Templemania in Hampi

Trip Start Nov 01, 2006

179

Trip End Oct 31, 2007

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Flag of India Hampi, Karnataka, India
Saturday, December 16, 2006

Deccan Airways decided to operate the next day's flight, which was nice of them, and jolly good it was too. An hour in the air and we touched down in either Vijyanagar, Bellary, or Hampi Airport (depending on whether you believe the travel agent, the printed ticket or the airport itself). An unbelievably bumpy and dangerous taxi ride followed which had me clamping my eyes tight shut so I couldn't see how often we nearly plowed into an oncoming bus or cow. About halfway through, however, R had a brainwave and asked the driver to "slow down". Which he did, to our astonishment. We then opened our eyes and took in the fantastic landscape of this area of the Deccan Plateau (the central and southern portion of India). It's hard to describe, but if you picture boulders - many about the size of an average conservatory - and then picture them stacked in bizarre clusters all higgledy piggledy and on top of each other (which reminds me that I must use the phrase 'higgledy piggledy' more in conversation), all around the landscape for miles and miles as far as the eye can see, then you'll be getting close.
Hampi, the town which most travellers use as a base to see the fabulous ruined temples of the Vijayanagara empire, is nice enough. There is a main bazaar and then a few backstreets where all the guesthouses are located. We decided to go off-piste and choose a place not in the guidebook. Archana guesthouse was fine - just a box room really but cheap and with a proper mosquito net. The one problem was the drain in the bathroom which was pretty whiffy.

01 Mahanavami-Dibba, Vijayanagar

Oh, and the hot water. The room had hot water all right, but only between 7 and 9am and then only from one very low-down tap in the corner of the bathroom, just next to the lavatory. Call me eccentric but I rather like my hot water to come out of the shower or at least the basin taps. I don't tend to do most of my ablutions crouched in the corner of the room. Perhaps I should start.
The temples were fantastic and even two pretty full days only enabled us to see the main areas. Highlights included the elephant stables and Vitthala temple, the latter containing hundreds of slim hollow columns which, when tapped, produce different notes. There was a bit of a moral conundrum with this though, as so much tapping has made the columns dirty and caused damage. The temples are UNESCO sponsored and so there are plenty of guards around and signs telling you not to touch the columns. Unfortunately, the temple guides want to impress their customers and so ignore the signs and the guards just sit by watching apathetically. It's a common problem, I'm afraid, but people here are so keen to touch the things they see that they end up slowly destroying them and the authorities don't seem to see that as something to be discouraged. In this particular case, though, the columns were obviously created so as to produce the sounds (it's not a matter of chance) so perhaps it's simply that their purpose is finally being fulfilled after hundreds of years standing dormant. Anyway, we played it safe by not playing the columns.
Moving on from columns (collective sigh of relief), we took a short ride down the river to see a few more temples in a tiny coracle (a circular boat made of willow rods and tarred on the bottom to make them waterproof) and later on the second day walked up to the top of Hermakuta Hill near the Bazaar to watch another perfect sunset washing more temples in golden light. (I've had to promise R not to take us to see any more temples in India.)
This morning we left Hampi (our journey to the station by Rickshaw was absolutely freezing as I was just wearing a short-sleeved shirt and it was 5 in the morning) and spent 10 hours reading Jane Eyre on the train.