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Published: October 28th 2008
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So after checking out at 10am we had 13 hours to kill before catching our bus to Hampi, thirteen brutal hours spent sweating on the floor of the baggage room in our hotel whilst whatever i had eaten or drunk tried to leave my system any which way. Not pleasant at all, but we struggled to Ankola about 30k away to catch our bus at 11 only for it to turn up at 12 already full of passengers with a very irate driver who didnt seem to want to let us on at all. Catherine and i were lucky and managed to grab a couple of seats and proceeded to have the most uncomfortable 8 hour journey with a driver who didnt seem to care that he was going at breakneck speed on the wrong side of the road, every pothole sending us flying. At least we didnt get the back seat where the window had been smashed in, showering everyone with glass every time we turned a corner. We rocked up to Hampi early morning and chose any guest house to make our home. I am going to blame tiredness for the main contributing factor in why we chose Sunny
Guest House to stay in when in fact Sunny was far from what it actually was. Sunny turned out to be a witch of a woman who tried to wheedle as much money out of us as possible, gave us a curfew of 10pm to come home and was constantly trying to force her 'homecooked food' on us. Little did she realise if she had offered us booze we would happily have spent all our money there but a weak tea just isnt going to cut it.
Anyway Hampi itself is probably one of teh most stunning places i have ever been to. A ruined city amongst piles of boulders with monkeys all over the place, it seems magical and has been the highlight of my trip so far. We spent the first day exploring the ruins close by before meeting up with two lads from the bus on the way over, an english guy called Cliff and an Irish guy called Damo who were destined to be our partners in crime for the next few days. Hampi being an important Hindu pilgrimage sight, its a dry town with no alcohol, meat or fish on offer. Or so we thought
until chatting to one of the locals who directed us to a place called Chill Out bar where on the menu is a 'special' drink or lassi. This means either a vodka and coke or a smoothie made with hash, both or which we made full use of. The next day we met up with the boys and decided t do a rickshaw tour of all the important sights, mainly the monkey temple which is situated at the top of a mountain and pays homage to the monkey god. To get to said temple we had to get a boat trip down the river in what i can only describe as a giant basket! The coracle was manned by this tiny indian boy and sat so low in the water that i had to pop a zanax just to get in it. We idled down the river with appropriately music by Gorrillaz to get us in the mood before hitting the shoreline. The following hour was like something out of the Krypton Factor as we struggled up muddy slopes, through rice paddies and eventually scaled the mountain to reach the top, myself in a zanax fog but chuffed to bits
with defeating my fear of heights (or at least killing it with drugs). The sage at the top warned us that if we had bad karma then the monkeys would attack us as directed by the god, but seeing as we all escaped without hordes or monkeys descending on us and tearing us to peices, i think the monkey god was taking some time off. The journey back wasnt so pleasant as storms came in and we had to shore up and hise under the coracle whilst the storm passed. Boys being boys of course tried to swim home but ended up with a lift back in the boat. An amazing day topped off with a special lassi and i was dead to the world. The next day we spent trekking to the waterfall a few kilometres away, and spent an afternoon in the sun, feeling as if we were on mars or something. This was to be repeated the next day whilst catherine volunteered for the Hampi Childrens trust, i volunteered to get smashed with Cliff n Damo after successfully scoring some magic mushrooms which annoyingly didnt work. As didnt the ones we got the next day either but
we spent a great day chilling at the lake, and i had my first beer for over a week! We proceeded to make up for lost time which culmitated in Ctherine puking all over our balcony. This being a supposed dry town, the owner of teh hotel was very suspicious and cornered me saying " i think she drink. I think she drink alot!" whilst i pretended it was the food. All in all the most amazing time with a great bunch of people. Hampi is my new favourite place in the world!
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