We came over the hill in our tuk tuk into Hampi and wow what a view! Pretty darn impressive. Lots of huge boulders on the landscape surrounded by lots of banana plantations. We've not seen anything like this before in India. Tom said it was like being in the Flintstones :). We stayed in Hampi Bazaar which is a very small little village. Lots of cows and poop everywhere and smelt as well as looked like a farmyard at times. It is overlooked by a beautiful temple, Virupaksha Temple. It was built in 1442 and is almost 50m high. Probably one of the most awe-inspiring buildings we've seen in India aside from the Taj Mahal. On our first night I enjoyed THE most disgusting pizza i've ever had in my life! It was spinach, mushroom, garlic, tomato and some vegetable i've never heard of before which was why I picked it. After the first bite I thought the VERY odd taste must be from this vegetable i'd never had before which kind of looked like courgette but with a much tougher skin. I pulled out a piece to have by itself, nope it wasn't that. By process of elimination I discovered it was the MUSHROOM!! I have never eaten something before that i've felt the need to instantly spit out. It was so hideous I can't even describe the taste. It tasted nothing like mushroom, just of something that was very very BAD. We were the only people in the restaurant and our food had taken an hour to prepare (as per usual) and I felt terrible leaving my dinner. I didn't want to seem ungrateful. I tried to pick out all the mushroom and eat what I could but everything was tainted with the hideous mushroom juice. All the while thinking for the sake of being polite I was going to end up being very sick in the night. Argh!

 To continue the bad luck....chilling out back in our room that evening we had our first run in with BED BUGS!! Noooooo!! We complained to the owner and moved rooms. We had no choice to move hotel as it was so late. I went into freak out mode and we both showered and washed our clothes we'd been wearing that day. I was paranoid that maybe they had come from us as we'd been on a sleeper train that day and that's how a lot of bed bugs get transported. We checked our bed thoroughly in the new room and found no signs of any more bugs. We were upset as the place we were staying was the second best guest house to stay in Hampi! During our stay we visited the Virupaksha Temple which was only five minutes away from where we were staying. We were the only westerners there and I couldn't believe the amount of attention we received. Every single person stopped to stare at us. All the children shouted “hello” and “byeeee” to us. At one point Tom and I were sat on a wall looking at our lonely planet and a big crowd formed very closely around us all interested in looking at us and looking at our book as well. We'd say hello and then they would all leave and then we'd go back to our book. Then another group would form. We'd try and carry on with our conversation but that's pretty difficult when you're being watched so closely! It was quite intimidating especially when a group of men would gather around. Not so much the women and children as they were usually all smiles and the children fascinated, staring only a few inches from our noses! We suspected that all these people were Indian tourists probably from nearby towns and villages who don't usually see any westerners at all so we were very interesting to them. Tom didn't like the attention one bit and went off to get some water after I reassured him i'd be ok on my own! I put my camera away as that seemed to be adding to the attention. Whilst he was away a group of ladies and children crowded around me and one of them asked where I was from. The standard question put to us about five times a day. After answering the young girl seem pretty chuffed I'd spoken to her and went away with her group all smiles. We receive attention in India every day, lots of staring, sneaky photos and videos taken of us (or just me!) but nothing quite like this.
 
The highlight for me at the temple was seeing Lakshmi the temple elephant. A very chilled out elephant. If you give her a note or a coin she'll bless you with her trunk ie. Hold her trunk on the top of your head so that's what we did! She was getting lots of foodie treats from people who had come to be blessed by her. There were also lots of monkeys in the temple. If you got too close (as I did taking photos) they would jump right at you and try and grab your bag! Made me jump a couple of times! We also got persuaded into a couple of group family photos much to their excitement. When I say family I mean around 10-15 adults and children who then ALL want to eagerly shake your hand afterwards! Funny! :)We headed up the hill near the temple to see the ruins that were overlooking Hampi Bazaar. It was pretty impressive. I was more intrigued by all the huge boulders and how on earth they got to where they are. We snapped some lovely views as we were quite high up here. A fascinating landscape. I loved that there were just very old ruins dotted about the place and sometimes right in between the boulders.
 
Chilling out back at our hotel, about to go to bed then disaster. ANOTHER BED BUG! Urgh! We got our torch out and had a good investigation of the bed and room. They were living in the mirror above the bed and in the cracks of the bedside table. Dammit! At least it meant they hadn't come from us and our bags and things should still be bug free. Needless to say we checked out!
 
Then unfortunately Tom became very unwell quite quickly, oh dear, oh dear! Poor Tom was very worse for wear. This meant a couple of days in bed for him to recover.Tom was feeling well enough to go out by our last day (he must have been as he ordered a Nutella pancake for breakfast!) so we thought we'd try and see the bits of Hampi we hadn't managed to see yet. We headed over to the Vittala Temple, a warm 2km walk from where we were staying in Hampi Bazaar. Nice view of the river along the way as well as numerous small ruins. This temple is supposed to be the highlight of the Hampi ruins, built in the 16th century and in relatively good condition. It was ok but I was still more impressed by the towering Virupaksha Temple. We got a tuk tuk over to the royal centre as it was too far to walk. Our driver dropped us off at all the main bits which was handy and then we decided we'd seen enough as it was getting a bit samey. Time to move on!