Steintore
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Steintore
Mon, 16.12.2013: Hampi, sunny, 26°C
It's a good job we set our alarm because we were both fast asleep at 6am. I had been awake for hours until around 3am. Kirsten went out to the toilet and found out that the next train stop was ours. We arrived in Hospet, only ten minutes late, at 6-40am.
We were asked if we wanted taxis and rickshaws by several people but said we were being picked up. Our driver, Virupakshi, loaded up our luggage into the Gopi Guest House's own rickshaw, and we drove the 13km to Hampi through farmland and along bad roads. They grow sugar cane, bananas and coconuts here. It reminded us of Mexico.
We were taken to our room which was nice and clean, with a quilt and cover on the bed and had two brand new towels. What a difference to Hyderabad!
We walked up to the rooftop restaurant at the guest house and had breakfast - Kirsten had a Spanish omelette with fries that were a bit greasy and a fresh fruit salad; I had a banana nutella pancake. We both had freshly squeezed orange juice and tea.
Viru told us about the tours he was offering but they seemed very overpriced to us. Our main interest was finding out about a trip to Pattadakal, about 105km away, for Friday and getting dropped off in Hospet where we had booked a night. We were getting the early train to Goa on Saturday so it made more sense to stay near the train station in Hospet rather than having to get up at 4am in Hampi.
He said he would find out and get back to us that evening. Then we walked to the police station where we had to sign in - just put our names in a book along with passport and visa details. No one actually checked they were correct.
Back in our room, we had (almost) hot showers under a proper shower and washed some clothes. Later we went out for 2.5 hours to wander around Hampi and see some of the temples.
Hampi is a World Heritage Site but only a few of the buildings are protected. Whilst we were here, we heard that the Indian Government have recently moved 70 percent of the inhabitants out of the 500 year old buildings, paid them a years salary ($1,600 US) and are trying to get all the buildings protected. The owners of the Gopi said they might not be there next year as all the accommodation and buildings here may also be cleared.
We went to see Virupaksha Temple, one of the oldest buildings from 1442 with a 50m high gateway tower, walked steeply up onto Hemakuta Hill for great views over the banana plantations and then to Krishna Temple where we watched large coaches negotiating a very tight fit under part of the temple built across the road - or rather, the road was built through part of the temple!
At Lakshmi Narasunha Temple, I tried to pull the same face as one of the bulging-eyed statues. I think I look worse than the gargoyle!
We really enjoyed our little tour - hardly any people around. What a difference! Are we still in India?!
We also realised that, despite what Viru our rickshaw driver had told us, all these temples were within walking distance and we wouldn't need an expensive tour. The maps of Hampi are deliberately bad so that tourists will fork out money for tours. Not everyone might be able to walk, but for us it was peanuts. So we were a bit ticked off at being pushed to go on tours.
We went for a meal at the Gopi and had a really good Aloo Gobi (potato, cauliflower curry). I asked for non spicy and it was just right. Kirsten had a spinach pizza and we shared a "Death by Chocolate" style dessert called "Hello to the Queen". It was so filling that I had indigestion for most of the night!! Viru never turned up so we thought we'd probably see him the next morning.
Tue, 17.12.2013: Hampi, sunny, 28°C
Viru knocked on our door early the next morning and kept knocking! We were not amused. We saw him later at breakfast where he tried to tell us that we had booked tours with him and he had had to cancel other people because of it. No way! We hadn't booked anything. Then he gave us a price for the Pattadakal trip that was $16 more than the same trips offered in Hampi.
He phoned up "his brother" who was going to take us and got us the trip for the price we had mentioned. We made the mistake of agreeing - we should have trusted our instincts, booked with someone else in town and avoided him altogether. (That story is for Friday!)
We walked to various temples that afternoon including the Royal Circle, the Islamic quarter of Hampi, with buildings from the 15th Century. The best was Hazara Ramochandra Temple where there is no charge. Only three places have an entrance fee which costs 250Rs for a day ticket to see all three.
We also went to Queen's Bath where we had to shake the hands of lots of children on a school trip. We are more interesting to them than the ruins! We also went inside the King's secret room, an underground small tunnel leading to a room and back out the other side. Good job we had our torch with us!
Afterwards, we decided to take what we thought would be a short cut back to our guest house. There was a well used gravel track leading that way but after 20 minutes it dead-ended. We tried cutting through and ended up walking through a banana plantation. We used my Camino arrow in the ground to leave ourselves a trail just in case we couldn't find our way back. It was not the best idea as we could have got lost in the dense plantation. There were several trails criss-crossing each other and it was quite dark in there!
We came to a clearing and then clambered over boulders trying to get back to a road, and ended up getting very sharp thorns and bits of grass stuck in our socks and shoes. We kept having to stop and pick them out. Helen pricked her finger getting one out and needed a plaster!
This was turning into too much of an adventure! It was very hot and, after an hour of stubbornly trying to get through, refusing to admit defeat and turning around, we got back to a temple we had visited earlier. We had just done a loop and still had the same distance to walk back to the guest house and had virtually run out of water!
Note to us and anyone else - DO NOT TAKE SHORT CUTS!!!
We started walking back along the road and about 5 minutes later, a rickshaw driver came past us and said 20 Rupees to return to Hampi! This was the first time a rickshaw driver had given us a reasonable price - and voluntarily!! So we hopped in! It was well worth it and better than walking through the heat!
We had warm showers and washed our very sweaty clothes, then went for another good meal in the restaurant. Despite the prices of their tours, the food here is very good and very cheap. It only cost us $5 for our meal - aloo gobi again with cumin rice and baked potato cubes with cheese topping, and two Lassi's (fresh fruit drinks made with yoghurt).
The internet was working again - it hadn't worked since we'd been there, so we checked the status for our train on Saturday - still on the waiting list, and checked and sent emails. We went out again to see the Virupaksha Temple where there were a lot of people setting up blankets to sleep on inside the outer courtyard.
Wed, 18.12.2013: Hampi, sunny, 30°C
We got up early, had half a cup of tea and walked down to the river to wait for Lakshmi the elephant to come down for her daily bath. There were lots of people washing themselves and their clothes in the river.
After about 20 minutes, Lakshmi arrived with her handlers. She sleeps in the Temple and had a lot of steps to negotiate on the way down to the river. As soon as she went into the water, she dealt with the important job of the day - using the river as her toilet!! There was a man still washing his clothes as the very yellow and very large poop floated past!!!
Lakshmi's bath took 40 minutes and she was made to lie down on one side and then the other and got a real scrubbing! She also had a very loud fart - but we couldn't see the bubbles! One of the handlers was just there to get a tourist to go into the water to help - and then asked for money! Well, I guess that was inevitable. The tourist gave money but obviously not enough and was asked for more!
Lakshmi having her daily bath.
We went back for breakfast and then walked along the river to see more temples. Along the way we asked about prices to get across the river to the other side and were quoted ridiculously high prices. Maybe it's just a game to them but it was starting to get on our nerves. We felt as if everyone was trying to cheat us, or just thought we were stupid!!
We went to see Vitthala Temple, built between 1509 and 1529, and paid the 250 Rupees each for the day ticket. We would go to the other two places covered by the ticket later. Once again there were lots of school groups so it was very loud with children running around and pushing past us. We tried to avoid the constant requests for photos to be taken of us, with them, but unfortunately it's unavoidable.
The temple was structurally unsafe with various buildings leaning and cracked which are being repaired with concrete or brick pillars. There is an ornate stone carriage in the courtyard whose wheels were once capable of turning. Afterwards, we walked back along a different route via Achyutaraya Temple and over a hill to the Bull Monument near Hampi Bazaar.
Later, we haggled for a rickshaw driver to take us to the Elephant stables and the rest of the compound included on our day ticket. Kirsten managed to get all the photos she wanted within 30 minutes - must be a record!
The rest of the evening was spent searching for a hotel in New Delhi, trying and failing to book online and then trying to book by phone - the price doubled that way which was about the only thing I could understand on the phone! We went for a meal but it was too hot despite asking for "non-spicy"! I also managed to work out how to check our train ticket status by phone/SMS. It took a while but I got it done!
Thu, 19.12.2013: Hampi, sunny, 30°C
I got woken up at 5am by the local people in the building behind us cooking and banging utensils. The smell that pervaded our room was disgusting despite not having any windows open! Kirsten had a migraine so we didn't get up as planned at 7-45am to go to the Monkey temple, but went up to the restaurant for breakfast and spent another 3 hours looking for hotels in New Delhi and Goa.
We were in contact with Jenny and Gabriel from Switzerland who we'd met in Mumbai and had sent them tips about our trip so far. They wrote back with tips about Goa - they'd been hounded in Palolem to take boat tours so had moved further north to Agonda Beach and found a wonderful place called Sami's beach huts. They're not online but they sent us the phone number.
In the afternoon we took the boat across the river (10 Rs each) and walked along a track that wasn't the correct one to get to Monkey Temple! We walked back and then along a different track where all the accommodation is. It was extremely hot and Kirsten didn't feel well enough to walk up the 520 steps to the temple in this heat.
So we checked out a few of the places to stay on this side of the river. We had heard that most backpackers stay on this side because it's cheaper and alcohol is allowed (it's forbidden in Hampi on our side of the river) but that meant it was a "party" place.
When we were there in the late afternoon, there was no evidence of that as it was too early. But we went to a couple of places to ask for prices and look at some of the rooms to give tips to Jenny and Gabriel. It was certainly cheaper than where we were staying but the last boat across is at sunset - 6pm - so anyone staying would need to make sure they didn't miss the last boat back.
We bought some cakes at one of the bakeries and then got the boat back across. Kirsten went off to Virupaksha Temple where there was a ceremony to mark the betrothal of Virupaksha (one of the avatars of Lord Shiva) and the local goddess Pampa. The festivities run for two days and we could hear the distant music in our room all night.
Phalapuja Festival in Virupaksha Temple
We had ordered Chicken Tikka Masala 24 hours in advance for tonight but when we got to the restaurant, they told us that the "chicken shop" was closed due to the festival so there was no chicken! It's vegetarian here but it's down on the menu so we thought we'd try it out. Not today, obviously! I had the Potato Masala and Kirsten went for the Malai Kofta, a type of bread/potato meal in curry sauce. Afterwards, we paid for the hotel and the meals we'd had so we would need to get some more cash as we'd heard there were problems in Goa to find ATMs.
Fri, 20.12.2013: Hampi −> Aihole −> Pattadakal −> Badami −> Hospet, sunny, 30°C
We had booked a trip for today, starting from Hampi, to be driven to three sites about 105km away and then to be dropped off at Hospet where we would stay for the night to get the early train the following morning to Goa.
We had arranged for a driver and agreed a price for an "all inclusive trip" so that we wouldn't have to pay any extras. Our plan had been to pay at the end but they'd asked for the money when we settled our bill at Gopi guest house last night.
We got up at 6-15am, packed our remaining things and went down to load up the car at 7am. It was quite cool but there were lots of people attending the festival which seemed as though it had been an all-night celebration and would continue over the weekend.
We weren't happy when our supposedly all inclusive trip wasn't that at all - we had to pay for toll roads and parking. We felt that we had been lied to and, yet again, cheated.
It took 2.5 hours to drive to our first stop at Aihole, the first capital of the early Chalukyas, where over 125 temples were built between the 7th and 12th Centuries. We took a look at three rock-cut shrines - Vedic, Jain, and Buddha.
There were too many children causing us problems and we only spent thirty minutes there. Our next stop was Pattadakal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are ten temples - 4 in Nagara style and 6 in Dravidian style - built from 733AD and the largest was Virupashka Temple. We only spent 40 minutes here.
It took one hour to drive along very bad roads to Badami, a one time Capital of the Chalukyas in 540AD. Situated at the mouth of a ravine between two rocky red sandstone hills, Badami has both rock-cut and structural cave temples.
There were four caves; cave 1 has an 18 handed Nataraja image; cave 2 has pot-bellied dwarf statues and incarnations of Lord Vishnu; cave 3, the largest, has giant images of Lord Vishnu and carved roofs; cave 4 is a Jain cave with a large sculpture of Lord Mahavira, the 24th and last of the spiritual leaders of the Jains.
There were a lot of school groups again which detracted from our sightseeing and we both decided to cut down on the number of temples etc. Even Kirsten was complaining, which takes a lot! We agreed to rethink our plan for Rajasthan in the North of India and only visit the real highlights. Then we could spend more time in Nepal.
It took 2.5 hours to drive to our hotel in Hospet where we arrived at 4pm. We dumped our stuff in our room which was big but old and went down to the hotel restaurant for really good veggie noodles and spring rolls. Then we hunted for an ATM to get cash out - the third one worked! We failed to find a bakery so ended up buying crisps and nuts (really healthy food!) for the early train tomorrow. We wanted to buy bananas but they tried to charge us extortionate prices again. We were fed up of people trying to rip us off, so no bananas.
Back at the hotel, we checked the bed and found the usual dirty, used sheets. I stripped the bed and took the sheets and pillow cases down to reception and asked for clean bedding. When it arrived, one sheet had some very dubious stains on it that looked like faeces. So we put the other one on top of the mattress and used our own sarongs as top sheets. We're used to it by now!
