Among the boulders and ruins...
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2008
1
13
18
Trip End
Feb 12, 2009
Hampi, Karnataka, India
Monday, January 5, 2009
Hampi gives an insight into the true and profound difference between North and South India. It is also a place of symbolic importance. As the ancient captial of the mighty Hindu Vijayanagar empire, which rivaled the Muslim Moghul empire to the North and the surrounding Deccan sultanates. The area is scattered with the ruins of the once mighty temples and chowks (markets) that somehow fit into this strange, alien landscape like awkwardly placed pieces of a difficult puzzle.
Among the ruins, a small population tries to make a living, often out of the ruins themselves, which, although declared a World Heritage Site, still provide shelter to the people living within them.
The place is markedly more relaxed than Gokarna and Goa, as well as smaller and more scattered. The tourists themselves are different, and rather than the party, drug-obsessed visitors coming to India for little more than the exchange rate and the ability to treat the locals with little respect, we have been greeted with the kind of traveler that seeks to immerse him/herself into the place and soak up the atmosphere, history and culture. Definitely a refreshing change.
Some interesting characters, it seems, have been attracted to Hampi for a long time. I met Carlo, who first came 29 years ago and decided to follow a particular (to remain unnamed) yogi and is now publishing small books about the philosophy he represents in English and Italian. After a fairly unengaging discussion, I decided nonetheless that I would buy the booklet, if not out of some amazing insight Carlo himself had provided, out of sheer curiosity. We'll see, perhaps the contents will as yet transform me into the world's greatest and most accomplished mystic yogi yet! Then again, such a title seems to be for sale left right and centre here (and everywhere else, for that matter).
Also, Lucas and Ella, two extremely interesting, engaging and funny fellow Melburnians we met here have provided some of that refreshing Australian frankness that goes a long way to making one feel like going home won't be the end of the world, perhaps even something to look forward to.
And on we go, to Mysore or elsewhere, continuing the journey and entering the last 5 weeks of this to date amazing trip. More soon...
