Hampi is a glorious place. It's in a very dusty spot in south-central India surrounded by spectacular rock formations and temples that are up to 800 years old. To the Hindus it's an extremely sacred place. There's a push by the police and the locals to keep Hampi under control, and to not let it turn into a party area like Goa. There are signs telling tourists to be in their homestay by 10pm and to not drink or take drugs anywhere.This is almost well enforced. Many of the locals smoke ganga and if you just cross the river on a little boat you reach a relaxed version of Hampi with restaurants with liquor licenses and one place that offered us weed on arrival! We settled for a longneck of Kingfisher and giggled when we heard another patron of the outdoor cafe say to another of his book - I've just read the chapter on "Thought".

Despite the bans of alcohol on our side, we negotiated with a restaurant to allow us to BYO for Christmas lunch. Christmas day was glorious, with the special added surprise of Luke proposing to Anita with a very special present of a diamond ring. There were many tears of joy and a lot of phone calling to Australia. We stayed at the restaurant for about 8 hours with the food spread out based on how long the blackouts lasted for - towns in the south seem to have enforced blackouts and various times of the day.

The temples were filled with detailed stone carvings and structures reminiscent of Ancient Greek temples. Some of the temple carvings were surprisingly rude, reminding me of the gargoyles of Europe. Monkeys are everywhere and as cheeky as you would expect. Luke chose the best kind of town to propose in with all of us saying how happy we would be to return to Hampi.