Day 76 - Hampi

Hampi rocks. Lots of rocks.

We got here yesterday morning at about 10 after an all night ordeal that involved changing buses twice, random stops throughout the night and a bus that vibrated more than the naff massage chairs you get in shopping malls.

Understandably we spent most of the first day here wandering around like zombies and occasionally thumping our heads on various tables as we dozed off over our caffinated beverages. We worked up enough energy to have a wander around the Hampi Bazaar and Varaupaksha temple. Hampi is a very cool place, set amoung the ruins of an ancient Hindu empire. The scenery here is really bizarre, huge boulders are strewn across the landscape and the whole thing looks like something out of the flintstones. The temple was smallish, but had a its own cute elephant, Lakshmi - awww!

The Varaupaksha temple



Lakshmi in all her glory - cuuute!



Me, Becca and ruins



View of Hampi from the hill



Today we hung out in a german bakery and read some books (no suprise there) and then we decided to basically stop being such lazy mares and do some sightseeing. We plodded along the ghats to Sule Bazaar and the Achyutaraya temple - more ruins. It was nice to scramble ovr the rocks and explore the little ruined temples dotted infront of Matanga Hill, I felt like Indiana Jones!


Looots of columns



Entrance to Achyutaraya Temple - cool huh?



Random picture of ruins & boulders




We had Thali for lunch, then caught a rickshaw all the way round to the coracle crossing near Anegondi. The coracle was fun - it was very amusing to watch the guys crossing with their motorbikes (see the 3 dudes below).



When we got to the other side we discovered that the temple we wanted to visit, Hanuman temple, was still 3km away, so we got a random truck to take us the rest of the way - what a mission - and it wasn't even that great darn it. The temple was on a hill so we had to climb loads of stairs to reach the top, and the temple was very not very temple-like, more a plain white building we couldn't enter! However, the many monkeys on the way up were good for a laugh, and views back over the river and banana plantations were great.

Tada! Decending victorious from the heights



View from the top



Feeling energetic still, we walked aall the way to the coracle crossing, listening to the Garden State soundtrack on my MP3 whilst we admired the scenery and waved back at the excited school kids that passed us on their way home ("Biscuit? School pen? 1 Rupee?" can't say they didn't try, all one hundred or so of them). Back on the coracle; this time we shared the ride with 3 bikers, a business man, a boy and his grandpa, an old lady, the 2 rowers and the guy whos job it was to boss them round. We were quite worried the flimsy basket thing covered in tarred sandbags would sink - but we made it to the other side ok. 'No rickshaw waiting - crap - guess we'll have to walk the 7 km back to Hampi'. Luckily we figured out a shortcut along the river, and made it back before dark. This saved us 100R, plus we got to see the sun setting in a hundred colours over the ruins, which was priceless.