To be A Rock & Not To Roll, Hanuman, Hanuman!!!
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
176
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Hampi,
Karnataka,
India
Monday, January 12, 2009
As soon as i hit Hampi town and made it through the rickshaw frenzy during which touts were climbing up into the bus windows and shoving business cards into people's faces, i ran from the bus nightmare, manic pirates and flagged my own rickshaw then headed through the bazaar, past the Virupakshar temple where the ladies were selling truckloads of bananas and straight to the banks of the river Tungabhadra. Happy Children were shrieking with joy whilst bathing and the ladies were washing laundry on the steps there. There is a boat or those mixing bowl shaped, fishermen's basket boats i think you can rent that will take you across to the Virupapur Gaddi area near the village of Anegundi where the feeling is shanti and you can stay amongst the rice paddies and banana plantations, total pixie territory
moon is out at sunset
. Extraordinary landscape and completely under-rated by the guide books and other travellers. I loved every minute of my time in magical Hampi and hardly stopped to sleep. There is a pleasurable, spiritual, blissful vibe in Hampi and it's surrounds. It ROCKS, get it? Mono Loco was jumping out of his little furry skin with excitement especially considering that in the Hindu legends of Ramayana, this area was Kishkinda, the realm of the monkey gods and that means Hanuman territory.I was glad i followed my instincts and a sign to Goan Corner which took me down a dirt path that seemed to be heading nowhere. I thought i'd keep walking and then spotted a few bungalows and hotels across the rice paddies and hidden amongst palms and banana trees close to the river. The location was prime with a high cliff of the beautiful red coloured granite boulders contrasting with the lush rice paddies surrounding the hotels. I felt immediately earthed and grounded by the mammoth rocks and couldn't wait to go exploring. A man herding goats and his daughter appeared out of nowhere and were keen to sell me some marijuana they had wrapped up in a newspaper. When i declined he insisted on showing me his wares that looked like a large quantity of high quality, hairy buds and his price was low. I'm not sure why business was slow for him this day considering there were so many Israelis around, he was very keen to sell to me. No wonder there were so many long termers in Hampi, the chillums are on tap
typical Hampi rock strewn landscape
. The guy's goats even looked a little bit too stoned (that was a joke about Hampi, get it? The stoners?...... Hampi's rocks? horrendous). For more laughter therapy I have more lame rock jokes in kiddies corner bottom of pageI caught up with Anna-Mie who had found the bus and was staying on the rooftop at Goan Corner with about 15 others. There was a complete bouldering / Lonely Planet scene going on and i did'nt even know that there was such a sport. Bouldering is similar to rock climbing but you are lower to the ground. You use your hands with powder on them and special grippy shoes to strategically make your way climbing up to the top of a boulder, you use crash pads at the foot of the rock in case you fall, which you often do, the risk of injury is high. I was surprised to find that people plan their entire holidays around this sport, Hampi is the best place in India for it and the boulderers take the sport very seriously scrambling up the magnificent bluffs and rounded boulders from sunrise till sunset. One thing's for sure, they'll never run out of boulders to climb, there is a ridiculous amount of rock piles here. Millions of years of erosion has achieved some crazy formations where rocks are balanced on top of one another. The longer you stay around, the more images start to appear in the rock formations and they start to look like things like celebrities faces or animals. I saw Jethro Tull in one formation and Kylie Minogue in another and that was without sampling any of the goatherder's weed
school pen! school pen! chocolate?
. The good thing about the bouldering scene was that most of the people had extremist type personalities that i found interesting and i had some really good early morning or late night chats. I took a rooftop position for 50rupees a night at the very chilled Manju's Place near Goan Corner where they had a restaurant and a circular communal space. Manju was a very shanti guy who had turned the family home into a guesthouse and was working hard so his children could go to university in the city. The ladies who live there were fantastic cooks. On the roof I had a mosquito net, a gorgeous French pixie boy to share my roof and the moon and a sky full of stars as my ceiling, a nice little set up. Problem was i slept in my zero degrees sleeping bag so my body was toasty warm but my face was chilled and i picked up a minor cold. The 25 year old French pixie is an artisan who designs and makes leather tobacco pouches, satchels, money belts and crystal pouches using leather, linen rope threads and organic materials like wood and coconut for buttons. With his muscular body, mohawk and bone through his ear he looked like he had just walked out of the forest having been raised by wolves. Unfortunately he had picked up a small drug habit in India and was having nightmares in his sleep. We had some important chats together and i encouraged him to keep up his leather work, it's really nice work. I bought a tobacco pouch from him and he gave me a gift of a pouch i am using for my Egyptian crystals
morning Sadhu
. He was just about the gentlest, calmest and sweetest boy i have ever met. When he arrived in India a couple of months ago he had a backpack full of clothes and now he has given most of it away to poor families. It is very easy to do and we have given all our little excess items away too. The day after our chat i saw him climbing palm trees with joy. Before he left to Chennai to buy more leather, I left a gift of an Amazonian necklace with seeds and feathers in his trekking boot when he wasn't looking.It's funny how books that have a particular personal message for you somehow jump off shelves and you choose them over the others. This i true of my current read Satprem's "Sri Aurobindo-Adventures Of Consciousness" which is an introduction to him and his teachings. Aurobindo's ashram is in Tamil Nadu. Plenty of time to read in Hampi, i stayed for awhile. Most people told me that three days would be enough here but there's so much to explore, you need at least a week.
On the first day there i ventured out to a little barber shop in town that is painted pink where i asked for some natural henna colour to be put in my hair to cover my blonde roots. The guy washed my hair in a bucket out the front of the store then applied the paste. The henna took two hours to dry in the salon so i had a chance to sit with the barber, chat with his clients and watch the world go by outside his doors. That world was mainly goats and bicycles going passed. It's quiet here
he's a funky monkey man!
. I wasn't imprssed with the hair results though. I had to leave the thick henna paste in overnight and it turned out very red instead of the dark brown it should have been. Bugger. So i'm now a red head. After i had been in his shop for two hours and all his clients had left, the very camp barber tried chatting me up quite aggressively and it was disappointing because he was a good guy before that. I thought he was gay. He grabbed me by the arm and kept telling me to come back and visit him and asking me for a kiss. I had to forcefully push his hand off me and got the hell out of there. I was supposed to go back the next day for the henna wash out but i did it myself. This has been a common problem with the Indian men because we've been in these incidents before. Nothing is as bad as the Egyptians or Moroccans and we've had sufficient training in dealing with these types.This first day i watched the sunset from the boulder cliff where there was lots of other pixies enjoying the landscape and playing music. A sadhu looking guy walked barefoot out from behind some rocks and tried to sell me marijuana. Anna-Mi had seen Hilltop Helen (recognisable by her broad accent, yoga mat and peacock feather) on her bus and word got out that she was to be at The Laughing Buddha restaurant. I met up with her, a delightful ginger haired Welsh guy named Chris who she had befriended on the bus and a gorgeous Dutch couple named Sandra and Mishel. We all hired a rickshaw to take us to a village nearby to see a fire festival where the locals supposedly walk on the hot coals in barefeet
views to the river towards Anegundi
. The bonfire was in the middle of the road and locals were drunk and singing, chanting and dancing around the fire in front of a temple with decorated statues of deities as a backdrop. The French pixie from my rooftop was dancing there too. Us foreigners bought some Kingfisher beers and took a rooftop viewpoint from where we saw a fight break out in the street, the locals were restless. It wasn't long before the police arrived with bamboo sticks, confiscated all the beers and moved us away. We left before the gathering became out of control. We never saw anybody walking on the coals.The next day Chris, Anna-Mi, Helen and i hired bicycles and went on an adventure to the Royal Centre where we saw the elephant stables, played around with some kids and drank coconut juice. The bikes were good with a basket on the front for Mono Loco to sit in and bells that reminded me of Mary Poppins when you rang them. I felt like a BMX bandit. After we crossed the river by puting the bikes on the little boat, the ride took us through rock strewn landscape with banana trees, palms, temple ruins and remains of the kingdom that existed here 700 years ago. We saw a snake charmer getting three king cobras to come out of baskets and some 4WDs filled with friendly pilgrim blokes dressed in black. Their 4WD's were decorated in orange paint and Om flags and shrines on the outside of the cars. Bicycles are a good way to go because you are out amongst it and see all the roadside action
stops to chat with us
. This day we ate at The Mango Tree restaurant, a shaded place amongst the banana trees with chill out cushions and a good vibe and strategically placed to overlook a particularly nice section of the river. Monkey had a good time meeting a new girlfriend on a swing that was hanging up in the giant mango tree. On the way out of there Chris gave a child a ride on the back of his bicycle. The boy had a pet rock tied to a piece of string that was dragging on the ground as it trailed behind the bike. Whilst riding the pet rock escaped from the string and i had to stop to look for it amogst hundreds of other rocks. It had escaped from the zoo. We also saw children here playing with simple, home-made bows and arrow sets made from wood. Later that day Helen was leaving us because she's going to work in an orphanage in Tamil Nadu so we saw her boat off across the river from the top of the cliff, Mono Loco was crying and threw himself into the air as she left. A great day peddling around. We've decided to keep the bikes for the week. They're good value.Because i was on the rooftop i had no shade and it was necessary to wake up very early everyday before the sun's rays hit and cooked me alive. The heat is fairly extreme at the moment and cooler during the evenings. So, i get up, shower, have some chai and a good breakfast of muesli, curd, bananas and nuts made by the ladies at Manjus. It takes me a while to really get moving in the mornings and there's always somebody intereting to talk with.
The next morning i crossed the river and waited for the temple elephant Lakshmi to come down to the river for a daily bath
one of the ladies hrd at work
. Whilst waiting i bought a block print top and befriended three, orange clad, fake saddhus wearing beads, amulets, bells, peacock feathers and turbans who were carrying staffs and begging for money by posing for photographs on the banks of the river. The sunlight was good so i went for the photo. Of course they asked me for 200rupees 'donation' for a picture but i only gave them 10. They let me off the hook when i showed them my beaten up Birkenstocks. The elephant was very late of course but worth the wait. I followed it down the stairs and watched as it walked into the water and lay on it's side, part of the body submerged in the river. This was the cutest elephant in the world. The handler had a large scrubbing brush to wash Lakshmi with and would occasionally shout out a harsh command to get the elephant to move. There was such alot of elephant to wash and the guy made sure he gave every piece of skin, wrinkle and crease a good scrub for about 45 minutes whilst ladies washed clothing and the local children played, splashed around and bathed around next to the elephant. Next the elephant stood up and rinsed itself using it's trunk like a vaccum cleaner to suck up water from the river then blowing it out all over it's body. After the washing part the elephant walked up the stairs and was fed some bananas before heading towards the temple. I followed it all the way and was rewarded when it stopped to blowdry itself using it's trunk like a hairdryer and blowing air up under it's stomach
Mishel and Mono
. The final part of the process was when the handler used some natural red, orange and white coloured powders to decorate the elephant's ears and trunk with some symbols and Lakshmi the cutest elephant in the world was ready for a new day of work to begin. This work involves giving elephant blessings in the temple. When people offer some rupees in coin form in the palm of their hands, Lakshmi will collect the coins with the end of the trunk and give them to the handler before placing his trunk on your head. I went back for two blessings after i discovered how much i love elephants.This same day I ran into Xavier from Melbourne and the beautiful Avi from Boston when i went to check out the Virupaksha Temple. Because this is Hanuman territory, there's a very nice Hanuman shrine out the front where people were offering flowers, incense and coloured powders, lighting candles and also cracking open coconuts and sprinkling the coconut water over the shrine. Whilst i was watching this a young, street urchin boy appeared and held out his hand for rupees in front of me. He had a real monkey attached to a chain and sitting on his shoulder probably ready to launch it into some tricks at his command. Immediately i pulled Mono Loco out of my bag and placed him on my shoulder, the boy had no idea how to react when i asked him for money. I hate seeing monkeys used for this purpose but took his photo anyway.
Another good day was the cycling adventure to the lake and a trek up to watch the sunset at the Hanuman Temple
flags on top of whitewashed monkey temple
. I had no clothes so i wore the trashy retro singlet i had bought in Goa and my leggings. Tragic! We passed tuk tuks, goat and cattle herders and their handlers, motorbikes, trucks as we rode out passsed the old bridge and along roads next to rice paddies and fields. Men were yelling as they worked pairs of bullocks using the old technique to plough their fields and teams of ladies were bent over in fields planting rice. Difficult work. I bought some tasty, moist banana bread from a guy who was carrying it into town in a woven bag to sell. He spruiked the qualities of his wife's cooking and true to his word, the homemade bread was delicious. The landscape was lush and green with palms and bananas everywhere and water filled the fields creating nice mirror reflections of trees on the surfaces. It's a simple life out there. We stopped to admire the peaceful scenery many times on the way to the lake. We also stopped to chat with a friendly local family who were all working the fields together, mother, father and all five children of various ages. I gave them an Australian $2 coin and my best pen, the father could not thank me enough and later invited us all to his home. The people were very chilled and welcoming, most of the children came running out waving or wanting chocolate, school pens or just a chat. Mono Loco met loads of new buddies. We made it to the lake where Chris and Anna Mi swam and Chris did a Tai Chi demonstration in his swimming trunks, the action man
retro BMX bandit style river cross crew
. The lake was flowing nicely and clean, a big oasis amongst the heat of Hampi. Some young lads like to hang out there and watch the foreign girls swim whilst taking wank snaps on their mobile phones but apart from that it's shanti. We found a rock that looked like a whale and put Chris in it's mouth. An unexpected surprise was had when we heard the jingle jangle bells of a guy dresssed up as Hanuman the monkey god. The guy seemed to appear out of nowhere in the rocks with painted blue face, large red lips, curly tail and wearing gold jewellery and headpiece and bells on his feet. This guy was the best Hanuman character i had ever seen and he even carried a large mace staff thing while he danced in front of the lake to music played and sung by a guy with an traditional indian instrument. I loved it. We gave him a good quantity of rupees and i later gave him my travellers sleeping mask that says Away With The Fairies on it whilst Anna-Mi gave him a cigarette lighter with a torch in it, they were the only things we had on us and he kept asking for a gift. Mono Loco was proud as punch to meet a real Hanuman and hasn't shut up about it since because he was totally starstruck. The performers sung a song about Hanuman that we later cahnged into our own version sung to the music of the Spiderman theme song. Hanuman, Hanuman, does whatever a monkey can.............It was the perfect warm up for a visit to the Hanuman (monkey) Temple. On the way to the temple we passed some guys in the fields having an afternoon siesta and one random old guy sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere listening to an ancient radio
*
. Once there we climbed the steps then admired the 360degrees views at the top. I was very surprised to see the piles of boulders continued on as far as my eye could see. There were alot of real monkeys greeting us on the way up. We did some shadow dancing then watched the boulders turn red, the sun go down and the moon appear before walking down and cycling back in the dark. We met the Dutch couple for a hilarious dinner.Whilst staying on the rooftop i was lucky to witness a glorious full moon on one of the nights. Earlier in the evening we watched it rise up over Hampi's boulders then Chris and i went to a good venue called Arba Mistika where they have a teepee communal area, a cafe and a cosy sacred fire space all located a the foot of the boulders. The fire was burning nicely and the organic jam session was flowing nicely when we arrived. We chatted the night away and appreciated the chanting, flutes and drums.
Another day i put the ipod and Mono Loco in the bicycle basket and joined Anna-Mi and Chris for another adventure to find some waterfalls amongst the banana planations and rocks. We ventured over the river and passed the Mango Tree Restaurant. We rode past a lady balancing a giant pile of heavy bananas on her head before hitting a dirt road that would take us deeper into the plantations. It's the perfect climate for bananas, they're everywhere and you can buy them from the locals at 1 ruppee a piece. I think we actually all went a little bit bananas because i went in under a canopy of trees and started singing Day-O, Day-O, Daylight come and me want to go home..........
*
. at the top of my voice and then Chris went in for a photoshoot. Chris looked a bit like Rambo because he was wearing his camouflage buff. We ignored many signs complete with skull and crossbones and telling us not to go any further and that danger was ahead and we made our way through the crops and out onto the rocks where the waterfalls are supposed to be. We coudn't find them and did some dodgy rock hops and leaps before deciding to turn back out of the heat. It's easy to get lost out there and very easy to fall on the rocks. There's some guides out there just waiting around for foreigners to get lost so that they can make some money bringing people out of the site. Sadly, Anna-Mi left us that afternoon so it was just Chris and i left and Chris lent me his Zen to introduce me to the Mighty Boosh, a very funny and whacky television series from the UK.The last day Chris and i had another adventure out to a place called Baba's Cafe, a little boulderers hotspot hidden amongst the rocks at the start of a small village. I had been sharing good chats at Manjus Place with a very extreme boulderer from Germany otherwise known as Funky Andy or my honey. Andy is one fit guy and tailors all his holidays around the world's best rock climbing and bouldering sites. He takes the hobby very seriously by making replicas of the rocks he hasn't conquered yet in the old leather factory warehouse he lives at in Germany. I saw him one morning covered in scrapes and injuries and sometimes he would stay out all day until the sun disappeared repeating the same challenging moves on a particular rock until he got it
king cobras perform
. Every night he would give me a running scoreboard ladder of which person from which country had made finished the most extreme boulder of the day, a competitive lad. One morning i had honey all over my hands from the muesli and he asked to shake my hand with the honey on it then we proceeded to dance around the garden pretending the honey had permanently attached our hands together, from that day on he was to be known as my honey. Anyway we visited my honey at a rock cave and watched him in action before following an arrow and writing on a rock that pointed in the direction of the legendary Baba's Cafe. We crossed a small stream where fairies might live and passed a large haystack. Thinking that the little pig that made it's house from straw was inside the hay, Chris tried to huff and puff and blow it's house down. We reached Baba's Cafe only to find that the original Baba guy had run off with a 21 year old French backpacker a few years back and the cafe was now run by Baba's ex-wife, Mrs Baba who lives there with her three kids. Mrs Baba filled us in on her very interesting life story while we drank some cold drinks, a relief from the heat because it's like picnic at hanging rock out there. Also we worked out that Babas is actually a 'Space' Cafe meaning that Mrs Baba makes her cash selling Hampi hash to boulderers and randoms like us that pass her way as well as running to rooms. While we were there a lad rocked up (get the joke?) in a tuk tuk and bought some of her wares
ladies do back breaking work in the fields
. When the guy queried her on the weight of the goods, Mrs Baba told him that she must have her goods weighed out before the deal because if the police come to her place she can't very well throw a set of scales out the window in a hurry. There is a cafe next to hers trying to cash in on her good business but i think word of mouth and Israeli visitors will keep Mrs Baba comfortable.Mrs Baba had told us about a Lakshmi Temple close by that we could walk to. We walked through fields, the small village and on the road to the temple that had a lake filled with lotus plants, a few of them blooming with white flowers. we entered the temple, used some powder for marking our third eyes then rang the temple bell as we exited. On the way home we danced with some pimped out tuk tuks that had loud speakers attached to their rigs and were pumping out the tunes and saw a tractor go past with a few lads on the back with another good sound system at full blast. Nice one. Lots of kids came running out to see us and a couple of real cuties wanted their photograph taken including a kid playing with the ever popular in India toy of an old tyre and stick. I remembered a big bag of raisins in my daypack and was happy to see that the kids loved getting a handful of them so much so that they would stuff their pockets with them then extend their arms out for another load. This night we had a final dinnber at Gopi's where all the staff are stoned and the music is simply chilled.
The day we were leaving on the train to Mysore there was a festival called Sankrathi on and lots of pilgrims had come into Hampi town to bathe
working
. This also meant i couldn't do my postage, that would have to wait until Mysore. Chris went for a wet shave at the barber shop. The river and step area was filled with people doing prayers and swimming. The main street was filled with vendors selling rudraksha prayer beads and other Hindu worshipping paraphenalia like coloured powders, flower garlands and coconuts for offerings. Special street food vendors had sprung up in the streets and everybody had drawn elaborate mandalas on the street in front of their stores and homes. I noticed some people wishing for extra blessings had added a pile of the sacred cow dung to the centre of their mandala and stuck flowers and incense into it. I bought some Hanuman bracelets for Chris, Nadia and Mono Loco and Chris and i trekked up the hill next to the main temple.I left my laundry in at a shop and kept forgetting to claim it so i spent most of the time in Hampi naked.
Chris and i have train tickets to Mysore via Bangalore, will be missing Hampi very much.
Lame Jokes Of The Day
What is a rock's favourite music?
Rock n Roll
What does a rock want to be when it grows up?
A rock star
Bahahahahaha!!!
