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Other entries in Hampi

Wow

So jumped off the train in Hospet, the main town closest to Hampi. Offloaded my bag with a rickshaw driver and then remembered that on the train ride, I had had some kind of epiphany late at night. I had realised that I was about to get a stupid amount of trains and travel a ridiculous distance for days for maybe one days sight seeing, to end up just 100km west of where I now am.

So practically all the train tickets I had booked in Mysore yesterday, I cancelled. Which did mean that I wasted a load of money, because they are all subject to a small cancellation fee, and one was a special ticket that you only get 25% refund for. But it works out cheaper overall, and in pounds I haven't wasted that much. I was just being a little too ambitious with the small amount of time I have.

Once that was all sorted out, I took the rickshaw to the bus station; a walkable distance but I just couldn't be bothered with carrying my bag. The driver was trying to persuade me to pay him Rs100 for him to take me to Hampi, but I got the Rs10 bus instead.

I found a guesthouse easy enough; I had already picked one out of my Lonely Planet guide, and when I got off the bus there was a tout 'selling' that same guesthouse. So he took me there. I didn't mind, it means he'll get a small commission, and my room wasn't expensive at all. We agreed on Rs300 for 2 nights.

A shower, some clean clothes and some nuttella toast from the rooftop restaurant later, I headed out to explore the immediate area of Hampi Bazaar. Its only a very small village,mostly compromised by guesthouses of some kind. In the centre is a temple, with a tank (big open water storage thing) and a couple of towers. The temple elephant was there too, but I didn't get blessed since the smallest change I had was either a pound or a Rs50 note.

There's a hill next to the temple, and on it are loads of scattered ruins of temples and structures, both Hindu and Jain. They are just amazing. Along with the scenery; pure blue sky, bright green palm trees, a shimmering reflective river and large round boulders perched in unexplainable positions; this place just made me speechless.

After exploring all the ruins on the Hill, I made my way along the river to a place called the Mango Tree, a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet as a place I simply must go.

It was very nice; set away from the road, only accessible on foot through a banana plantation, you sit or rather lie underneath a huge mango tree with great views across the river, buffalo grazing down by the waters edge. I had their thali meal, which was really good. I also followed it up with a good lemon and sugar pancake, on a banana leave of course.

Before, in between and after all my food, I got stuck into The Last King of Scotland, so spending a couple of hours at the Mango Tree in total.

I then returned to my room, and finished off some washing I had left to soak this morning, hanging most of it up in my room and the rest in the hallway.

For the rest of the evening, I ventured a little away from the centre, to another temple and what used to be a Bazaar. Again, this place is just truly spectacular. Walking around inside the temple walls, looking at all the unique carvings and listening to the utter blissful silence, only broken by the shrill bird-like-sound of a squirrel. Yes, there are thousands of squirrels here and everywhere in India basically. They look a bit more like a chipmunk though. I think I've managed to get a picture, but they usually scamper away pretty quick.

Used the Internet for a bit to update blog a bit, and shift the hundreds of photos I had taken today onto my hard drive. I also asked a travel agent, who was also the man in charge of the Internet place, to sort me out a way to get to Goa from here.

Some fantastic spaghetti with a tomato, oregano and mushroom sauce, topped with some actual cheese! from dinner, followed by a banana and nuttela pancake (just can't get enough pancakes or nuttela!)

And then hopefully a decent nights sleep.

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