Blogs from Hampi, Karnataka, India, Asia - page 10

Hampi! We’ll open this blog entry with a report from the Death Bus. It turned up an hour late at Mapusa (obviously) to take us to the old town of Hampi. We’d booked an overnight sleeper bus that was to take 11 hours but took around 17… After boarding the bus and being allocated our ‘cell’ we realized this would be a long journey. We had a ‘bed’ on the top row right at the front of the bus which gave us a good view of all the driver’s antics... This came with a window that literally fully opened onto the road below. We’ve realized there are no health and safety regulations in India. Funny with hindsight but at the time you can find yourself longing for the organization and safety of the western world! We ... read more

Hi gang, I'm going to try to upload some photos of Mysore and Hampi - if you can see them, it worked! Cheers ~ Jeff... read more

Hi everyone, I'm checking in as we continue our adventures through the sunny south. After our decadent houseboat experience in Alleppey we spent another day there, then hopped a couple of trains (including an overnighter) that got us to the city of Mysore (via Bangalore). We had an action-packed couple of days there. We managed to fit in a couple of trips to the legendary bustling market, part of an utterly incomprehensible but still interesting cricket match, an afternoon at the impressive (yet at the same time kind of sad) zoo, and a walk through the amazing Mysore palace. Another highlight was seeing the palace lit up at night by 96,000 lights. We also went to the horse races one day - an impromptu 'plan b' after we found that the bird santuary we had planned ... read more

9 hours on a Government bus later.... (Government being a public bus, the cheap alternative but a pretty decent ride)... and we arrived in Hospit where we jumped on a rickshaw a trundled to Hampi, where we spent the week roaming around in awe of the amazing scenery! Hampi is like no other place I have been... at times I really felt as if I were in a film set and that dinosaurs may roam into my vision, they really would of fitted in! The village is in the middle of 15th century ruins of the old town of Vijayanagar, so ruined temples and walls stretch out far amongst the brilliant landscape of giant granite boulders, paddies and banana plantations. Very little has changed since in the landscapes appearance, even the village of Hampi hasn't developed ... read more

Friday, Oct 30th, Hampi - Karnataka This morning was the first time in forever, that we took a yoga class. It was different, but not bad. Weird introduction… Whatever. We arrived in Hampi yesterday morning after a 14 hour bus ride. It was fun, but also totally exhausting. It was a sleeper bus, so picture this like a bus with a ton of bunk beds inside. Ok, if you ever decided you wanna take a bus in India, make sure, you didn’t have recent abdorminal surgery, you are pregnant, suffering from hernia, have any ulcers (sorry, inside joke ) No, seriously, it’s VERY BUMPY and shaky. But - we made it!!! We met some really nice guys from Sweden, one of them has been in Hampi twice already, so we kinda decided to follow them. So ... read more