Giant kids, and their pebble mountains.

This is my travelogue about Hampi. I took this trip sometime during mid-2005, and had written about it. The article then got lost in my computer's black hole, only to be found today. So, decided to post it, with some interesting links, and updates.

ps: Will post my pictures, when I retrieve them from the aforementioned black hole.

pps: I finally managed to bring the Hampi pictures back from the dead. They're posted in a nice website here or http://rawwasinhampi.shutterfly.com/

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*Giant kids, and their pebble mountains*

I was never a traveller. In my 28 yrs of existence I haven’t visited even 28 places. So when I got a message from my friend FD, asking me if I was game for some travelling, I was very surprised to find myself agreeing, and becoming a traveller in the process.

The next question was, deciding on a venue for our meeting, and it turned out to be the ultra-famous, ultra-mythological, and ultra-old place called Hampi.

Hampi is a small place in north western Karnataka, and it’s said to be inhabited by humans since 3000 years. Man, that's a real big deal when you look at it. Imagine a place where gods like Shiva & Rama, warriors like Hanuman & Lakhsman, and emperors like Krishnadevaraya amongst others have walked upon through the eons.

Now, this place is filled with ruins of the ancient 15th century Vijayanagar Empire, which incidentally was the richest kingdom in the entire world. Most of the ruins are still being excavated by the Indian archaeological society and thus Hampi is declared as a world heritage site and thereby being barred from having any new constructions happening there. Thank God for that, or we would find another Taj Corridor fiasco happening there.

The overnight journey was long, but uneventful. By 9 am, my bus was in boulder territory. This area is a magnificent wasteland. A flat landscape full of huge boulders. There are no mountains to be seen, just heaps of gargantuan boulders, as if they’ve been liberally sprinkled across the ghostly, sparsely vegetated landscape, by some giant hand.

My bus reached Hospet (There is no direct travel to Hampi. One has to disembark at Hospet, and use local conveyance to get to Hampi) at 12 noon, and I found poor FD waiting patiently at the bus stand since 7 am. We finally met, and the Hampi-ria started.

Hampi is a half hour drive from Hospet. We reached there in no time, and booked ourselves into the first hotel that we found. Little did we know that we were being ripped off? Further down the road and beyond the river, lay lots of hotels that were rumoured to be very cheap. But hell, who cares? We were in Hampi.

After lunch, which consisted of a wonderful Spinach Paratha, and a shitty Garlic counterpart, we decided to hit the road. Armed with rented bicycles, FD and I decided to go cycling amongst the beautiful ruins. But before that, we shopped for books and local maps, to aide our travel.

During our cycle ride, we saw monolithic Ganesha idols, wicked looking Narasimhas (whose hands were chopped off by the barbaric Mughal invaders), and gigantic Shivalingas. We also met Manjunath, whom FD had met on the previous trip here. Manjunath was a little older now, but he was the same little wily thief as before. Under the pretext of selling stone goodies, Manju scams unsuspecting travellers using his sugary salesman tongue. We spared ourselves the trouble.

Further down, we saw two beautiful twin sisters disguised as boulders leaning onto each other. Legend has it, they went to seduce some meditating rishi, and he turned them into this. Was I dead, girls? No seriously; with guys like me around, why the hell do you have to try your luck on an old, boring hermit? Serves you right. Now support each other for the rest of eternity.

After the failed love attempt, we saw the Hazara Rama temple, which has the entire Ramayana carved onto it. The dudes of the 15th century had some serious employment issues. They didn't work. Instead, they transformed stones into fascinating pieces of art. Further down the road, there were elephant stables, where you have to buy a ticket just to get in. We paid, but still didn't get the ticket. Art was in ruins but corruption was still going great guns, you can say.

We also saw the Lotus palace, where the queen used to stay during summers. The 2 storied stone palace has an elaborate plumbing system, by which water used to flow throughout the entire structure, thus keeping it cool in the scorching summer heat. (This was during the days before electricity and water pumps, mind you.) Now, owls and parrots stay there. Hurrying to get back to the hotel we missed seeing some places, but hey, they all look the same.

After returning the bicycles, we started exploring the places closer to our hotel. Luckily, we visited the Virupaksha temple just in time to witness the local puja taking place, replete with music, and elephants, and hurrying temple workers, but no tourists, barring us and a few others.

After the puja, we decided to experience crossing the river in a basket. It's called a ‘coracle’ or so FD says. But if FD says something, it's probably true. Later we had dinner at a trippy joint, which had trance music blaring down on us. We decided to skip the Trance party happening on the other side of the river, and decided to call it a day, but not before we had the local security guards shooing us off from the river-front because it was too late.

The next day, we had planned to witness the sun waking up. In actuality, we got up after the sun had not only woken up, but also showered, and had breakfast. So we also decided to have breakfast, and visit the rare stone waterfalls. It's called a rare phenomenon, and most probably so, because it's so rare to catch sight of. We saw a small stream, and had to suffice with that. But hell, we did see a lot of boulders, and banana plantations.

We passed Sugreeva's cave (here the monkey king hid Sita's jewelry, which she had dropped as a bread crumb trail for Ram, during her abduction by Ravan. Read the excellent "Books of Ramayana", by Ashok Banker, for more details.), and the King's Balance.

Then, we decided to see the famous Achyutaraya and Vithala temples. The architecture is so good that it has lasted for centuries, and it was a true delight to watch. This is where you’ll see the famous stone chariot (the stone wheels actually revolve) that’s printed on most Indian picture postcards. The Vithala temple has stone pillars (carved from single blocks), on which musical percussion instruments have been carved elaborately. Not only that, but when the guide hits these instruments, the rock carvings (believe it or not) make the respective sound of the percussion instrument they depict. They are also known as the musical pillars.

More delightful, was the sight of some pretty hippy women posing as Radhas, with their colourful clothes, and local flowers (for some European photoshoot); in the Vithala temple. There was also a gang of Marathi youngsters, who for some reason or the other were busy searching for some dude named Rahul. They finally found the Rahul they were looking for, and he turned out to be a dumb ____ (insert synonym for donkey) who wasn't worthy of his name. (I should probably file a patent for my name now.)

There was also a huge, south-Indian lady, crooning to her hearts delight, in the temple complex. We didn't understand what she was singing, but even our untrained ears could make out that her voice was good, very good. Even I was tempted to sing, but didn't want the centuries old architecture to come crashing down on me. On the other hand, FD was calmly meditating in the midst of all this chaos. After drinking refreshing coconut water, we decided to head back.

On the way back, we saw some more boulders, some more ruins, sleeping pseudo-hermits, and extremely old women. During lunch, which by the way was on the river bank, we were visited by a pea-hen, who in her greed for eating Masala rice, was ready to rip us apart with her wicked looking talons. And I always thought our national bird was a shy creature. Shy???? My posterior. In contrast, this peahen was standing on our table demanding food, food, and more food. Now I know how extortion victims feel.

After lunch, and some lemon tea, we started off on our way to Hospet bus stand, but not before doing some shopping, where we bought some nice stone artefacts and lockets. Gathering our goodies, loads of photographs, and wonderful memories of the long lost grandeur of Hampi, we reluctantly proceeded on our routine, stressful lives.

At the bus-stand, I bid farewell to FD, and started my journey back home. Watching the pristine, boulder strewn landscape for the last time, I quietly settled back in my seat, with my mind filled with memories of poetic art, grandiose architecture, and pebbles of giant kids.
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Further reading:
My Hampi Album
Hampi (Wikipedia)
WikiTravel
World 66
Karnataka Tourism
Amit Kulkarni Images
Webonautics
Hampi Photo Album
BangaloreRockt
XenoTropic
Dignified Cow
Manjunath's Article (No he's not the Manju I mentioned :) )
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