Where Now?

After a week in Anjuna we decided (through fate and desire in equal measure) to head out of Goa for 4 nights last week, Hampi our destination.

In the next state along to the east, Karnataka, Hampi lies in an unreal setting of fractured boulders. This is OLD country, the remnants of a granite up-welling, rock fans, that occurred around 2.5 billion years ago. The granite came veined with crystalline seams which weathered in the millennia that have passed, splitting the rock into boulders and lots of them. Said to be some of the best climbing territory in India, a lot of these are humongous and they teeter and balance in impossible piles.

But it’s what people have done, and are still doing with this area of the Deccan plateau which makes the magic.

We rocked up on the train, this time taking a non-AC sleeper. Having rode la-de-da in AC Chair from Mumbai to Goa and having mellowed to India (hopefully She to us also), we were looking forward to seeing another angle on the mighty India railways.

Chai, samosi and the mad mixture of rice, nibbles and sauce we have neither tried nor worked out the formula for, flowed as usual.

We didn’t get the constant although slightly niffy comfort of AC but we did get all the smells of the passing country as it moved from deep jungle green to the reds and browns of the earth beneath, moving inland. The sleeper benches were harder than AC chairs and the company was less well-heeled but we found it well. The benches come down to form beds at night, kept in place with chains, like such carriages everywhere but you could see that the old girl had seen some human traffic; it looked more than 30 years older than the 2007 date of manufacture stamped on the window.

Once free of the train we were bum-rushed outside the main entrance by an army of rickshaw drivers, many of whom swore blind that we shouldn’t go with the guy the hostel had sent to pick us up but with them instead. Sorry chums but the man with my name on a card in his hands wins every time, in a strange town.

We were in Hospet, around 30 min rickshaw ride from Hampi and we darted through a diluted version of Mumbai traffic.

On arriving in Hampi we were taxed 10 Rs to enter as tourists, an act so swift and by-the-by that it feels fraudulent but is actually official.

We’d seen boulders and henge-like structures grow in size on the way but suddenly we were in the main Bazaar or market area, nipping through narrow alleys between hostels, shops and restaurants. We stayed at the Gopi guest-house, one of the more prominent outfits, in their second site across the way from the main building which houses a roof-top restaurant.

Our room was nice and clean and fairly large, with a roof-top area of our own but we couldn’t use this as the staff were almost permanently camped out in it to do washing, make food or even sleep at night. As ever, we spent the first evening crashed out to recover.

On waking, we began to explore. For me this meant getting my first Indian haircut. I hate having my hair cut for many reasons and the fringe I was left with only compounded my distress but I’ve now settled down into my usual handsome self.

A gora (westerner) getting a haircut seems to be hilarious for Indians and several people stopped to watch. One came with good conversation and we trooped off afterwards to discuss business, karma and the festival which was happening that night. He did invite us to eat celebratory sweets that evening with his family but he failed to materialise at the rendezvous later, more’s the pity.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get a full grip on Hinduism and its plethora of gods, festivals and regional variations thereof so please forgive and correct any of the crass errors that are bound to arise in the following.

We had arrived in time for Dasara (remover of bad fate), which in the south is the 10th day of the 9 day festival of Navratri (9 nights). Navratri is celebrated 4 times and year and is all about the mother goddess Shakti, where 9 of her forms are worshipped.

This was Sharana Navratri, the most important of the 4, during the day several bands played all day in the streets with varying degrees of talent but equal enthusiasm. The evening culminated in an elephant procession with an idol, going down the bazaar into a specially prepared area where the elephant dished out blessings with her trunk while the best of the bands let rip.

This area was then all but destroyed by military quantities of firecrackers. The remains of this arsenal was then harvested by children who did their best to maim each other with them in excellent humour. Good times!

We headed out on our first excursion the next day. Hampi bazaar is the only ‘living’ part of a huge ruined area which was once the capital of Vijayanagara, (City of Victory),  a once mighty Hindu empire founded in the 12th century and sacked by Deccan Muslims in 1565.

Hampi consists mainly of a wide, kilometre long bazaar that has stone pavilions down each side, leading up to the towering Virupaksha temple to Shiva. At the temple end, shops dominate (mainly travel, food and communications) but these peeter out as you go down into local accommodation. The money obviously sticks to the temple end and all of the hostels can be found at its right hand side as you look at it.

We went down to the other end, on foot towards and over Mantanga Hill. There’s a Nandi statue of a bull at the bottom of the hill and a shrine to Hanuman at the top, where we got a blessing of ochre on our foreheads, for a modest fee of course.

Over the other side is the stunning Achyutaraya Temple and Sule Bazaar, now deserted except for monkeys and locals who use it just to hang out in peace. It really gives an impression of how Hampi might have looked in days gone by as it is more complete. A lot of Hampi stone has been re-appropriated for the modern business of tourism and local lodgings, sparking a preservation battle.

We went on from there to the main attraction, the 16th century Vittala Temple, dedicated to an aspect of Vishnu.

We took advantage of an offer from a guide, without whom we would never have had the insight he gave to the various gems hidden in the architecture such as carvings with 5 different aspects and musical pillars tuned to mimic actual instruments when struck. Friezes also tell the trading story of the area; Portuguese, Chinese and Arab visitors drove bargains for diamonds and horses. A great place.

After this, we succumbed to the standard rickshaw tour which takes in a museum (great statues, artefacts and a scale model of the whole area), the former Royal Enclosure, the Queen’s Baths and Elephant stables (sadly sans pachyderms). We headed back culturally sated but hungry.

There are unfair, guidebook-based rumours circulated about the poor cuisine in Hampi. These are unfair in the main but I would recommend Gopi for breakfast and Vikky’s roof terrace and Prince’s for dinner. These same rumours laud the Mango Tree which can be found outside the main site, down by the ghats on the river. Yes, the food is amazing but be prepared to be eaten alive yourself as you chow down.

The next day we went hiking. Taking a coracle across the seething Tungabhadra river (after much haggling and inflation of the effort involved to get across) we set out for the Hanuman Temple atop one of the tallest hills. This was well worth the trek and the braving of weightlifting-class monkeys who prowl the 570 steps. At the top is a shrine to Hanuman and his mother and we received more blessings there. Hanuman is Lucy’s favourite Hindu deity while mine is Ganesha, the elephant-headed god who is lord of obstacles and writing.

As an atheist, I have to express the genuine spring in the step which blessings have given us, even aside being a few rupees lighter each time.

We tromped back along back roads through paddy fields that have gushing irrigation channels. The sight of us brought much grinning and head waggling from locals in SUVs and rickshaws. We began to think we must be mad to be hiking in the land of the rickshaw. At one point an SUV screeched to a halt next to us and kids, as bewildered as we were, were pushed through the windows by their parents by use of their ankles to shake our hands and say hello. As quickly as they came, they were off again, tooting the horn until out of sight.

We cut by a ruined bridge into Virupapur Gaddi, a small settlement across from Hampi. This is a peaceful haven for yoga and climbers but is cut off from Hampi after the last river crossings at about 6pm.

We spent most of the next day there waiting for our sleeper bus back to Goa in the evening. Sleeper buses are no such thing but I’ll expand on this in a future post on Goa.

So that’s Hampi; full of smiling children, friendly dogs and cows (in various states of health I’m afraid; we saw some terrible sights of animal neglect but never cruelty), gods, chalk art in the doorways and ruins.

I sincerely hope that the clearly advertised educational and environment charities/NGOs there succeed in making the area sustainable and keeping it beautiful. We want to return.