With only ten days left in India we are back on the road and on a whistle-stop tour through the remainder of India. Hampi is a huge ancient city of ruins; palaces, baths, temples, houses. We arrived after an 8hour journey at 3pm, already a long day, but determined not to waste a moment we were straight out in the thick of it at Hampi Bazaar. One street side thali under the shadow of the largest temple in Hampi.

The journey here was slightly disappointing and a little insulting at the hands of our train neighbours. We started off in the wrong carriage - not made altogether obvious by the lack of numbers on the carriages. How anyone found their seats is a wonder. Then again trains Indian style are; sit where you want with as many people as you want regardless of how many tickets you have or where they actually are... Found our seats and thought jackpot! White people! And they're British. Welsh but we'll let them off. For now. Struck up a conversation immediately. They seemed to be giving one word answers and closing down every open question we asked, despite the girl having studied in Northampton, clear common ground for much small talk. They buried themselves in their books, can't even discuss that with them as his was a Welsh book, so we did the same. A little while later they got cards out. Brilliant - card games are all inclusive right. 'So what is that you're playing?': friendly inviting question from Laura. The boy responded with as much reluctance as if we'd asked for his pin number and home address. 'It's a kind of whist' he said, turning away, 'we kind of have a long running score going on' Not put off in the slightest she continues; 'ah yeah we do that with Uno.' 'Mmm,' comes the enthusiastic response 'most travellers do.' Oookay point taken. Back to the books for us then.

A short distance from Hospet where we get off for Hampi and our last ditch effort to make friends.
'So where was it you're staying?'
'Over the river if we manage to catch the last ferry, if not, we're not sure.'
Ah perfect opening for an invite; 'Well we know there's space at our place if you need it.'
'We'll try the ferry first I think'
'Ah fair enough': Laura soldiers on; 'does your book say how to get to the bus station from the train station?'
'Here; have a look yourself''Ah so it's not far to walk then but maybe we will get a rickshaw anyway, less effort haha.' Silence. We disembark the train having not made any new friends.

This did nothing to dampen our experience of Hampi which was incredible. We hired a rickshaw for the morning and saw most of what the area has to offer but not nearly all of it. The ruins spread for miles, and not one to miss out we hire him for a few more hours after a short respite in a local town with ... a local thali! (We're developing a thali problem) Sean was also cruelly introduced to typical Indian streets by stepping out of the rickshaw into a fat cow pat. In flip flops. We were unimpressed by some of the locals in Hampi and can still not get used to their habits...very different from England. We are just getting used to Indian style toilets, but avoid them like the plague, just as well as most of them are a breeding ground for it. What we don't understand are the hybrid toilets which are low seated toilets but with the option to stand on the seat and squat if you want. Who in their right mind would choose I.S. over western style? Having said that though we do appreciate that some Indians at least confine their toilet habits to a toilet and not the street or off a station platform as most do... Baffling. The ruins themselves were wonderful. A bit like Ephesus but a lot better preserved. Lot of incredible temples and we spent a lot of time sitting in the ruins and enjoying being back in real India after Western Goa and Kerala. We also found the most elusive thing in the whole of India, something it's taken us 7 weeks to find; silence. On the long road up to one of the palace compounds, about half a mile long, which meant that the Indians needed golf carts to take them there, the concept of walking anywhere really is lost on them. Between the few carts that drove past we had periods of pure silence, so we sat in a small temple and enjoyed this for about half an hour. Bliss.

Exhausted after a long day we take a quick break in the room to recuperate and then out again for an evening on the rooftop cafe with books and Uno and plenty of chai and lassi overlooking the temples.

Day two in Hampi was an early check out and we spent the morning running some errands, not too strenuous and we enjoyed coffee in a Tibetan cafe writing postcards. Laura got her shoes fixed on the street by a cobbler - some Indian habits we really love. We also found a cheap tailor in Goa and got some clothes mended for £1. Not quite as good as the bargain in Nasik where Laura got her bag fixed for about 12pence. We had another gorgeous thali for lunch on the road under the shadow of the temple. Then climbed up some rock formations for the afternoon and did a bit of reading. We seemed to have picked the local toilet though as several people were disappearing behind a massive rock with their pots of water. That being said however there isn't really anywhere that is a designated toilet so you are never really safe.

Late train out overnight to Bangalore. We saw the biggest bats overhead as we arrived at the station, and leaving at twilight has the added bonus of being fairly quiet in that station. The journey was fairly comfortable being back in the elite classes rather than cattle class, not out of choice it was the only available, we missed the price of the sleeper class but didn't miss being woken at every station and so had a relatively peaceful night. As peaceful as India can ever be!

Miss you all. We can't believe it's been 7 weeks since we left! 1 week to go. x