Hampi!!!

A few months ago, a friend (G3) and I planned a trip to Hampi (in the state of Karnataka, India), a tiny village located within the ruins of the old Vijayanagara empire. We debated a while on whether to go to Nandi Hills or Hampi, finally settling on the latter. We, of course, planned it at such a time when Arvind (my husband) was in town too, so we could pull him along as well. Well, he had given us the leeway to choose any place and just let him know! Guess what! We did just that!

Arvind, as a rule, is pretty meticulous and likes to plan before embarking on a travel of any kind! But, G3 and me, the scatterbrains that we are, just run helter skelter, pell mell, into anything and everything. So it is that we set out without doing any stay/hotel bookings of any kind! There won't be the minutest of problems, we assured A!!! The bus journey to Hampi was quite uneventful, unless we count a certain driver's fascination with G3's head peeking out of the window!!! Ahem!!! The ride took about 8 hours, for the most part of which, we were awake, what with all the humps and potholes that the driver compulsively had to drive on, and our (mine and G3's) imsonia that's a part and parcel of any bus travel, which invariably didn't let A sleep too!

On reaching Hampi, and after having successfully fended off a dozen unwanted touts, we set off on a search for a place to dump our belongings; for a roof over our heads for the night! The first few rooms that we looked at sure gave us the creeps! Rat infested, with cockroaches and lizards running all over the place, the rooms looked straight out of a desi horror movie! Thankfully, before A could embark on an "I told you so" tirade and we sheepishly admit that he'd been right after all, we managed to spot a decent place, with a room that looked like a palace when compared to the earlier ones! We hungrily lapped it up, raring to start our sightseeing. After having had a bath and made ourselves presentable, we set off to explore the place.

Hampi is an absolute delight to the eyes. The delectable ruins, the huge boulders, the umpteen number of temples, ranging from teeny tiny ones to huge bustling structues; all capture the glory of the bygone era of the Vijaynagara empire. The architecture of these buildings, or what is left of them, is absolutely breathtaking! You can glimpse its grandeur even in its shreds, visible on those once gloriously magnificient structures!

There were many villagers milling about in one particular temple. I'm not sure whether they were natives of Hampi, or had come to witness its beauty, not unlike ourselves. The picture below was taken at their request that we photograph them with us! It was very satisfying to see the glee on their faces when we complied. :-)

One of the things that we were really kicked about was the existence of secret passages! I was thrilled to realize that such things really existed! We found as many as four of them, though I'm sure there must have been many more scattered all over the place. In the picture below, you can just about see our excited, bobbing heads, down the flight of stairs leading to one of the secret passages that we stumbled upon!

There was also an extremely beautiful and tranquil pond, (or maybe, it was a swimming pool), bordered on all four sides by even more ruins! An ideal spot to rest your tired feet and let your mind wander uninhibited! Here, you can spot A doing just that!

Here's a dekko at the huge boulders that made us look so triflingly small and Tom-Thumb like!

The one thing that got on my nerves during our stay at Hampi was the absolutely disastrous weather there! It was sickeningly hot and sultry, rendering us tired even before we were halfway through the day! If any of you are planning to make a trip to this otherwise beautiful spot, I suggest you steer clear of this place during the summer months! Unless, you're someone who adores the sweltering heat!!!

Another thing that struck the fancy of us girls, was the Queen's Bath! This was a huge, absolutely enormous sunken area, in one of the rooms in what was once, a palace! Legend has it that this was where the queen, along with her entourage of maids, took one of her long winded and royal baths! There was a small outlet to let out the used water and fill the pit again with crystal clear, delicious water! The picture shows us girls trying to usurp our share of the royal treatment! :-)

We also came across two huge structures relating to Hindu Gods. One was a shiva linga, and an enormous one at that! It was surrounded by a pool of water, albeit a trifle murky. However, that didn't deter from its breakthtaking beauteousness, as was amply proved by the spectacle of the water reflecting on the linga and on the walls surrounding it! The photograph below has not been able to capture all that, but the magnificience of the structure is for all to witness!

Another structure that caught our fancy was that of Narasimha! The area surrounding it was cordoned off, and rightly so! Statues like these need to be protected as much from human elements, as from the forces of nature!

Also, what deserves special mention here is this quaint little restaurant that was strategically placed at the end of a long stretch of a narrow, unpaved dirt road, fringed by lovely, cooling palm trees on both the sides! I think the place was called mango tree or something similar (A and G3, correct me if I'm wrong!). The prices were surprisingly exorbitant for such a place, but they had nice rope swings and a lovely, panoramic view that more than made up for the steep prices! All the other places that we ate at promised to provide delicious fares of every kind, only to leave the "delicious" part to our imaginations! I particularly remember having a chocolate milkshake that tasted like diluted bournvita! :-D

Here's the grove that led to the quaint little restaurant that I've been so harping on!!!

Oh yes, the last lap of the trip included the bus journey back home, which was horrendous, to say the least! We had to first go to a town called Hospet and then board one rickety, old bus! Nonetheless, in hindsight, the trip was worth it all!