Happy times in Hampi

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Wednesday 18th April - Monday 23rd April 2007

God I really need to start writing both in my Journal and on here more often again as things begin to slip away daily as there are so many good memories to try and remember...

So at some point I believe Wednesday we went to Hospet, nothing particularly interesting to tell about that, it's the same as any other city in India, noisy, smelly and great fun...

I should tell you that it's now off season here so on the North side of the river in Hampi (where we are) there is only 1 shop, 2 restaurants and 2 places to stay open and the boat to take us to the other (main) side stops at 6.30 unless you pay outrageous charges...

Thursday we got up early to see the Spanish girls off (they are leaving to Kolkata to volunteer in an orphanage) and made our way to the boat crossing where low and behold we see 3 people we met in Gokana - Gem (24 from Oz), Michal (female, 27 from Israel) and Daoud (male, 34 from Syria) who had we not bumped into them there it would have been very unlikely that we would have seen them at all as they had booked accommodation by the lake but as it happened they decided to join us at the Mowgli. I love the way that with billions of people here you still meet up with "old friends" on your way.... So we spent the evening catching up on what we had all been doing since we last spoke.

On the Saturday I once again hired a scooter with the intention of finding a hospital at the nearest town (my elbow is still giving me grief...) Gangauatai, just 20KM away. Michal wanted a few bits sop she jumped onboard and off we went. I Love the freedom of riding a bike in India, out through the small villages where a tourist is unheard of and they run out to greet you, shake your hand, cheer, clap and as per normal ask where you are from...

So we arrived at Gangauatai and discovered that NO ONE speaks English so finding a hospital proved too much of a challenge and we decided just to explore. Driving a scooter through busy city roads, with a pillion passenger, with people jumping out in front of you to say 'hi', no real side of the road to drive on, cows/dogs/beggars in the road, when you've only ever ridden a bike once before was a learning curve in itself, and one that I enjoyed thoroughly. I've found out rally driving on a bike IS possible ;-) It was cool but weird at the same time and you really get an idea of what it must be like to be famous, everyone wanting a piece of you, but it was nice because it was only out of curiosity rather than because they saw money.

we spent the afternoon wandering around before I drove back to Hampi and piggybacked everyone to the lake, Indian stylie (i.e 3 on a bike at a time) and we spent a few wonderful hours there

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