The Magic of Hampi!

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What a wonderful, wonderful place, the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. A truly magical and mystical tiny town tucked amongst the vast boulder strewn landscape and banana plantations of Karnataka. After a pretty awful 12 hour bus ride on a government bus, not reknowned for their comfort we arrived after dark in Hampi Bazaar. It's an old (16th C) Hindu temple complex that was invaded by Muslims and is now a World Heritage site with dozens of ruined temples. The main street is pretty much it aside from a few back streets tucked away, and it leads to the main temple still in operation with an enormous 40ft gopra (the huge sculptured towers at the entrance to Hindu temples). We spent 3 days exploring the area, with Morgan and Frankie from the project, on foot and moped. The first day we walked around the more easily accesible parts in the midday sun (what is it they say about mad dogs and Englishmen!) it was unbelievably hot, (even at night it didn't abate and sleeping was pretty difficult, especially with the rfequent power cuts that disabled the fairly useless ceiling fan!) and afterwards we decided we deserved a treat and headed to the Mango Tree Cafe perched on the banks of the river that runs throuhg Hampi. It situated under an enormous Mango Tree (surprise surprise!) and is very conducive to kicking back, appreciating the view and doing absolutely nothing - the fact the food is wonderful and the Mango Lassi (mango juice and yoghurt) the best we've had, helped!
Day 2 saw us setting off early to see the Vattala temple, it's one of the more intact temples and the carvings and sculpture decorating it were spectacular - photos aplenty! In the afternoon we decided to hire mopeds to reach the furthest temples. Frankie and I had trouble gettting up the first hill and had to be pushed by a local! no comments! - much to the hilarity of Dan and Morgan behind us! we scooted around and saw some beautiful palace ruins and Elephant stables (guess they had to house them somewhere!) The scenery was just spectaular, very lush with palm and banana trees, streams winding throuhg them, and huge outcrops of orange coloured boulders piled ontop of eachother springing up from the red dusty earth. Whizzing by on mopeds, hitting speed bumps and trying to avoid cows, whilst trying not to laugh too hard at Dan and Morgan clinging to eachother was unforgettable - we took hundreds of photos that we're very proud of. It's very easy to take good photos here, the colours and light is just fabulous! (promise to post them on kodak as soon as we can!)
We covered most of the southern bits and decided to head over the river - only problem was a lack of bridge!
We decided to leave the bikes and cross the river on the coracle (a small saucer shaped vessel made from animal skins and measuring about 7ft in diameter). Only when we were about to get on did the chap with the oar suggest we bring the bikes on board! SO we crossed this river, spinning this way and that, with 3 bikes (someone else came along) and 7 passengers.. it was pretty hairy! but as Dan pointed out, when would we ever get the chance to do that again!
Other side we climbed a HUGE hill to the temple dedicated to Hanuman the Monkey god - hundreds of monkeys jumping around trying to get bananas from us - wonderful views as the sun set... camera had run out of batteries at this point!! bummer.
The following morning we got up ridiculously early to climb another HUGE hill to watch the sun creep over the horizon and light up Hampi - magical, sitting on a boulder with a 360 degree view, as the landscape changed from purple to orange, sipping chai! can't beat that!
More chilling out in the Mango Tree with others we met along the way, including Mags from Ooty! Said our goodbyes to Morgan and Frankie for the second but hopefull not last time and then we jumped on a highly luxurious coach to Hyderabad!
Hyderabad put me in a bit of a bad mood! another sweaty, busy, crazy Indian city. WE checked into a hotel with the aim of leaving the following day to get to Bandavgarh Tiger reserve, only to find the only train for the next 2 days was that evening - so we booked tickets and counted the cost of the hotel we'd already paid as a loss!
Visited Golcona Fort just outside Hyderabad, very dissapointing. Lots of graffitti, loud Indian tourists yelping and screaming and an ever-pervading whiff of urine... sad cos we were looking forward to that but it's all part of the experience! and Hyderabad being the pearl centre of India and Dan buying me a pretty necklace and earrings made up for it! sucker!
Anyway, a 19 hour train ride awaits!!

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