Hampi - Odds and ends

My last sunset at Hampi. Tomorrow I've got a 10 hour bus ride to Gokarna, where I'll be meeting up with Rosie and Dan Honeyman-Smith.

This is where I stayed in my second week at Hampi, the quiet Sudha Guest House by the riverside. The first place I stayed at was in the middle of the bazaar and kept playing lame dance music all day and evening. See the Royal Enfield motorbike parked up.

Some smug git fresh out of the barber's chair, who seriously needs to improve on his cheesy travel commentary skills.

A frieze of a battle scene from the side of a ruined temple. Check out the lion mauling the elephant - Thundercats ho!!

There's loads of these foot-long millipedes around Hampi's ruins. I had to escort some frogs out of my hotel room the other night but they're better than cockroaches.

The Elephant stables in the royal enclosure.

The Lotus Mahal in the royal enclosure - it's air conditioned they reckon.

Looking west from Matanga hill onto Hampi's ashram buildings.

Looking west from Matanga Hill onto Hampi, with the Virupaksha gopura to the far left of the shot.

On top of Matanga Hill looking east onto the Achutuya temple and its bazaar lane.

Pink sunset clouds behind the Virupaksha temple from Hampi's main bazaar street.

Some shady baldheaded interlocutor ruining my well composed shot.

Looking west to Hampi, maybe you can see the gopura of the Virupaksha temple just left of the river in the distance.

The Hanuman temple on top of the pile of rocks in the distance. That temple is the most northerly point I've been in India so far - exciting huh?

Looking west away from Hampi to some Banana plantations on Mars.

The Achutuya temple from the east and Matanga Hill in the background.

Inside the Achutuya temple.

The Achutuya temple from the east side.

Hello once agin - sooner than I thought too. I've covered every part of Hampi and its surroundings now, so yesterday I ventured east out of the main area to check it out. Nothing that special to be found, but I managed to find a nice quiet spot high up on a rocky peak and soak up some late afternoon sun into my melanin-lacking skin. I've got to learn to stop taking bananas out with me as a snack - the local monkeys see me coming and start rubbing their paws together. Local newspaper states - "Gang of primate scallies attack naive tourist".

I've managed to salvage a few photos from an earlier trip around Hampi's ruins that I thought I'd lost due to some memory card confusion, but here they are now for your inspection.

Also - thanks to Sav and Baz for joining the blog followers. Anyone else is welcome to subscribe, although you might start to feel like its an endless family xmas dinner from years ago when you had to sit through an uncle's slideshow of his trip to scotland, or summat like that.

Laters

Chris

More of Hampi

Bloody hell! That took about an hour to upload 30 odd pictures. The next post and photos may be coming from my next location of Gokarna on the Karnatakan coast in several days time, once I travel there by bus on tuesday 25th.

In a bit
Chris



A reward from the only place near to Hampi that sells alcohol, the government hotel 4km away at Kamalapuram. It does exactly what it says on the bottle. I had two in the afternoon with a couple of people that were from Whalley Range in Manchester - they live about 3 streets way from where I used to there - "small world innit sir?"

Some friend of Bhima's?

Bhima's gate, part of the city wall fortifications.

We see here that the Kemp retail empire has expanded from biscuits into mineral water.

Inside the Prattha Bhibba temple, which was massive in area. I think it was for the public's use in Hampi, as the courtyard is very large to accomodate the crowds.

This temple didn't have a sign to provide its name, there was no one around to ask.

Inside the Queen's bathhouse.

This is the Queen's bathhouse.

Nicely carved out of black granite, I think.

An aqueduct to supply water to the public bath above.

Side wall of the above structure, the remains of the King's Meeting Hall.

Looking north to Matanga Hill from the ruins.

Must have been busier here 500+ years ago...

A couple of Hanumans throwing some groovy shapes.

Check out Ganesh on the bottom right side of the left pillar.

Inside the Hazara Rama temple.

The entrance to the Hazara Rama temple, which was the temple for the royal family of Hampi. Dedicated to Rama, and featuring scenes from the Ramayana legend on its walls.

All along the watchtower... (sorry - bad pun)

City walls and rocks. It took the invading muslim army about 6 months to destroy Hampi in entirety.

Inside the underground temple.

An underground Shiva temple.

...to snaffle my coveted Masala Dosa!

A cheeky cow trying to sneak into my favourite south indian restaurant here in Hampi...

Hello again.

Here's some more pictures of Hampi's ruins, taken yesterday whilst on a self propelled cycle tour yesterday afternoon.

Taking it easy in Hampi

Hello again. I reached Hampi a few days ago, and am having a great time exploring the place. Hampi is also known as the ruined city of Vijayanagar, which used to be the capital of south india from the 1300s until 1565 when it was razed by the Bahmani muslim army from north india. The site covers many square miles, and it's the remains of the old kingdom that draw indian and western tourists to it. There's a fair sized backpacker population here which means there's always plenty of people to chat to, and plenty of places to go and explore in the daytime. Best thing about being here is that it's inland, so there's still heat but none of the humidity that I was experiencing in Kerala.

I've taken some photos which are uploaded here, I'll try and explain a few of them. There's a power cut in Hampi today due to the pouring rain which arrived this morning, so everyome local and foreign is lying low to keep out of the deluge, caused by a cyclone in the next state east of Andhra Pradesh. I've been informed that it may last for 3 days, good job I've got plenty of torch batteries and patience.

A close up of the Narasimha monolith - Roar!! If anyone knows how to rotate photos on Google's blogger site I'd be grateful to know how. I should have figured this out before leaving the UK of course.

This is the mandapa housing the Ganesh monolith. Even elephant gods can get hot sat in the sun all day.

A monolith of the god Narasimha, one of the incarnations of Vishnu. Vishnu has ten incarnations, I think that this one is about number five on the list. Half man, half lion - with a couple of forearms missing here.

A close up of a monolithic Ganesh, with a pot belly even bigger than usual.

Here's me trying to be artistic - looking through the doorway of a shrine, with a carving of Shiva's bull vehicle Nandi in the foreground just outside the shrine, and the top of the Virupaksha temple gopura just visible above the Nandi and the gap between the two rocks.

The Viripaksha temple close up. The gopura in the foreground is a good beacon to use when wandering around the ruins.

"Take photo of my house?"

I could spend all day here wandering around, so I did just that.

One kid says "Photo?", and his brother and sister appear.

Some houses in Anegondi - nice patio on this one.

The Banyan tree - don't sit too close to it though.

A few days ago I crossed the river again from Hampi to the same side as the Hanuman temple, and took a walk around the village of Anegondi. It was a welcome change from the pleasant bustle of Hampi itself, no-one tried to sell me any postcards or a ride in a rickshaw. Here's where I sat by the river under a Banyan tree while passing the early afternoon heat. A very cheeky monkey nearly urinated on me from a branch up in the Banyan tree, much to the amusement of some local chaps, and me too, and the monkey of course.

Just when you'd had enough of views from the Hanuman temple... It's not dissimilar to the terrain on Mars.

Yet another view from the Hanuman temple peak.

Andrew and me cooling off in the welcome breeze on top of the Hanuman temple peak.

The Hanuman temple temple itself. Yes, there were lots of monkeys scurrying around and stealing whatever they could from unsuspecting visitors.

More of the area surrounding Hampi from the Hanuman temple.

Here's a view of Hampi from a temple dedicated to the monkey God Hanuman which is on the other side of the river from Hampi itself. I crossed the river then hired a bicycle with a canadian guy called Andrew that I met at Hopset bus station on the way to Hampi. The Hanuman temple is perched on top of a hill, similar in height to the one in this picture.

Looking west down the main avenue of Hampi bazaar to the Virupaksha temple, which is the only temple in Hampi to still be in use nowadays. The Virupaksha god is a local form of Shiva, and the temple itself dates back to the sixth century. It was enlarged once the Vijayanagar kingdom was established. I went inside this temple in 2003 and got blessed by the temple elephant Lakshmi. I'll be visiting it again in a day or two.

Remains of a pillared avenue near to the Vitthala temple.

A carving of Vishnu on the exterior of the Vitthala temple.

The main gopura and entranceway to the Vitthala temple.

A gopura tower of the Vittahla temple, the main temple out of the hundreds scatered around the Vijayanagar city. This one is dedicated to the god Vishnu, apparently it was so ornate once built that Vishnu was too embarrased to reside in it.

The "Kings Balance", where visiting Rajas from other smaller kingdoms had to be weighed. They had to give the priests of Vijayanagar jewels equivalent to their bodyweight.

The avenue leading from the Achutharaya temple to the river. Must have been a bit busier 500 years ago.

A couple of guys working on restoring the Achutharaya temple. "One photo please sir?"

An archway in the Achutharaya temple.