We were surprised by the small size of the village as we came in to the main bazaar of hampi. Most places rented out a couple of rooms in their family house. We picked the first place we saw, dumped our bags, and then went to sign in at the local police station, something we have only had to do here. We went for a walk to the nearby main temple, which housed an elephant called laxmi, who pats you on the head with her trunk as a blessing if you give her ten rupees. She didn't look the happiest of elephants, but I wouldn't be either if I had to pat people on the head all day. We went for a walk around the local group of ruins, which were set in the most alien but beautiful landscape we've ever seen. The entire place was covered in huge orange boulders balanced precariously against each other. It was like the landscape of the grand canyon but with ancient ruins instead of a canyon. Once the centre of a great civilisation, it's now a UNESCO world heritage site with ruins of temples, palaces and bazaars stretching for miles and miles unbroken by modern intervention. We walked up to sunset point, surrounded by more nameless ruins and sat for a while admiring the view, including banana plantations stretching as far as the horizon. We watched the sunset and wandered back through the boulders to the bazaar, going into 'chillout cafe', where if one was so inclined, one could order a 'special drink' (rum). Midway through my fried potato, I had to dash to the squat toilet. Being unprepared, I had to do the unthinkable, the unimaginable. The hand wipe. Don't worry, I used hand sanitiser afterwards. The next day we went for breakfast at the mango tree restaurant. Hugo had hash brown potatoes and egg, and i had baked beans, which tasted more like a chinese dish. Afterwards, we caught the tiny boat across the river and reached the more hippy side of hampi. We met a guy from Dundee who had been there for 24 days, making the most of the magic mushrooms. We hired some diabolically rickety bikes and pedalled to the base of the hanuman temple. We climbed the 600 or so steps to reach the summit, to find a small white temple, some children singing Hindu songs, and monkeys eyeing you up for food. We then walked back down the 600 steps and cycled over to the lake, which was equally disappointing. The whole ride was spent trying not to fall off our terribly maintained bikes. On the way back we stopped off for chicken pakoras and an unexpectedly spicy ftruit salad, with grapes that tasted like passion fruit. In the evening we went to the restaurant opposite our hotel and had a spinach pizza, which tasted like fresh weeds that had been pulled from the ground. The following morning, we hired bikes again, which thankfully were much better than the previous day's. We cycled up to the royal lot of temples, and walked around the dilapidated walls before being overcome with thirst and having to cycle back to the nearest water seller (surprisingly far away at 1.5km). We spent the rest of the day chilling in a cafe, with cushions on the floor and low tables. We were surprised to find out that 'Ravi's special lassi - ask for price' in fact contained marijuana! We politely declined, to which some other guy said ' you want magic mushrooms lassi?' He looked surprised when we also declined that. We just went for a lame sprite. In the evening, we were invited by the guest house owner to his son's 5th birthday party on the rooftop. We showed our faces and were surprised to see rows of men on chairs facing a balloon arch and poster with the child's face on. There was a big birthday cake which they handed round on paper plates with a side helping of bombay mix. We made our exit when they started bringing out big pans of food. On our last day, we went to visit the eastern temples. We decided to take a bamboo boat, more like a bread basket, down the river. It leaked a little but was good fun, until it started raining. We paid the entrance fee to the main temple, and walked around. The carving was amazing, and depicted scenes of daily living and social past times of the era. There was a stone car with wheels that once worked. We walked back to the mango tree restaurant and tucked in to a thali and coconut curry, and our new love, cheese naan. We spent the rest of the day sipping watermelon juice and writing the blog. We also had an interesting take on 'hello to the queen'. To our amusement, the 'e' and 'o' had been swapped, an unwittingly funny mistake, so that the menu then read holle to the queen. Hollller your majesty! After collecting our bags, we made it to the train station ready for our sleeper train. We met some other travellers on the platform from France, England and Finland, and had a joke around with a drunk but creepy Indian man, offering the English girl as a wife for 20 lakh, best price, good quality, first sale of the day etc. We were a bit creeped out when he followed us to our carriage as we boarded the train, but he disappeared so we bedded down for the night and slept peacefully. An old Indian couple on the train were amazed how many places we had been in India and said that we had probably seen more of India than they had!