Honestly we’ve been on a bit of a downer this week. We’re not sure why…but it’s meant we’ve spent more time chilling rather than exploring the delights of Hampi.
It’s that really annoying feeling we’ve had: where we can see that this place is really cool and has loads to see but it’s just not touching us, it’s not getting through. It’s like a film, a barrier, between us and the world.
Knowing that these feelings are precursors for depression for both us we kind of decided that it was OK to chill and not put too much pressure on each other to explore and see things.
Hampi (a world Unesco heritage site) itself is spectacular and unique compared to other places we’ve been to. It is full of rocks and hills which have temples and ancient ruins that seem to mold into them.
Hampi is dissected by a river. The south side contains most of the ruins and sites, as well as the town centre with the Bazaar and the largest temple. The North side which was known as ‘hippie island’ has loads of guesthouses and restaurants and access to some other sites. To get between the two sides you can either use the boat crossing which costs 20rupees per person (another 20 if you have large bags) or take a huge detour (about 40km) to get to the North side from Hospete (it’ll cost about 1000-1500rupees). Hospete is the nearest modern city about 12km away from the south side of the river and the best train station to use for Hampi. To be honest the little 4 minute boat trip became a bit of joke, amongst other travellers…people were charged different rates for large bags (and when it changed they said it was because of the government). A common question was “how much did the boat cost you?” If you turned up and there weren’t enough people to ride the boat, you were made to wait. Except one day you were told “we need 20 people before we can launch” and the next they said 15 or 10.
We did manage to get a driver for one day who showed is around some of the keys sights.
Hampi was the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, an empire which stretched from the Southern tip of India to just North of Hampi and all the way from East to West Coast. In the 16th Century it was the second largest medieval city in Asia (1st being Beijing). However towards the end of the 16th Century the empire was taken over by Muslim Sulphanates and the city has been in ruins since. In recent years excavations have brought these ruins to life.
The ruins are so varied from huge temple complexes to monuments, statues and the massive bazars that used to be in this area. The thing that makes it so spectacular is the rocky terrain it is set in.
We also tried to rent a scooter and ride around the area ourselves, unfortunately this was an unmitigated disaster. I (Matt) took control of the scooter, how hard can it be?….really hard on dodgy Indian roads, I soon found out. One of the reasons we needed a scooter was to get to a town about 7km away called Anegundi which has some sights and ruins but also (and more importantly) a cash machine, Hampi does not. The ATM was disaster number 1. I waited an hour and half because the power had gone out and then the machine took forever to reboot. I did finally manage to get cash out. However on the way back disaster number 2 happened, I was stopped by a jeep full of guys whilst on a hill. They kept shouting at me to stop so I stopped in case something was wrong. Turned out they were just asking if I wanted drugs (no thanks!) But as I was restarting the scooter, it skidded off and I dropped it. Luckily I wasn’t hurt. When I got back to the guesthouse I then had to give over lots of money for scooter repairs (oops). Never doing that again!
Nowadays there are some political issues that surround Hampi, I will confess to not fully understanding it but the gist is that the government has been closing down restuarants and guesthouses to preserve the area, however the main income for locals is tourism.
Rach is going to write a bit more about travelling with depression and anxiety and the need to chill, not putting too much pressure on ourselves. Next stop is Bangalore where (excitedly) we’ll be watching some IPL cricket.
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