Priyadarshini Homestay Hospet

... Nepal and our time is out. We know that we have not seen enough of the temples and the Hampi attractions and the carvings but we realise you don’t have to. We have got what I had hoped out of Hampi, which is spending four days eating amazing food, watching soft sunsets and bright moons in a landscape of myth and awe. We both vow to come back, feeling like the break has helped us get motivated for the monster journey and probably rude awakening of Varanasi in the north.

... driver from the day before, let us, for the sake of convenience call him Sameer, because every second word he uttered was Sameer this and sameer that (which incidentally means either “Hindu God, or Politely”). He said he will take us back for 120, but since we had offers for 80, we decided on 70, and struggled the 14 clicks back to Hospet central too get our bus leaving at 6. It turned out it leaves at half seven, so we chilled out in the travel agency ...

... granite in impossible positions, with the brightest green rice fields which never cease to make me gawk... so beautiful!!!

Anyways its been a good day, we're just having a major computer session - its scary thikning of losing all our photos so we're being nerds tonite just backing them all up. Tomorrow we're going to rent some bicycles and do more of the same, to get a little further out of town and try to see some temples and the cool nerdy ...

... meal, catching up on each other’s travels but mainly marveling at this amazing place! I told him I was getting a bike the next day, as I was looking forward to getting out into the country, having some fresh air and exercise!

It came soon enough and I acquired a shiny, quite new, male mountain bike!! I was like a kid, all excited and raring to get around these awesome ruins of 15th century Vijayanagar city. This WHS spans an incredible distance, needing 15 days to ...

... after, Robin arrived – an English actor who, unhappy with Britain, was now living in India and trying to build up his portfolio of work.

George and Robin had worked together previously, so were delighted to meet up again and caught up on recent events. I got on terrifically with both of them, with Robin being a truly nice and multi-talented guy. Robin was playing the part of an actor, with a speaking role and costume. We all had some make-up applied (the biggest ...

... did just spend 5 days wandering around taking it all in. I
took a guide on 2 days and it was nice to have someone to explain the
background to some of the ruins. Basaba (guide) was great, he knew the
background to everything and a lot of stuff about the area itself too.
I really liked all the Hindu religious stories that related to the
different Gods and I felt I learnt quite a lot while I was there. On
one of the days he took me across the ...

Hello! We finally decided to scrape ourselves off the beach in Goa and see some more of India, so we decided to hot foot it east to a town called Hampi! Getting here was traumatic to say the least- we got tricked into getting a bus (there is a huge conspiracy going on here to get tourists onto buses so they can charge more money!) which was an overnight sleeper- 10 hours- didn't sound too bad- WRONG! It was aufull! We had ...

... current leadership, the overall feeling was that people were not making money like they were before and were therefore unhappy. There were all kinds of political rallies for the current men in office throughout the areas we traveled which meant we got to see a few of them. The majority of the rallies were in harder to reach areas since there was probably no need to have them in touristy spots. That said, since we primarily used buses to get around the state of ...

... through the hands of various kings and their offspring. It is a glorious spot and makes other ruins seem rather insignificant (or as one other blogger said "**** stonehenge - this place is amazing").  The boulders and ruins take on magical proportions as the sun sets and the nightly light show begins.   I'm not sure if this feat of lighting was for the annual festival or is done regularly....but my guess, from the amounts of wires strung across paths and other unlikely ...

... we kept our suitcases at the ready. So when we arrived at Hospet at 5.25am we weren't surprised and we were ready to get off the train - with no-one to meet us. A porter, with excellent English said that he thought our guide would be waiting for us on Platform 1 because that is where the train normally comes in - and so we told him that we were going to stay where we were until he found us. About 10 minutes later he came back with our guide in tow ...