New Years....Hampiiiii

New Years....Hampiiii

For someone who likes things a little planned, to be able to buy a ticket at 4, for a bus that was to leave at 10, without knowing where I would stay, was quite a breakthrough! And thats exactly what happened.

Hampi. The Vijaynagara city.

Historical capital meets Hippie Destination...the settings are indeed all that you hear...quite the experience. but let me begin at the beginning, a very good place to start. I spoke with Ravi who invited me to join him and a small group of friends to Hampi. He did warn me that it would be a very unplanned trip- so atypical of me to do one if those. But given my moods I said yes; and I joined him and three of his friends at the crowded Gandhinagar bus stand...

10 in the night. And as we stood there- - got a glimpse of the City at 10- standing amidst people shouting abuses in Kannada. The little darshinis cleaning out and shutting shop. The cops doing thier beat. ravi walked over and bought our 'supplies' for the night- cans of KF. We got onto the bus- my first Sleeper Bus. I had a berth all to myself and I was pretty happy about it. The bus took off and the gang congregated in one berth and the cans opened up. Wellll was this how college kids travelled :) smokes were lit, windows opened and light banter. Enroute we stopped as the bus had a breakdown. And our bus driver got into an argument with a lorry driver who knocked the rear lights! With this minor excitement done with, we all got back in and I crashed out.

Waking up as we reached Hospet.

Of course, we had rickshaw wallahs accost us as we got down...but we got into a restaurant to wake up to some milky tea and hot idlis. We hired two autos to take us to Hampi. Enroute, the auto drivers offered to help us with some local vegetation ...which after much deliberation, the gang declined.

Hampi! The main street near the Virupaksha temple. bustling with activity like any tourist town. Little shops selling colourful cheap t shirts, beads yellow, red greem and a multitude of other colours. hawkers. And of course, so reminscent of Goa - the little box reastaurants with Italian, Israeli, Mexican menus.

We took a boat across the Thunga river to what is popularly known as Hippie village.

Of course, dressed as we were, like tourists (glares, knap sacks, i pods) we were accosted by the Tout Brigade offering to take us to the Best Hotels with Best food. We finally settled upon one...which turned out to have the last rooms as guests coming after us were turned away. After a cold wash up, hot food, we headed out.

The plan was simple- hire the bikes which every tourist seemed to have and generally venture out.

We left our hotel and within about 100 paces, made our first pit stop. Of course, we had intended a quick stop, but an hour after we had left our hotel, and a few beers later, we were still a 100 paces from our hotel! However, armed with directions and smokes, the gang hired its first batallion of vehicles...mopeds, that we wouldn't be caught riding in Bangalore! Soon we were vying to ride the mopeds.

Our first stop were these magnificent stone pillars. So part of the landscape - almost like the townsfolk took it for granted - but we spent close to 30 minutes hanging around, admiring them.

The day saw us making way across several stops. In fact, it seemed more like we were enjoying the ride across the countryside as much as we were, looking forward to reaching some place.

One interesting experience was meeting with a priest from one of the smaller temples.

We stopped to ask for directions, and within 5 minutes, he had invited the gang to come into his home for a smoke (!)

So, there he sat, crosslegged, ash smeared all over his body, idols of various Gods sitting next to him, fingers cupped around his lips – smoking !!

Shiva’s Prasad indeed!

We did run into the inimitable IBMer along the way (cant just seem to avoid them, can we!). But some interesting photo ops with the temples, ruins did make up the rest of the two days.

It has been so long since I made that trip that I have pretty much forgotten a lot of what I intended to put down on paper - a pity…and I resolve to make notes as and when I see something interesting …for my blog.

For more pictures on my trip to Hampii...Click here