Honestly, this is my third and final holiday of
January. Promise. This time it was for Republic Day and we
headed to Hampi for a long weekend with Tabs and Ruth again. We see them far too much..
We got a sleeper train there. A lovely 14 hour train that stopped in all
the stops along the way. However, it did
go right through the middle of nowhere so when I got up in the middle of the
night to close the window, it was beautiful to look out onto basically these plain
with palms trees dotted along the way and the stars which were so bright. But I was a wee bit too cold and tired to
appreciate it. Tabs and Ruth were
arriving a bit later than us so we had a bit of a wait. We headed to our hotel, which turned out not
to be the hotel we thought, and then it turned out that they had given our room
away! But it was okay, they were going
to sort it! So, not really worrying
about it, we went out for a walk. Tabs
did warn us not to do any ruin watching without her, but as we soon found out,
that was much harder than it sounded.
There were ruins everywhere. And
honestly, I mean everywhere. It was
amazing. Even the police station and the
bank were in one of the old bazaars. I
absolutely loved it. We thought we’d go
for a wee walk up this hill, thinking we’d maybe see the river or something but
we actually ended up finding an amazing temple and the main bazaar. It looked like the monkey temple from the
Jungle Book and I actually just wanted to walk around touching everything. Despite the majority of the buildings in
Hampi being built in the 1300s, everything was so well preserved. It really was beautiful. Even all the intricate carvings and stuff
were still really clear. Even if some of
them were fairly Kama Sutra like.
Although that may have been because we found the old Red Light District…
This was literally my stairway to heaven
Where I'm convinced the Jungle Book was set
After Tabs and Ruth arrived, we headed to dinner. Again another chance for me to eat non-Indian
food. Chapatti all the time just isn’t
interesting! Heading back to the hotel,
we saw our bed for the evening. It was
two mattresses on the floor underneath a mosquito net. Now I say mosquito net, but any mosquito
determined enough to want to get in could have because of the two rather large
holes. It maybe wasn’t the best night’s
sleep I’ve ever had, mainly due to fact that I was concerned about getting
eaten by a sloth bear and trying to scare that rat-maybe-cat away from our
bags, but it was the most interesting I think I’ll have in a while. We headed out for the day armed with our
lonely planet guide, and bottles and bottles of water. I seriously think I drank about 9 litres that
day. Our plan was to go the Royal Centre
because that was at bit further away so we took an auto there and started from
the start! We went this underground
temple that was partly filled with water so we had to wade a little bit through
but it was amazing. Apparently there was
a bit in the middle of the temple that I think was a dancing platform, or
something. But the woman may have been
telling us that we could dance if we wanted to.
Who knows? It was amazing to just
wander round this old city. There was so
much to look at and see and I could have wandered around it for weeks. It was amazing. Cue all the history geek jokes from the other
three. But to be honest, I really didn’t
mind though, I was too busy trying to touch everything. And it was surprisingly quiet for India and
for a holiday. Which was amazing because
after the Shore Temple in Mahabs, I was dreading Hampi being that busy as well.
But there were times when we had the
place to ourselves. We also went to see the Vittala Temple and
that was amazing as well. Although
slightly busier than the rest of Hampi, it was still beautiful, especially as
we went as the sun was beginning to go down so the light off the ruins was
amazing.
I was just wandering off to touch some more walls and stuff. It was far too exciting,
Elegance personified
Our bed. With Ruth, Tabs and Sarah still in it
I honestly could have skipped around this all day
Everything's a farm in India
Being elephants in the Elephant Stables
We got back to the village of Hampi later that day, went to
our hotel but the people there were trying to charge us more than we had agreed
and we just not being very pleasant about it all, saying that we were out all
day when they could have given our room to someone else who would pay the
amount they were asking. But why would
we stay at the hotel all day when there were loads of ruins to see!? But we’ve
been in India long enough now to know not to stand for any of that any
more. They’re just trying to rip us
off. So we headed off to find another
hotel. Luckily, the hotel we thought we
had originally phoned but hadn’t (if you’re ever in Hampi and try to book a
hotel from the Lonely Planet, just make sure you’re booking for the hotel you
it says, I think they’ve changed
numbers) and they were lovely enough to let us stay in their rooftop café for
free! Which was amazing. So we ordered a lot for dinner that
night… The rooftop café was
amazing. It was so nice to be able to
look out under the roof to the stars and it was so comfy! If I hadn’t been so tired and needed to fall
asleep I would have appreciated it so much more!
The next morning was another early one and other trip to the
really clean, but really expensive, 10 rupees (okay yes, that is 10p but
usually toilets here are 2), public toilets where all the local Indians were
getting ready for their day. It was
Republic Day so we were greeted on the way in (after we had a waited for a really
scary cow to move out the way of the door)
by a really excited man wishing us Happy Republic Day. We planned to go on a coracle, well I didn’t,
I’m not a fan of boats, but the others did.
However, the people who had the coracles were trying to charge them 400
rupees, far too much for a quick jaunt over the river. So we just walked to other temple. We just went to the one Sarah and I had been
to because the other two hadn’t seen it yet.
While we were there we saw another ruined temple up a hill and decided
to go and see it. We maybe shouldn’t
have gone up in the middle of the day with not much water but it was worth it
for the view. Despite my inelegance and
lack of proper walking skills we all made it up alive! And it was beautiful. We could all the way across Hampi and it was
amazing. The terrain all the way around
it really was incredible and all the ruins looked amazing from the top of the
hill.
Later that day we went out to the main working temple in
Hampi which was really busy but it looked amazing. And we think there may have been a wedding
going on… There was an elephant we could
have been blessed by, Lakshmi, but she was a very smart elephant and knew when
someone gave her less than 10 rupees so she wouldn’t bless you. And with us all being tight, we just settled
for looking at the elephant instead.
Then it was some shopping time!
Obviously. But fun trousers are
too hard to resist. And after Sarah
almost getting rabies from a monkey, we decided it was time for dinner. At dinner we met a girl who was travelling
India and then some more of Asia who had just finished in the north so we were
grilling her on tips she had for when were up there. It was actually remarkably helpful, thank you
Becky! Sarah and I had to run off to
catch our bus a bit earlier than Tabs and Ruth so we had to say bye! We’ve seen them so often in the last few
months that it feels strange that we might not see them for a while! So we’re currently planning a meet up at some
point because going more than a few weeks is just going to be too hard!
Lakshmi!
So, the bus! Well,
when we booked it, it said it left from Hampi.
On the ticket it said our get on point was Hampi, I asked at a travel
agent in Hampi and they said we could get on in Hampi. However, when we got there, we discovered
that it didn’t go from Hampi! And our
bus was due to leave in 10 from Hospet, half an hour away. Thankfully, a lovely couple came to our
rescue and phoned the bus company who said it would be okay, it would leave at
half 8. So after a rather fast rickshaw
ride to Hospet we made it to our bus with plenty of time! Now, sleeper buses seem like a great idea,
but not when your bed is right at the back of the bus, so that you’re looking
out onto all cars behind. It was
interesting though. And I did manage to
sleep, even if I was woken up every so often as I flew off the bed when the
driver forgot to slow down to go over the bumps.
We were dropped off at half four in the morning, a quick two
and a half hours sleep at home, and back to school. We are very dedicated to teaching I have to
say. Although not as dedicated as Tabs
and Ruth who were getting into Tirupathi at quarter to 9 and were getting a
rickshaw straight to school for 9.
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