Blog : Hampi

It was a crap train journey to Hospet, as we were so smelly from being in our clothes for two days straight and sweating at every moment; even changing didn't really take the whiff away! The beds were particularly uncomfortable and it was absolutely freezing! We arrived to Hospet, the city just outside of the UNESCO Hampi site, pretty early in the morning and got two tuktuks to a guesthouse we'd picked from LP but not booked. As it was out of season - Hampi was 45C + whilst we were there - we had guessed there'd be a room available and so just rocked up without calling in advance. It was fine and a three bed room was set up with an extra bed to fit the four of us in. On the tuktuk drive Kate and I had marvelled at the natural rocky landscape and felt like we'd arrived in Flintstone land or somewhere! But once we got to the guest house we all had a very much needed shower and then hit the sack, as none of us had slept at all on the train. I for one, after all the running at Bangalore station, was pretty poorly and spent a lot of overnight train time on the squatting toilet :( We slept until about lunch time and then got up and headed towards the river, to cross with the little ferry boat and go to 'Mango Tree', a chilled restaurant that Victoria had recommended to us. It was sooo hot and we were still sort of trying to be modest as not reveal a disrespectful amount of skin so we were sweating as we walked through the old capital ruins and over to the boat that would whizz us across the small river dividing Hampi bazaar where we were staying and Hampi island. We had to wait until there enough people for the boat to cross - which seemed to be completely at the discretion of the ticket man... It was weird seeing so many whiteys again in Hampi and hearing English being spoken at every turn, having come essentially from Kerela which had been similar. We were expecting to feel as though we were back in the thick of India again but it was pretty touristy with all the gimiky bits being sold everywhere. Over on Hampi island, there was a bit more of a chilled vibe, although felt even hotter, if that was possible(!) We wandered around looking for the restaurant and after being pointed every which way by locals, the only one we could find that was open was the 'White Elephant'. We went in and I fancied something pretty plain so had a coconut milk porridge which was actually really nice and just what I needed to settle my gurgling stomach. We sat at the big cushioned floor tables and chilled, I think I actually fell to sleep at one point! We spoke to some of the local restaurant blokes and play card games with them for most of the afternoon. We even learnt a new game! We chatted to them about what to do in Hampi and they convinced us that the cool place to be was over on the Island side, rather than where we were in the bizarre. Of course they'd say that but we liked the White Elephant and after poking our noses into one of the little bungalows which was half the price of our stuffy room, we decided the following morning we'd check out and check into the two empty bungalows for our second night. In the dry town of Hampi, the White Elephant seemed to also be the only place that sold beer and also weed, even though they had signs pretty blatantly saying to drugs. They ere probably to start the whole dealing conversation or something!!

We had to leave the comfort of the White Elephant cushions at about half past five so we didn't miss the last boat back across the river the the bazaar. We walked through the bazaar area and came across another leather shop like the one in Jaisalmer and realised we got a really good deal on the stuff we'd brought as the same bags were twice if not three times as much! We also stopped in at the gem shop next door and all ended up buying cheap silver coloured toe rings, which we later coated with clear nail varnish to stop them making our skin go green. We talked to the owner about where to buy gold from and he offered to take us to Hospet, where he said there were many jewellers. We then stumbled across the Mango Tree restaurant that Victoria had told us about and it was pretty full, with soley westerners, but we thoughts we'd go in and give it a try. I ordered Saag Aloo, which was delish, with popadoms and I absolutely cleaned my plate! We headed back to our room with the intention of having an early night, but by the time we'd all had a little go on the super slow and s*** wifi at Padama's guesthouse (where we were staying!) and showered it was pretty late. We put the film Crazy, Stupid, Love on, on Nelen's laptop and we got out the hair dye that Al had brought in Bangalore. Al and Kate dyed strips of each others hair underneath their pony tails, topping up the colour that we'd put in, in Australia. I then did Nelen's for her, but stupidly didn't put the gloves on and my whole hands turnt dark purple and it looked like I'd been in a huge fight! I spent the whole evening scrubbing my hands and nails and rubbing antibac all over them to try as get the dye off but it wasn't budging and at the end of the film I decided to just embrace the colour and let it wear off naturally! We all absolutely drooled over Ryan Gosling in the film and I think we all must have dreamt of him that night, he was sooo gorgeous...!

We'd planned an early get up the next morning, as we were checking out and moving across the river, but as usual, we didn't find it quite that easy! We made it to our new rooms at about lunch time and after chatting to our local friends from the day before, they arranged some motorbikes for us to whizz around on for the afternoon. It was one of the best days we'd had so far in India... We drove around the island just looking at the incredible scenery and the massive boulders and clusters of rocks everywhere. I thought it was this that was actually a lot more impressive than the remains of the old city that sort of looked quite Ankor Wat esque. We drove up a hill towards a temple at the top, parked up and walked the last few hundred meters of steps. Kate's bike wouldn't make it up the hill though and she somehow managed to veer off the road and crash it into a ditch at the side of the road. We helped her pull her moped out and I half pushed it, half rode it up to the top and parked it next to our bikes. The temple was sweet and we ha to take our shoes off the enter the whole area, which was a bit of a b**** as the tiled floor was sooo hot! There was a tiny old lady selling various religious bits and bobs, that I assume were offerings for the gods and we managed to communicate through a younger man that we wanted to buy some of her orange string and to hang a charm of one of the Hindi gods on it each. We thought we should leave though as lots of people started coming our of the surrounding buildings to start their worshipping and as the girls went exactly covered up (we'd wanted to try and catch a bit of a tan at the same time as driving!) and we didn't want to be disrespectful. It was so much fun driving around on the roads, honking our horns at everyone and it had been the day of the state election results and a local party had won or something and loads of people were out celebrating, waving flags, throwing green paint everywhere and driving through the streets whooping! We went via a little local village and saw into all the houses, which were pretty basic looking and stopped at a small shop for cold drinks. We paid up fully, but there was a bit of a kerfuffle and she somehow thought that we hadn't, it got a bit heated and we got on the bikes and headed of before anything got out of hand. I'm sure or wouldn't have done but we didn't want to chance it, so far from where we knew... We scooted around and saw another temple perched on the top of a hill which we thought would be beautiful to watch sunset at. We then drove past a big open ploughed corn field where a load of young boys were playing Cricket. Nelens friend had given her a bucket list before she came to India and one of the things was to have a game of cricket with the local children... So I parked up and ran into the field before the girls could really say anything! The boys were so excited to have us four (well probably the three girls all in their dresses rather than me in my pjs) playing cricket with them and I was offered the bat straight away. A few no balls were bowled and then I managed to hit a ball but with my finger, which even thought it was just a tennis ball, hurt like hell and I was stumped out pretty quickly as I forgot to run!! The girls and I all swapped in and out of batting and fielding and one lad even tried to tech me to bowl but I was terrible!! I did absolutely love playing though and it made me really want to play rounders or something back at home again! I sat with two little boys for a few minutes talking to them about how old they were and how many brothers and sisters they had before going to stand behind the wicket an play backstop for a while which gave me a good amount of touches in the game. We must have played in the sweltering heat for two hours, with some of the boys, who were really good, being pretty patient with us. We'd drawn a pretty big crowd of local men around the outskirts of the field as well who obviously thought it was hilarious that we were playing and running around the spikey straw field in flip flops and sunglasses! A little boy got smacked in the eye with the ball at close range and so I helped him dab some coldish water of mine onto the area to soothe it. He was so adorably cute and seemed to be the one that got hurt all the time and none of the other boys were really that sympathetic. After a while, once we were all sufficiently dripping we called it a day and high fived all of our teams and took some pics of us all in a group which was cool. It was soo much fun playing with the kids and they'd been so open letting us join their game and showing us how to play that when we drove past a shop selling water, sweets and treats it was decided that we should take some goodies back to them. Milk, chocolate and water were the chosen items an we pulled up at the edge of the field and whistled them over... When they saw our plastic bag the tallest took it and ushered the group to an area a way off to sole out sips and bites of everything. It was so sweet and we didn't even need them to look at all thankful because we just felt so great doing it :)

We were so hot and sweaty that we thought we'd head to the big lake next to have a dip and cool down. Mougli, one of the local boys from White Elephant, had told us that you could swim in it and we were really excited and after a few wrong turnings we managed to find it. It was an absolutely huge man made lake, one of those reservoir type ones. We followed the road further round wiggling about the lake and came to a spot where quite a few people where swimming. They were locals though. Men. We figured it was probably the wrong situation for us to suddenly strip off to our bikinis and join them having a swim, much to our disappointment. We carried of following the road, which reminded me of the back country lanes at home, single track with signs to beep your horn at every corner. My bike horn was the most pathetic nerrrr sound ever and it must have been really to watch all of us going at probably 20mph with our massive motorbike helmets on, going round these corners beeping our woefully amateur sounding horns. Across India we've heard more novelty beeps and honks than I've had hot dinners - they love them! So to have a poo pants horn was a bit embarrassing! We pulled up onto a grassy patch by a big boulder stack that looked climbable and parked. Cleverly once we'd reached the top of the big pile, Al realised shed left the key in her bike!! We climbed up to the top which was mostly easy as all of the massive natural rocks has smoothly sloped sides that you could walk up. It was an incredible landscape though because everywhere you looked you saw a huge rock balancing so precariously on another boulder, that just seemed to defy any laws of physics. Kate and I clambered right to the very pinnacle points, she to the top of a big round boulder, the highest and me to a square looking one which was the furthest away! The view was incredible over the desert slash field lands and we spotted a few temples dotted around. I had a quick pee behind one of the big rocks and then we decided to set the self timer up on my camera and take some snaps of all four of us on our adventure! We all felt quite hungry at about five or six and figured that the temple and sunset could wait for the following day - we were planning on doing a half day 'free-climb' lesson in the late afternoon, so we assumed it was perfect. We scooted our way back to White Elephant, all sat down and ate some pretty average food. Al and I had the special thali which was mainly just rice even though we'd said none, but the Saag Aloo was yummy yum! We sat and played cards again all evening, chatting to the same local boys about what to do in Hyderabad, our next stop; having some beers and watching the huge electrical storm we were in the middle of. The whole one hand side of the restaurant was flooded with about two foot of water and everyone had to cram on the only remaining dry cushions on our side...

I retired to bed at about 1am, as i was knackered from the day in the sun, scooting, scrabbling and sporting around. Our bungalow was disgusting. It was the first time id spent any real time in it and it was rank. The bed sheets were dirty and crawling with ants; the ceiling was full of cobwebs and various bugs again. The walls were so damp from all the rain and the bathroom may as well not have had a shower the leak in the roof was so bad. After having a quick in and out rinse, strategically trying not to look around too much, for fear of seeing something with eight legs, I got into my silky liner which had been made redundant for all but train beds and tucked the mozzy net round the solidly hard double bed. I couldn't sleep, partly due to the constant flashes of lightening which would light up the room via a scabby looking glass panel in the roof, which whilst trying to sleep was like someone taking a picture of you with the flash on every few minutes - annoying, but also because the beds were so uncomfortable. I cannot wait to sleep in an English bed and actually not wake up so stuff I have to stretch before I move, like an old lady! The pillow was like a brick as well so I had to loose that pretty early on and sleep with nothing. It took a long time to dose off and Kate and I found we were both wide awake at 5am, boiling hot and so uncomfortable and grumpy it was ridiculous. We got up about 8am and went for coconut porridge as we were going to go with the gem man I to Hospet to have a look at the gold shops. The other two didn't fancy it so we left them in bed and headed over the river. I think the gem guy was surprised to see us and he was a bit more bulls***ty with us second time meeting him rather than the first when he felt so genuine, talking about how tourists get ripped off with expensive prices and actually to be fair his had been very reasonable for our toe rings etc. He sorted us a rickshaw and we drove to the jewellery quarter of the main bazaar, which was just a road lined with hold shops. Thursday was some kind of half day in the city though and by the time we'd arrived, many of the shops had emptied all of their cabinets and were not really open to talking to us. All of the jewellery was once again so garish and shiny that it looked fake and up close the details were shoddy and looked cheap. We went to quite a few places looking for nice things but left feeling disappointed. We didn't find a single thing between us that fit the bill we were looking for. Once all the shops had closed we headed back to Hampi and got dropped off at the bazaar and decided to have a walk around there before going back across the river and getting ready for our afternoon climbing lesson. We looked in quite a few trinket shops but everything was quite touristy and packed up as souvineers which looked a bit s***. It was cool so see the bazaar though, with lots of houses joined to guesthouses or shops and restaurants. As we passed Mango Tree we couldn't resist ordering lunch and I had potato and spinach curry which was nice, but a bit bland maybe after a while. I wasn't even that hungry but managed to polish off the whole dish.

Heading back across the water and to White Elephant we found the girls, who'd been in a little bit of a flap about Nelen's flip flops. Kate's had broken the day before and she had no shoes to wear, so I said for her to borrow Nelen's as they probably wouldn't be going anywhere and she wouldn't mind. I think she was relived to know where they'd gone rather than angry though! Al told us that Dom, the Indian climbing instructor had passed them earlier, saying goodbye and that he was off to Bangalore, even though we thought we'd already arranged our bouldering lesson with him later in the afternoon. We were pretty confused and Al and Nelen felt the same, but it gave us an afternoon of down time to play cards, relax, pack our bags and settle the various food and room bills we owed. The managers wife or brothers wife or something had come down specially for the evening as well, to show us how to wrap our sarees before the wedding. We weren't sure if we would actually find a lady to help us on the morning so thought it best to have some idea and it was then that we realised it would never have worked to just wear leggings and tuck the material into the waist band as there was so much of it and with all the embellishments it was super heavy. She was sweet and did the wrapping a couple of times on Kate and let us try it out and she corrected us. She showed us here to put all the pins as well to hold it altogether for the whole day. We thought we'd got it and were feeling a lot more confident about having to dress ourselves for wedding if we needed to. Victoria had told us we'd make some cleaners day if we asked them to help us though so that's what we were hoping for...

We got an hour tuktuk with Mougli, which made us all feel pretty sick afterwards to the bus station in Hospet and we said our goodbyes and boarded the bus. Not before Al and I had peed down an alley way though (we tried to go unknowingly in the middle of a temple first but got hoiked out before we could desiccate on the holy ground!) The bus was just like the greyhounds in Australia, only muchhhh colder and full of sweaty Indians. We all found it so difficult to sleep as we were rocking around and the driver was on a suicide mission. But I tried to catch a few zzzz's and did manage an hour or so of open mouth sleeping on the way to our last stop in India, Hyderabad.