Belur and Halebid - yet more temples

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A gentle day today, probably just as well as we were both exhausted after two days of route marching in the midday sun around Hampi. A 9am start proved to be just as well after it took 45 minutes for breakfast to arrive. Who’d think scrambled egg and toast was such a complicated order?

Belur and Halebid are about an hour’s drive away (no hotels recommended anywhere nearer). Both have 11^th and 12^th century temples, amongst the greatest in India, built by the Hoysala kings, with an extraordinary quantity of exquisite sculpture. Bangles on a dancer’s wrist that move, despite all being carved out of a single piece of stone, 64 elephants marching in a ground level frieze, every one different to the next, dancing girls, gods, demons, mythical beasts, pillars covered with carvings – the list goes on. Both temples were truly beautiful, but we were feeling the effect of the heat and our previous exertions. The guide seemed determined to describe every single sculpture to us, in considerably more detail than we really wanted or needed. The pace and the script were set by the guide showing round a French couple just ahead of us. It rapidly became clear that every description and every poor joke was identical, while off-the-cuff questions did not get much of an answer. David was so entranced by the carvings that he kept asking subsidiary questions and took 180 photos of them, while Sara sat on a step nursing the remains of a migraine. Heavier than usual photo editing required this evening!

At Halebid, the world’s largest school party was on tour. Round about 100 small children in their neat little uniforms aged probably no more than 6 or 7 were being shown around at breakneck pace, in a long winding crocodile. We made the mistake of saying hello to one of their number who felt brave enough to accost us. Instantly they stopped their march and we were mobbed, with every remaining child wanting to greet us and shake our hands. The noise level rose to deafening proportions, while helpless teachers looked on unable to restore control. Even our guide seemed rather bemused patting one or two of them on the head. Eventually, duty done, we continued on our blow by blow tour of the temple, which features 2 huge statues of the bull Nandi on whom the god Shiva rides through all eternity. By this time, as David continued his quest for the shooting the perfect image, Sara had reverted to her repeated “er ehr” and “mm , yes” responses when we were told “this is a masterpiece of our temple madam” about yet another sculpture, while her idiot husband compounded the delay by taking yet another photo.......



Back to the hotel, even Mr Ali declared it hot today.

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