Hampi is fantastic!

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Had a great day today, a full day exploring the ruins. We set off about 10am and headed along a rough walk trail to one of the main temples, Vittala Temple, via lots of smaller temples, ruins and boulders. It was very busy and we think that there may be a festival going on as there are tons of Indian tourists here.

We met loads of Indian families enroute, the kids all shaking our hands and asking our names and men, women and children wanting us to take their picture and a couple wanting pics of us. They were all so sweet and friendly and even when being mobbed by about 5 families at once it was hard to decline. When reaching Vittala we paid 250Rs to get in (this also covered some of the temples in the Royal Centre, bit cheeky though as again it's 10 times the price that the Indians pay to enter). We walked down to the Royal Centre in the hottest part of the day and it was quite a distance in the heat but was worth it to see things such as the Underground Temple, Elephant Stables and the Queens Bath. All in all we were walking for about 5 1/2hrs, knackering! Got a rickshaw back though to save our by now aching legs 😊

Bumped into the UK couple, Dan and Corinne (that had been on Mysore bus) and they invited us to go to dinner with them at The Mango Tree which is a gorgeous restaurant where you sit crosslegged on the floor on outside tables with just little laterns providing light. Another English couple Dan knew, Matt and Naomi, also joined us and we sat there chatting for most of the night. Food was fantastic and walking thre and back we saw glow worms and a firefly!

p.s. Only 2 people tried to scam us today, a rickshaw driver that informed us the ATM was broke and he'd have to drive us to one 35km away hahah pull the other one and a woman who told us a few random facts about one of the ruins and then wanted a 'gift'!

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