Hello Hampi!

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So we started our day by a strange banging sound at the door which I quickly realised was our rickshaw driver to take us to the bus stand, after we had convinced him that we would NOT make the 7am bus (it was already 6.30 and I hadn't even had a fag yet!) we rearranged for him to pick us up for the afternoon bus, 14.30 really is so much more a civilised time...

Some hour later we ventured to the restaurant having made ourselves (a bit) more presentable and we had packed (always an onerous task) we sat and ate some lunch whilst watching the Dolphins frolicking in the waves and then Tip and I made our way to the bus stand.

We were fortunate enough to get the very front seats for the 9 hour journey, always the best place to sit as bus drivers always forget they have quite a load behind them so as soon as they themselves are past bad bits in the road they speed up which makes for a very sore arse if you're sat at the back...

As is so often the case the journey itself was great fun, again we were the only people on the bus that spoke English and we stopped at a great little thali restaurant with an Albino gentleman who would just speak to us in Hindi (?) and expect us to understand. Back in the bus we were treated to our first experience of what would be considered monsoon. The night sky closed in around us, the rain thrashed down at us, the lightening looked as though it would hit us with every stroke and the thunder was so loud it was deafening, but still our sturdy 1950's bus kept on going down the sorry excuse of a road....I have to admit it was a little scary, like the bus ride in Indiana Jones but I loved it none the less.

So on arriving at Hospet at near midnight we were informed that there were in fact no buses onto Hampi, but we were determined now (as well as cold, tired, hungry and in need of a cigarette so we jumped into a rickshaw and onwards bound we went....So scuttling along through the dark in the Rickshaw when sod’s law we run out of gas! Why the prat didn’t know that his tank was empty and took a fare out in the middle of nowhere is beyond me but hey it’s India so shit happens for a reason and on this occasion it was so we could sit in a temple with bats flying all around us as we watch the storm whilst he runs to the nearest village….

We finally entered Hampi far far too late and in the middle of a powercut (shocker…) so we just crashed straight out…

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