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Published: April 4th 2006
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Ok. The longer Hampi post...
What was really striking about Hampi was that just a few hours on from the train journey, I find myself in some past life, Quantum Leap style. From Panaji, an Indian town that feels more like somewhere on the Med, to the India you see on travel documentaries - cows by the score, oxen-pulled carts, huge temples, crumbling buildings, and touts, touts, touts and then, for good measure, a few more touts.
It is a very, very strange environment. Like stepping back 500 years. Or maybe like going to the Glastonbury Festival three months after its finished. Or, maybe, it's like visiting the former centrepiece of an incredibly wealthy and populous civilisation that has fallen into ruin, and slowly been recolonised by Hindu pilgrims, travellers, and the assorted stalls, travel agents and Internet cafes that have sprung up to service them all.
This bit of the entry was originally written sitting in a restaurant on the main street of Hampi Bazaar (Bazaar? It's not bizarre, it's downright weird... boom boom...), looking out onto a street peppered with open fronted shops that wouldn't look out of place at a festival in the UK, but
Royal tank
Very cool... for the fact that they have been built on the ruins of their 500 year old counterparts. The only sound was chatter from the streets and the occasional buzz of an autorickshaw.
And this part of the entry was interrupted by the sound of drums, and the sight of an elephant walking up the street, followed by a band of Hindu pilgims with flaming torches, carrying a shrine to Ganesh. Maybe the highlight of the trip - I settled up (although I was going to pay a lot more than a few rupees for that meal...) and followed the procession down the street.
Firstly, elephants are just cool. The most mellow creatures in the world. It must be a huge advantage being that huge. Basically, it means you can pretty much chill out, because no one is going to dare f- with you.
Second, drums are cool. And the dozens of local kids who were going absolutely nuts (think the Mini Pops restaging a Metallica moshpit) were very cool.
Thirdly, digital cameras are cool. But also a curse. As soon as they clocked that I was taking photos, I was surrounded by kids wanting to be in
A cow...
...having a nap in the sun the photos, and to see them once I'd taken them. I made the mistake of letting one of them take a photo, and that was me done for. Suddenly I was like the pied piper of Hampi. Totally mobbed. Quite funny, but after a while I was a bit worried about looking like the sub-continent's equivalent of Gary Glitter. Plus I wanted to take some photos that weren't of half a leg, or the top half of a total stranger's shoulder.
Anyway, that had brought me back from my fairly underwhelmed initial impressions. Although even a festival with elephants didn't make up for how plentiful and how vindictive the mozzies were. Worst in India, by a mile.
The rest of the night, and morning, though, put me firmly back in the "This place is a dump" mode. Not really Hampi's fault that I got food poisoning, I suppose, but it didn't do much to endear it to me. Stupid stinking hole in the middle of nowhere.
And Indian style squat toilets are far from ideal when you've got to use them every twenty minutes. Pretty tough on the thighs.
Anyway, I got better. Afternoon the next
day I had a wander around the village bit. Took a look at a giant stone Nandi. (Bull, for the unitiated.) It was a bit like a giant stone bull, really. Took a look at a temple. That was a bit like a lot of other temples. Then spent a very very long time selecting the restaurant that looked the cleanest, had dinner and tried to catch up on some sleep.
The next morning I got myself a rickshaw tour around the ruins at Hampi, and that was actually pretty cool. It is an amazing place. Huge temples in the middle of banana groves, and the remnants of what was clearly a huge city. The royal temple was particularly impressive - some amazing carvings showing the story from the Ramayana, and in the centre of it, an enclosed bit with absolutely beautiful carved and highly polished black granite pillars.
And exploring the ruins of the royal palace was good too - retracing what was once there. Maybe I just like odd things, but the highlight was the stepped well in the middle of the royal palace, and the network of viaducts that led into it.
Got back
to Hampi Bazaar, and realised that I could catch a bit of the cricket. (For all the good it would do me...) Somehow, I found a real oasis of a rooftop bar. Not only did they show the cricket, and offer beer (unheard of in Hampi), but the man was also very keen to sell me good charas, or maybe a bit of ganja, or a bhang lassi. (Only kind of cannabis that's legal in India - heavily spiked yoghurt drink.)
And I proved that I have become some kind of born again bore. I finished my lemon soda, settled the bill, and wandered off to find some lunch...
Am I too old to be a traveller?
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MUM
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Coffee
enjoying the saga over my early morning bun but I agree we need more photos - especially you with the necklace and the sarong just to prove I have two daughters and I son!