World India Karnataka Hampi

Sharon's not too old to have a GAP year!

Heavenly Hampi Feb 21, 2008

I've been in Hampi for 4 days, but it seems so much longer I have had such a wonderful time, with so many happy memories to leave with. I'm rather regretting booking the next part of my journey; I could easily stay here longer.

Hampi Day 1

On arriving in Hampi I never for a moment thought I would feel like this, Hampi is full of extremes, extreme beauty, extreme poverty and extreme smells (not of a good type!) It has the obligatory cattle and chickens roaming the street and lots of children begging for pens / chocolate / rupees and smack in the middle of the noise and the chaos is the most amazing temple with alls its beauty, heritage and splendour.

I had the slowest rickshaw driver in the world take me to a guest house which was recommended by a couple of people in Goa, but unfortunately I missed the last room - but as always there was a boy at hand who knew 'A very, very good guest house' so off we went - after weaving through a few back street narrowly missing the cow's blocking our path we got to the Venu guest house, the mother of the house showed me the room and as expected it was very basic but had a private bathroom and was only 4.00 per night, I decided to stay for the night and look for something a little nicer the next day. As I was settling in I met my neighboring guests in the patio (its not as posh as it sounds!) and we got chatting the usual travelers speak, where you been? Where you going? Where you from etc, etc - they were so lovely. 2 guys from Vienna David and Cristof traveling around India together, and another Christian also from Vienna traveling with his gorgeous children Ainhoa and Sirius. Having met my lovely neighbours I decided to stay where I was and I am so glad I did, meeting them really made Hampi special

Hampi Day 2

Hampi is famous for its temples and ruins which date back to the 14th century so I set off for the day to explore - your really cant go very far without falling over a ruin or a temple, I decided to take the easier option and had a tour on a boat up the river, when I say boat its more like a basket on the water - but it was lovely, someone else did all the work and I took the pictures...!

That evening all 6 of us went to the Temple to watch the evening ceremonies - expecting some chanting and maybe a little bit of drumming, but we chose exactly the right evening as there was some special ceremony taking place with a big lit up colourful effigy being carried through the street with drumming, fire and chanting, all the kids were following the drummers and dancing in the street it was spectacular. During all of this the Indian children and a few adults were asking for the photo's to be taken and when you pointed the camera a few more would run over and jump in - they just love to see there image on the camera its so charming to see the delight on their faces. After the ceremony we all went to a fabulous restaurant 'The Mango Tree' you have to walk through a banana plantation to get to it, the food is amazing and the surrounds are like heaven on earth.

Day 3

Hampi's mosquito's seem to have taken rather a shine to me and today I suffered badly with swollen, itchy ankles so decided to take it easy and chill out at the guest house, the others pretty much had the same idea but went off into the next town to (allegedly) get money from the ATM, they came back fully loaded with mosquito prevention & cure equipment and beer!! I think it was really the beer they went for! Hampi is extremely religious and no alcohol or meat is permitted, so it was all rather furtive on the patio drinking their beer out of coffee cups!

We all sat around chatting and playing backgammon for the afternoon and again set off for the Mango tree for dinner - all very relaxing and great fun.

Day 4

After my day's rest a days sightseeing was in order and David, Cristof and I set off in a Rickshaw to see some sites - it was so hot but our rickshaw driver was great and we just hopped on and off when we wanted to see something. The guys are so sweet and fun to be around.

Later in the afternoon Christian, the children and I went to visit the children at Harmony House, which is a charity that was set up by an English guy here in Hampi to get the street kids into school, it is a fabulous place doing fabulous work but struggle to find finance and support - I'm going to do an entry just for Harmony House in the next day or two with more info on the kids and how (if you want to)you can help them!

In the evening we all climbed - and I mean climbed - up a mountain to see the sunset from one of the temples, think it was a watch tower. The climb was murder....I really struggled, but with Christian and the kids pushing me on I did it..and I'm so glad I did the views were amazing. Hampi has monkey's everywhere and the ones on the mountain were so cute and mischievous you could watch them for hours. I'll put some photos on soon, but it takes ages to upload them.

During our climb back down we met two lovely girls from Sweden and got chatting, the usual stuff - where you been…..where you going...blah, blah and they joined us for dinner.

Got to cut this short, rickshaw picking me up in an hour for the overnight train to Bangalore in an hour and I haven’t started packing yet!!, will try to update in next few day or so.