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Published: March 5th 2014
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It is difficult to convey the scale of Hampi. A city of 500,000 people, one of the great trading centres of the world in the 15 and 16
th centuries, visited by merchants from England, Europe, the middle East and China. Devastated, pillaged and destroyed by vengeful Muslims from the Deccani sultanates after Talikota in 1565 (as the guide kept telling us ad nauseam), and then abandoned and overgrown by the jungle until discovered by an intrepid Englishman on his horse in the 19
th century. And now a World Heritage Site, little known outside India.
Massively long and wide colonnaded market avenues lead up to temple complexes of the 14
th to 16
th centuries. The temples were also social centres, so you find a dining and dormitory building, a consultation hall, a music and dancing hall and an inner sanctum where the deity would be worshipped in most of the temples. The level of carving varies in quality, as does the level of iconoclasm indulged in by those vengeful Muslims.
The light is rather dead as the day is overcast so the whole impression is one of a rather grey coloured city, the building and massive boulders all around blending one
into the other, but with the vivid greens of the paddies and the palm groves counterpointing the grey, the river meandering through adding another dimension. The whole thing feels immense, a lost civilisation recovered from the jungle.
The temperature is passing 30C and rising and our guide suggests a drift down the river in a coracle powered by a nut brown and gnarled boatman to another temple complex. A relief from a half hour walk, we take the coracle as people have done for thousands of years, past reed beds and riverside shrines, the massive boulders all around.
The magnificent Vitthala temple is one of the grandest and home of the iconic stone chariot that features on all promotional pictures of Hampi. A magnificent vehicle, frozen now but capable of movement if it is was let free. Quite unique.
It is now over 35C and time to visit the Royal Quarter, the palaces of the kings and queens, unfortunately all gone apart from their ornate stone plinths as they were all built of fragrant sandalwood and so all burnt in the sack of the city. We see the elephant stables where the royal nellies were kept, and
the queen's palace where she was attended by her vast coterie of ladies and guarded by her faithful eunuchs. Only the intrepid Brits are out in the midday sun, all ridiculously attired in one way or another and exchanging a polite “good morning” in some sort of show of solidarity in the face of adversity (etiquette has to be maintained you know).
One last photographic vista and it is back to the hippie cafe for lunch. Some quick ruthless bartering by Sara for some earrings, no pestering today by the “photo sadhus” who recognise a lost cause when they see one, an invitation from a fierce looking transvestite to enter her shop which is politely declined, assorted beggars and that man who is trying for the second day to sell us a flute on which he plays the first few bars of Titanic.
Mr Ali then takes us to his home for a cup of the strongest tea we have ever drunk, introducing us to his wife and daughter. Sara asks the teenage daughter her age, occasioning a fit of giggles and causing her to hide. The only common ground she could find with Mr Ali’s wife was
to note that her ewing machine was very similar to the 1952 Singer sewing machine Sara inherited from her mother. This went down very well. A small crowd gathers at the door to stare and giggle at the two overheated Englanders. We bid farewell amongst much waving and further giggles, and return to the hotel.
An amazing place seen by a route march in blazing heat that our forebears would have been proud of.
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