I know that sounds stupid. Last visit it rained a little around midnight and the whole road smelt of wet dust and chai. We stood under a flyover for 20 minutes. My cousin's phone died and I finished 2 teas. I told my mother about the rides afterwards. She said, nothing good happens on the road at midnight. I said, tea does. She gave me a look, and I haven't mentioned it again since.

Tea that tastes like a dare is going to stay with me. My own late night spot is the Necklace Road stretch around midnight, when the food trucks start closing and a cool wind comes off the water.

11:30 at night sounds nice but I'm a morning person. Around 5:30, after the azaan, the lanes are empty.