Day 7 & 8 - Hampi

Well despite what the title says I was only in Hampi for one day, but it pretty much took up the entire weekend. And what an adventure!!!!


On Friday night I met Praveen at my apartment. Quickly had some Dominos pizza for dinner (called a Meatza) I didn't want anything too ethnic before my long journey. Their dominos here is way better than at home... Although it is quite expensive (say $10AUD for a pizza). I've found that India's fast food is much more expensive than the good food!

The bus was leaving at 9.45 pm so we had some time to kill, we went to the bus terminal a few hours early just in case we were going to get stuck in traffic. We went via the city bus and that was a crazy experience.... I guess you could compare it similar to a mosh pit.

The majestic bus terminal was also chaotic, due to it being festive season (Dasara) the place was handling twice the amount of people than usual. The tricky part is that none of the buses say where they are going, so you just play a bit of guesswork and a lot of asking around to find the correct bus. It was very tiring so we just wanted to get on the bus and relax..........

And relaxing is something we didn't get to do:



Every bump... every honk of the horn... and you wake up... and there were many bumps, and many honks, so we didn't get much sleep on Friday night.

I shouldn't whinge though, the bus was so crowded that some people were even standing!! And it was a 7 hour bus ride! It was pouring rain. In fact it rained for the whole bus trip all the way until we got to Hampi (just to add to the whole uncomfortable-ness). Miraculously the sun came out just as we entered Hampi!

More photos:




We arrived into Hospet bus station to change buses to go from Hospet to Hampi.

Hospet is a small village located about 13km from Hampi. It is the gateway to Hampi as all of the bus and train services from other cities exchange here. It looks to be a very poor village, on the streets I saw things like dead pigs, dead dogs and poverty. I didn't take any photos but this picture found on the net will give you some idea:


We got the bus from Hospet to Hampi, once arrived in Hampi we fought through the crowd of auto-drivers offering us tours. We'd already decided that we'd rent some bicycles to get around so we could do things at our own pace. I'm really glad we did!!

We rode our bikes way out into the ruins, once you're in the middle of it all you can just imagine what the city would have looked like in it's time. Praveen really knew his stuff and showed me a thing or two about what the in scriptures mean. Actually I am really glad he came with me because it would not have been the same on a conducted tour, I wouldn't have seen near as much!!

Basically Hampi is the area which once was the home of the Vijayanagara empire which ruled Southern India. It ruled somewhere between the 14th century until 1565 when the Vijayanagra army lost a major battle to the Muslim empires. Once the city was demolished, the population either died off or they fled, so the city became and remained as a ghost town.

If you want to find out more about the Vijayanagara empire you should read up on it here: http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Asia/vrp/Index.shtml
or http://www.hampi.in/history.htm

Plenty of pics are up at: http://picasaweb.google.com/doggins25/Hampi


We rode around the whole area (which covers approx 20 square km) There was a small town on the outskirts of the ruins, the locals here were really friendly. The kids especially were amazed to see me, all of them would run up to me saying "Hello! What is your name?" and they'd be so excited to see me. The parents weren't so enthused... I was getting lots of stares by some of the older locals... But generally the locals (young and old) would wave or smile as we rode past. Another funny thing was when a bus load of locals went past and they all went crazy! You'd think I was a celebrity....

We were getting pretty buggered at about 6pm. The only thing we'd eaten was chips and sweets. and we'd thought we better get back to the bike shop before it gets dark.

Now strangely enough, it started to rain again! So the sun came out just as we entered Hampi, and started to rain again when we'd finished sight seeing. Ooooh... Spooky.

After we dropped the bikes off we went to a "restaurant" next door. I had a curry with some naan, it wasn't too bad, considering it was about 1 australian dollar, including a coke

By now Praveen and I were really not looking forward to the bus ride home, knowing what to expect. The bus wasn't leaving Hospet until 11.45 pm!! But we thought if we go back to Hospet early to see if we can catch an earlier one. (by now it was just after 7pm)

We got back to the Hampi bus terminal and there was a luxury coach with a sign saying "Bangalore" the bus looked much nicer than the one from the night before so we thought we'd try our luck on that. They did have some seats available, and for the tickets would cost 600 rupees (about 20 bucks for the both of us) We didn't have enough cash on us but they were kind enough to drop us off at Hospet where they were picking up more passengers. We had 30 mins in Hospet to find an ATM. We found 3 ATM's but none of them worked. Luckily we found one that did work, just in time, and bolted back to the bus terminal.
We were now happily in a comfortable bus, with leg room and foldback chairs!! So we both slept like babies all the way home.

At 6am Sunday morning we arrived back in Bangalore, got a city bus back to the apartment and as I said farewell to Praveen, stumbled into my room, had a very long overdue shower (oh how I stunk!!!) and went to bed.

Thankfully, Steve rang at 9 am to ask if I wanted breakfast. I thought I may as well get up, so said I'll be there in 10 mins. Had the famous omelete and felt like crap. So I stumbled back to my room and fell back to sleep. Yet again Steve was there at 12 pm knocking on my door wondering when he can clean my room.... See what I mean about the "too good" customer service?

Anyway, I woke up, got ready and thought i'd treat myself to a nice lunch.

There were lots of foreigners in the city today - so I wasn't the centre of attention anymore. I walked thru Brigade Road onto MG Road and found a nice restaurant called "The 13th floor" which is ironicially on the 13th floor of the Barton Centre. Had as an Entree "Khushnuma Aloo Aur Gobi" and as a main "Lamb Nalli E Changezi"
The food was pretty good, especially the Gobi. And the rum was pretty good too (Old Monk) It is much better than Bundy rum!!

The Indians love my eye brow ring, it's usually the 3rd thing they talk to me about (first they ask where I'm from, then they talk about the cricket, then they ask about the eye brow ring) The waiter at the restaurant was the most excited about it, I think it made his day...

There was this big fat guy in the restaurant who loved to know his voice was being heard from all over. He is an opera singer who so-say has performed Shakespeare in Brisbane and hated the place.

He was trying to get a free desert and when the waiter refused to give him one he started singing at the top of his lungs "I'm at the Ivory Tower, where there is no free desert" in his operatic voice. If I was the waiter I would have given him a free desert just to shut him up...

(if you're wondering the restaurant is apart of Ivory Tower which is a hotel)

Anyway, all this talk about desert made me feel like a desert, and wow this restaurant make a mean Sundae!!


So that's about it for the day, I was really exhausted so decided I'd just go back to the room and retire for the day.