The Road MORE travelled- Hampi

When we planned our trip last year, we eventually decided not to go to Hampi because it seemed like one big tourist trap. This year, after seeing many pictures and hearing many accounts of how magical and wonderful it is, we decided that perhaps we had been unduly harsh. We were both right and wrong on both accounts, it is a HUGE tourist trap, but it is also very special and wonderful (if you can hold yourself back from accidentally killing the 2 millionth person who starts grabbing at you and saying "postcards, postcards, postcards").

Arriving in Hampi three days ago, we were shocked to find out that there were OTHER western people in town. We have been traveling for more then two weeks now, and apart from Colaba in Mumbai we haven't seen any other western peoplethe whole time. We found that we developed a natural Indian instinct towards them, we simply stare... and rightly so... the girls - they don't wear anything! These little tank tops are smaller than cholis, and those shorts are really shocking. There is a whole culture of people who migrate for 6 months on end across India from one of these tourist traps to the next, and they have developed a certain style of dressing. Several things we have seen that qualify as "please try this only when you have left India" include wearing a lunghi (men's skirt) as a scarf and wearing a sari petticoat as a skirt(with no sari on top) .... and you wonder why people stare at you.

The second shock was the food. We randomly chose a place down in Hampi Bazaar that looked like it had a nice flow of people, and were very surprised at the menu: first that there was one, and then to find out that it had Italian, Chinese, Israeli, Mexican, "Continental" (where the hell is that?) and faux- Indian. We really didn't know what to chose, and eventually decided that "Dal Roti" was probably the safest way to go. What we got, after waiting for half an hour, was a strange flying saucer shaped disk....like a flattened empanada or calzone. Normally, Dal Roti is dal with roti, but this was dal inside the roti - and there were no spices whatsoever.


Putting aside all the touts, touristy restaurants and cheesy guest houses, Hampi is truly a magnificent place. Hampi, or Vijayanagar, as it was once called, was the capital city of a vast empire that included most of south India from the 14th to the 16th centuries. It is a true "lost city" in a sense, as all of its 30 square kilometers of temple complexes, palaces and markets are now lying ruins. The city was sacked in the sixteenth century a coalition of Muslim rulers, headed by the Adil Shahs dynasty. Remember them? they are the ones that used all of the riches of Vijayanagar to build their capital - Bijapur, which we have visited last week. It is fascinating to see how one city's victory is an other's ruin. The city's remains, and there are many of those, are scattered over the whole site, between hills that look like a pile of rocks that some unknown giant has left there, and a little flowing river that has to be crossed by coracle. A coracle is a little reed basket that can hold up to ten people and is paddled by a greedy, lazy, temperamental boatman, who is never there when you need him or asks a ridiculous price for a two moment's crossing.

Hampi also has special significance as the location of Kishkinda, the kingdom of the monkeys as told in the Ramayana. For those of you not familiar with the story, you will be pleased to know that I broke down, admitted I would never get through the original book, and bought a version for children with pictures. Even then it was nearly 100 pages and the pictures weren't that big. And indeed, this is the kingdom of the monkies! We climbed the hill to the Hanuman temple, where the priest let us feed his favourite monkey. We were then harassed all the way back down the hill by rest of the clan, who probably smelled bananas on our breath....they were far worse than the postcard sellers, rickshaw drivers and shoe minders!

Another huge attraction of this place is Lakshmi, the Elephant that belongs to the local temple. She is a bit of a local mascot, and is trained to give people a blessing in exchange for a rupee coin. She is bathed every morning at 7:30, about 10 meter upstream from where everyone does their laundry and morning washing. I guess she is good luck.

After 3 days of wandering through the sites, both the main ones and the "off the beaten track kim and boaz special" sites we are ready to move on. We will be going to Bangalore, which was not on our itinerary, but is a nice place to break our long trip south towards land's end. We have also been promised a home cooked meal by Gayatri's aunt and we are especially excited.

BARFI: Many are the mysterious and funny signs that you see around town. For example, this one (below) from our guesthouse.

What does it mean? We will beat the "heckout " of you if you are not gone by 10 was the best interpretation we came up with. We are leaving tomorrow at 8 so I guess we don't get to find out. So the purpose of this BARFI is to offer a prize to the person who is able to answer the following riddle: what is Takli Teli Nupolo (clue: it is something you eat....or something one eats, but we certainly didn't) The winner will receive an exciting prize of our choice!