Monkey Gods, Elephants and Temples

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A couple of weeks into our stay in India we had been asked to travel to the region of Ladakh, a fascinating former Buddhist kingdom in the far north, to join a luxury trek and then write an article about it for a UK magazine. We happily agreed to the commission and then settled into the beaches of Goa to wait for our instructions about when to travel north - reasoning that there was no point in travelling further south if we were to have to schlep to the northern most tip of India at short notice. During our reading about Ladakh we both became excited by the prospect of the trek but also a bit unsure about how it would come about, all our reading suggested that at this time of year the area is cut off by the severe winter. And we weren't wrong, sadly this time the article was called off at the last minute. So we ended up spending nearly a month on the beaches of Goa - totally unplanned but none the worse for it. We stayed in a succession of coco huts, moving south to Palolem, and then onto the even more deserted Agonda, where we watched the sun set and rise and dolphins play from our little coco hut on the sands of the beach. Local buses were a really fun, if rather sweaty and crowded, way of travelling around Goa. We met many interesting people, loads of young Indians, Nepali and Bhutanese working the season in Goa before heading back to the Himalaya regions, many ex-pats living in Goa who were keen to warn us that Goa was 'not India', and we met plenty of holiday makers who stayed in Goa year after year but had never ventured into the rest of India warning us it was 'dirty and dangerous' out there. Goa really is a tourist enclave and so when the news came that the article had fallen through we were ready to move on!

Our first stop was Hampi - we caught the day train and met loads of great people - most notably a snack salesman who was only too keen to share his samples with us and two chikan salesmen from Lucknow, who showed us the beautifully embroidered tunics, covered with chikan - the embroidery the Lucknow region is famous for. Many of these salesmen had an encyclopedic knowledge of India from their travels so it was a full 5 hours of conversation and we arrived in Hampi.
Hampi was established as a capital city and the seat of the Vijayanagara empire in the mid-14th century. The empire was destroyed in 1565 but the remaining ruins and temples bear testament to what was an incredible city of some half a million people, and the luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by the kings of the empire. All this is set in the most amazing boulder strewn natural environment, chock full of rice paddies and incredible rock formations.

Man made highlights were the Vitthala temple, Lotus Mahal and the Elephant stables. We enjoyed seeing the King's Balance where the emperors are traditionally believed to have had themselves weighed against gold and precious stones. The counterweight was then distributed to temple brahmins (members of the priest/ scholar caste). Seems to us a great way to ensure the people are happy with a fat king!
Hampi also features as 'the monkey kingdom' where some of the main scenes from the Hindu epic Ramayana are played out and we were lucky enough to be there during Ramanava, a festival celebrating the birth of two of the heroes of the story, Rama, and the monkey king Hanuman.
The first we heard of this was one morning when we rose before dawn and cycled and hiked our way up to the top of Anjenadri hill to climb the nearly 600 steps to visit the Hanuman temple. There we we found a rather slothful sadhu sprawled on his mat playing with his mobile phone and computer, and another younger sadhu who was keen to chat and invited us to stay overnight on the birthday of Hanuman. We didn't stay in the end but these encounters with sadhus, often keen charras smokers, were often very funny, but not always so enlightening. The previous day we had hiked up Matanga Hill for amazing views and a very funny encounter with a sadhu who was only too keen to feed us bits of his dinner with his fingers (tasty food but a bit odd).

We did grow a little cynical about some of the sadhu, the holy men. We had read they were men who had renounced material goods in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment, however at times we felt like amending the last part of the sentence to ' pursue foreign tourists demanding baksheesh'. One of our funniest sights in Hampi was a turbaned sadhu whizzing along on his motorbike with a huge beaming smile on his face, trailed by about 6 westerners on their motorbikes. Where he was taking them and why we know not but he was clearly delighted with his catch!
Many of the sadhu were keen to show foreigners around, promising hidden sights etc etc. We didn't hire a guide this time, finding the rickshaw guys a bit aggressive, so we forked out 400Rs on a brilliant book called Hampi by John Fritz and George Michell. This, as well as giving fascinating background, including eyewitness accounts from western traders who saw the splendour of Hampi in the 1500s, gave a nice itinerary to help us plan our days.We explored the ruins by bicycle over a period of about a week- rising before dawn to beat the heat and finishing at about 11am, starting again at around 4pm when it cooled a little. Other ways of exploring were scooter or hiring a rickshaw but we liked the independence and more environmentally friendly (and cheaper) option of the bikes.
We chose to stay on the north side of the river away from the noise of the bazaar, and while our hut at the Mowgli, was a little more expensive than others, the view over the rice fields and the cool breeze and shade more than compensated for the extra pound or so that we forked out.
Part of the reason we stayed so long was that we wanted to catch the day train which ran once a week to Bangalore. There are nightly trains and buses running but we really enjoy train travel - chatting with fellow passengers and seeing some of the sights - not to mention the delicious snacks which are sold by boys travelling up and down the train. As we said this delayed our departure as the train was weekly but meant we were in Hampi for Ramanava. The town filled up with Indian tourists pretty early and the day before the festival the river was lined with families taking their morning bath and doing their washing after sleeping out on the streets. On the main day of the festival we began by cycling again to the Hanuman Temple to see masses of Indians taking tributes to the temple and receiving their blessing, we were then told of about 20 weddings which were taking place at the same time in a village some 7km away, so we cycled out there to see the fun and watch from a small chai stall as drums beat and rice was thrown as the couples were wed. Then it over the river by boat to Hampi Bazaar for the main event: the moving of the two huge chariots which had been built over the past few days. It got busier and busier, bananas were thrown into the chariots as a blessing (and often lobbed back by the young men clambering over the chariots) drums were going and groups of young men were working themselves into a dancing frenzy, someone broke out the coloured powders and Zoe again got her face plastered with pink powder. But it soon got so crammed that we wondered what would actually happen when the chariots moved - would we all be crushed under the wheels? The bazaar was packed - every roof top crammed with people too, as time progressed the crowd got more and more frenzied - we were in the middle so we decided to make our way up to the fringe of the crowd, behind the chariots and just in front of the temple where we thought we would be okay when the action began. It took about half an hour to make the 50 meter traverse, shaking hands, 'hello how are you what is your name' etc and stopping to have photos taken with family groups! Eric had been rather surprised to see Zoe giving an Indian guy a good clobbering but it was not unwarranted - he'd had a go at grabbing her between the legs as he passed earlier and got a good right hook with her elbow but then had the cheek to try to make his way back around for another go, but this time Zoe was ready for him.

We made it up to the crush in front of the temple but then the next moment we heard drums from inside the temple. The crowd split pretty quick- many of us so tightly packed that our feet barely touched the ground as we moved with the crowd to make way for a procession led by the gorgeous Lakshmi - the temple elephant. She was wonderful to behold, beautifully bedecked but still an elephant forcing her way through an excited, packed crowd and certainly to be avoided. After this we called it a day, heading back over to the other side of the river to sit with the friendly owner of the Sai Plaza and watch the goings on.
We've loved Hampi - the only thing we didn't manage to do was make contact with the Hampi Childrens Trust who sponsor local children through school (many not allowed to attend school by their parents who need them to help make a living - primarily by begging from tourists around the sites). We plan to do this however. Next stop Bangalore and then onto Chennai, Pondicherry and Sadhana Forest where we hope we can start to work.

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