Rain again!!! At the morning breakfast I was alone as the guesthouse staff was busy cleaning the area for water. Kiran, the owner, told me that most of the foreigners had fled due to the rain. A German couple did come up (I met them later in the day at the Queen’s bath). Kiran introduced me to Nutella (some cocoa and roasted hazelnut spread) which tasted really good with the banana pancake, how did I miss this stuff so far?
Even though the rain was not slowing, I have the curse of the fidgety legs, so I decided to do the circular trip I had planned – from the town to the royal enclosure (about 3 kms), through the royal enclosure out the other end at Queen’s bath onto the Kamlapura road, further on to Vitthala temple (about 7-8 kms) and back through the opposite route from the monolithic bull at the end of Hampi bazaar, WHEW!!! All in all I guess it would be a good close to 15 km or more in all. Bold plan I must say, executin it on a bicycle on a normal day would’ve been hard enough, on a rainy day like this, well…..
I asked Veeru (one of the relatives Kiran, who also worked there) for a raincoat. He obliged me with one which covers the upper half of your body, so I set off with my bag tucked inside the raincoat. At the bike rental place the guy told me I was the first customer for a bicycle in 2 days, should’ve heeded his sarcastic warning. Pushed the bike up the 150 meter slope in the rain and started pedaling, past Krishna temple, disregarding the increasing downpour. The traffic was really scant now, when I reached The Shiva temple I was drenched fully, even with the raincoat. I visited the remains of the Krishna Devaraya palace next to the mosque, this time in the rain, and cycled inside through a muddy goat path to Hazararama temple. Met a foreign couple whom I directed to the places to see (already felt like a pro having been here only 4 days, had also advised a few people back at the hotel!). The rain played a big spoilsport as I wanted to take a few good snaps that I had missed in yesterday’s rains as well.
I parked the bike outside the king’s audience hall, surprisingly the king’s ministers and townfolk were absent, save for a few buffaloes and their herdsman. Took refuge under his umbrella as I clicked a few snaps. This is an open ground so took minimal time at the Mahanavmi dibba, the stepped tank, and the octagonal water pavilion, while running and hiding behind the small walls whenever I could. Cycled down to Queen’s bath and took off my raincoat, tee, and vest and tried to get the water out of all of them. Rested for a good 1 hour here, the wind had picked up as well, and I was feeling quite cold. The caretaker there told me that the bath is made in both Hindu and Muslim styles, which seemed to be true, with the arches all over and the lotus shapes on the ceilings at some places.
The road from the queen’s bath joins the Hampi Kamalapura main road, which after 100 or so meters has a small road towards the left leading to the Saraswati temple. After criss crossing through the buffaloes on the narrow path I reached the deserted temple. As was with most of the structures, the carvings at the gate top were in poor shape, but you could make out the Saraswati images on the pillars inside the temple compound. I shivered in the dark interior of the temple as I tried to hope for the rain to subside. Then I carried on further 200 meters on the small path (which was full of water by now) to the Octagonal bath. It was an solid Octagon structure placed in the in the middle of a small pool, surrounded finally by an octagonal pillared boundary. Since it had roof only over the pillared boundary, the wind and rain lashed from every direction. After a further 20 minutes huddled into a rare dry corner of the octagon, I decided that since it was already 3:30 pm, and the rains were still on in full force, so I could not carry on any further to Vitthala ( a wise decision finally, as the route from Vitthala to Hampi town next to the Tungbhadra had already taken on a lot of water making it impossible to cross on foot or bicycle). It was then that the bike also decided to join in the fun, the handle bar had come loose, and was swiveling back and forth making it very difficult to steer. I went back to the Queen’s bath, and stopped there to stay a little dry (sat in the bath to dry off!). My feet were wrinkled as I squeezed water out of my socks for the third time in the day.
The caretaker told me that they close around 5, it was almost 4:30 now, and the rain was still in full flow; great, I was still drenched, cold, hungry, and couldn’t complete my round trip, and was far from home. Did not see any tourists in the last couple of hours, seems none was as crazy as me. I wanted to avoid the bumps and slopes of the road inside the royal enclosure, so I ventured onto the main road to Hampi. Barely 200 meters on the road, I met with a big stretch of pool on the road. As I was coming down a slope I decided to zoom through, but as luck would have it the bike stopped in the water barely 10 meters on. I was left standing in 1 feet water, with the pool stretching atleast another 200 meters on. I was in no mood to wade through that as I lugged back through the bumps of the royal enclosure. I made good time as I came back to the Shiva temple in 25 minutes, considering the downpours and the mudholes. But here also I had to go through a feet high water pool, thankfully only for 10-15 meters. As I came to the bend beyond Akka Tungi gundu (the leaning stones), I was stopped by 2 cops on motorcycles. As I spoke no Kannada, they didn’t waste any time and pointed to the small bridge on the road ahead. I had crossed that same 3-4 meter long bridge less than 7 hours back, and it was only wet at that time, now it was filled with gushing water of more than 3 feet height! They told me in broken English that less than 10 minutes back a guy had been swept away with his motorbike at this place in the torrential current. There were a couple of rescuers trying to look for the poor guy, but even they were not venturing close to the middle of the current. As I looked on from 30 meters away, I could see that the guy was obviously a goner by now, the current was way too strong.
And this is when it dawned on me that I needed to get back to Hampi, as going back to Kamalapur 3 km away and booking another hotel was out of the question. I had the bicycle with me, and the thought of going through the 200 meter 1 feet deep pools on the road made me tired already. Then I met Ravi, another smart fellow who had ventured out from Hampi on the wrong day, and heading back there. He turned out to be a resident of Hampi and studying BA (History), aspiring to be a journalist. He asked a couple of villagers who had come to help the rescuers about the other route (which I obviously knew nothing of) going through a village and joining the Hospet Hampi road. The road over there was a little higher over the stream and hopefully was crossable. We took the right turn before the Shiva temple and soon came across the 5 meter long bridge over the stream. We stood and watched a couple of guys on motorbike get stalled in the middle of the knee deep water here (the current was a bit slower here and knee deep is much better than 3 feet). The moment I stepped into the water I realized the force of the current, my bike started to flow away pulling me with it, even in only knee deep water. So I had to carry my bike with me, slowly placing my feet firmly, and after a tiring 6 hours, in still heavy rain with a soaked bag, even the 5 meters was no easy feat. I took this moment to somehow click a snap with Ravi at this historic place!
We now started out the roundabout 4 km or so stretch to Hampi in the rain, Ravi advising the very few motorist passing by in Kannada. He told me that the villagers said there was another crossing up ahead a km away and he would catch a shared auto after seeing me off there. I was really thankful that he was there, otherwise I would’ve definitely been in a soup. Now I was enjoying the scenery, watching the water stagnated in the fields next to the road, blood red in color due to the soil. Ravi also turned out to be a part time guide on weekends, and his elder brother Manju owned a restaurant in Hampi town. We crossed the 2nd pool easily as it was not too deep, and then parted ways, as he caught an auto. I thanked him and took his email id, promising to send the snaps I took with him. It took me another 25 minutes to navigate the slopes and et back to Hampi in the overcast conditions. I made it past astonished looks of bystanders, probably ‘cos I was the only tourist to have rented a bike that day (did I feel real special!). After a hot shower, the banana pancake and coffee felt like heaven. I was dead tired towards the end and ate a hearty meal at dinner as we looked on the news of the floods that had hit Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, severely damaging life and property. I had ample sunscreen for the sunniest of days, but I was definitely not prepared for this downpour and I believe I muttered a small prayer before dozing off that night.
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