Hampi, or the best weekend of my life thus far

After a week of work and parties we decided to chill out in Hampi at the weekend. Unfortunately it turned itself into an adventure holiday.
Hampi is about 7 hours north of Bangalore, and is the former capital of south India, when it was a Hindu empire, 14th to 16th Centuries.. Technically, it's a wreck of a town, nothing compared to what it once was, broken idols and empty market places.
What they call imagination rocks litter the landscape in a way that's beautiful and surreal. We arrived at 6AM on Saturday morning by coach. I was grumpy from all kinds of deprivation and ready to chop off Bobby's legs for taking up too much room. The six of us on the trip to briefly introduce, were all i-to-i volunteers; Shawn, Bobby and Nerell from my house, plus Libby and Nabeela. Immediately set upon by rickshaw drivers when we got off the coach, we were driven the half-mile we could easily have walked and pressured into looking at a half-dozen hostels. I lost the will to live, or at least to care about which hostel we picked.. the others did a pretty good job. We ate breakfast (pineapple porridge and chai for me) with a plan of going back to bed but then got energised by reading out our ridiculous horoscopes for the day.

Since I arrived in India it has been a group joke how much I want to ride a moped, and believed that I could despite bad roads and no license. So, seeing as they were available to rent, we did that biz. The city of Hampi is down in a valley with 7 mountains around it - a lot like Rome as our tourguide repeatedly pointed out.

We rented 2 bikes and a rickshaw and a guide, and drove between the ruined temples and statues. At a good few of the places we stopped, whilst we were having elephant heads explained to us, family groups (Indian) asked to take our photo with them, and with their children. After a while we realised we could only take so many variations on a theme under the hot sun, and whilst we sung a lot of the Beatles to keep us going, it was definately time to break for lunch.



So we hopped to the Mango Tree. Which is a total home for hippies, like the desert island house everyone wants to live in, with a view over the meadow with a river and grazing beasts, more of those huge rocks and women washing their colourful saris in the water and little boys swimming. We ate a lot of fantastic food and nearly fell asleep. It's an idyllic place to eat, and pretty good for checking out hot fellow-travellers too.

After lunch Shawn and I swam in the river right next to a huge rock that was inscribed swimming is danger, with a skull&crossbones - I include this incase you haven't picked up I'm trying to sound hardcore. The little boys were delighted when we got in the water, and sat on our shoulders and waved for the camera. The current was very strong and there were nice little rapids to get pulled through the rocks by.


We sat around at the hostel for a little while, admiring the monkeys that were scuttling around us.Then we hired another moped and five of us went out for a scrambly ride.

Then the sky started to get just a few shades darker on the right and we were enjoying the cooler breeze, but it started to spit and then started to pour.. So we turned back and rode faster through the rain, clothes soaked through and sticking to us, eyes full of water.
Back in the village we ran through the rain back to the hostel, water pouring out of chutes and off of buildings like a water ride in a theme park.
The power promptly went off and we sat out on the porch with a Dutch couple, admiring the rain and darkness. Once it eased off, the power remained out but we managed to eat by candlelight in that same restaurant as breakfast, listening to cat power, as the computer managed to work anyway.

Sunday morning we woke up at 5 to catch the sunrise which we'd heard is fantastic. Climbed a mountain, and saw the sun peek over it, resting on the jagged top like a marble about to do a run. Bobby recited some poetry for us up there and we poked at bugs and it was generally a nice experience. Headed for breakfast and asked a man in the restaurant to join us, who was spending a lot of time in India, and is/was an artist from Australia. Then we took a powerboat across the river for ten rupees and a rickshaw to a mountain. Climbed 600 white steps, some of us more quickly than others, to a temple. It was sparkling white in the hard sunshine, and there were monkeys running along the walls, and opening my bag, and a view for miles over people working, as tiny and busy as ants are, and little lorries and fields. Oh and many more imagination rocks, but it was very green and lush. I had a peek inside the temple, and there was the ultimate guru looking man sitting skinny limbs folded up on a mattress, hair and beard just how you'd imagine, and a sleek mobile up to his right ear. I like to think he was counseling some businessman in the States. I sat out on the rocks for what must have been a few hours just looking and thinking and praying and subtly sending out threatening signals to the monkeys. They're pretty much the Indian version of Bristol's seagulls that snatch your food, or just parade around looking menacing. Eventually the rickshaw drivers got fed up of waiting -even though we hadn't asked them to- so we had to leave. On the drive back down to the river, two guys hop in next to the driver and start chatting to me and the boys. End up getting offered ganj wrapped in newspaper - the same way prescription pills come, as it happens.
Spent a lazy few hours in the Mango Tree again, just gorging ourselves on the food and the view. Then wandered around the market streets, and bought an anklet and had henna done, by the same woman who also makes and mends clothes in that shop. It starts to get scary when you think about how multi talented you'd have to be to survive financially. Walked around using only my right hand for the rest of the day, I was so desperate for the henna to stain well.
At the railway station in Hospet, a nearby town, we were more stared at and begged at in half and hour than we'd been all weekend. Myself, Shawn and Nabs bought yellow spicy rice from a moving stall, reasoning that as it felt warm it was okay. Ate it Indian stylee (with just your right hand). I like to think I'm getting pretty good at that now, but you know it still doesn't excuse how silly that was... As my orphanage women told me with amusement and horror a few days later, after recovery, "even we don't eat at the train station!".
The train was something else. Well, perhaps not something else if you spent your life in an asylum from Girl, Interrupted. But it was all exposed metal and blue rubber beds and smelt like piss and unwashed people.. Also we had to fight for the seats we'd reserved and even then there were strangers sleeping directly below us, snoring like crazy, and I slept with my head on my rucksack and my arm wrapped around my bag, terrified someone would take them or touch me.