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Published: February 17th 2006
Despite leaving half an hour late, the train managed to make up this shortfall by the time we got to Hospet, the railhead closest to Hampi. Since this was still high season for Hampi, and I'd been unable to get hold of any guest houses by phone to reserve a room, I immediately hopped in an auto and headed for Hampi, in an attempt to beat the other tourists who had come in on the same train.
The countryside near Hampi reminded me a little of Utah - lots of boulders strewn around the place under a baking hot sun. And the village itself seems a bit like Khajuraho, in that virtually everything in it has been built to cater for tourists. I was lucky that my first choice for accommodation - the Gopi Guest House - had a room available, which turned out to be their only vacancy. The room is the most basic I've had on the trip. Hot water is only available by the bucket (and costs Rs 10), there's no sink in the room at all, and there's no conveniently placed tap near the squat loo either. The presence of a mosquito net bore mute testimony
Virupaksha Temple
As seen from Hampi Bazaarto the unfriendliness of the local wildlife.
One selling point of the place is its rooftop restaurant, which affords excellent views of the village's Virupaksha Temple. I saw egg, chips, and beans on the menu, which would be highly tempting if my guts were in order.
Unfortunately I soon became aware that an upset stomach and a squat loo are not a good combination, especially when there's no convenient tap for cleaning purposes. This experience was enough of a shocker to make me seek out a doctor. Though Hampi itself is too small to warrant its own physician, I was told that a doctor came in every day at midday from one of the neighbouring towns, so I wandered along to meet him.
He had set up shop in a bookstore near the temple, which was as well-equipped with medical paraphernalia as your average Borders. He dispensed all his medication from a small box, so I crossed my fingers that he had happened to pack some stomach pills that day. After listening to the description of my woes, he prescribed me an ayurvedic course of treatment to follow over the next few days. Rs 50 changed hands,
and I was the proud owner of 10 capsules containing some combination of herbs. The doctor said that there should be no side effects, other than that people might be able to smell the herbs on my breath.
As it turned out, people would have had a hard job smelling anything on my breath, given the cloud of flatus that billowed around me for the rest of the day. Apart from that, things seem to be drying up already, which is a good sign.
In the late afternoon, I went for a walk by the river, on a path leading to the Vitthala Temple, a World Heritage site. Just by strolling along the main bazaar, I realised that Hampi has the highest tourist density of anywhere I've been yet. Though the riverside path was fairly flat, it was in sunshine for most of the way so I was soon hot and tired. The monstrous rocks dotted around the place kept up my interest, but unfortunately the Vitthala Temple was not as stupendous as I was hoping it would be - compared with Khajuraho or Konarak, the carvings were run of the mill. One redeeming feature was that many
The long and winding road
That leads to the Hanuman Temple of the supporting pillars had been constructed in such a way as to sound a note from the scale when struck. Guides were rapping out tunes to demonstrate this property to their clients, which can't exactly help preserve the structure.
After a light dinner at the hotel, I decided on an early night. Unlike other places I've been so far, there were significant mosquito-related preparations to do first. Despite having mesh over all window entry points to the room, there were many mossies floating around so first I went on a murderous rampage with a flip-flop. I had been given a mosquito coil to light, which burns in a similar fashion to a candle and supposedly keeps the mossies at bay. After wasting half my box of matches due to the flame going out, Noddy remembered to turn off the ceiling fan and the coil was successfully lit. I then slapped on a good few handfuls of DEET before diving under the mosquito net and ensuring that there were no gaps between it and the mattress.
The resulting space available on the bed, in order to avoid touching the net, was annoyingly just shorter than me, so I
curled up into a semi-ball. Hoping that my precautions would keep the nibbling hordes at bay and allow me to see another dawn, I drifted into a troubled sleep.
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