Hampi trip - day 5, Oct 2 2009

Thankfully no rain today, but it was also my last day here. Went for a nice walk at 7 am along the Tungbhadra to take in the conditions, the river level had swelled up more than 5 meters from the day before, the ghat steps all but submerged. Quite a few people were taking a holy dip in the cold water. As I returned I saw that the cops had set up temporary shop in the building opposite my guesthouse as the road in front of the police station still had a lot of stagnant water, which had also entered the station.

The view from the top of Hemkuta hill this time was quite relaxing with a sunny sky with a few clouds, but no rain, and a gentle breeze. I rested on the corner boulders at the top of the hill for more than an hour, few tourists passing by. Here I met Steve (name changed), an American I had met yesterday night at my guesthouse. Apparently he had worked with goldman sachs, before getting the pink slip from AIG as a derivative dealer. He had been traveling across India (Delhi, Agra, Jodhpur, Goa, Bombay etc) for a few months now. I asked him why he had chosen to come to India, to which he replied that he found it interesting, cheap to travel in and he wanted to search for spirituality. Strange, how people have to travel thousands of miles to a distant land to find spirituality, and that after having made millions with a firm that many were wailing over. And it also intrigued me that he liked Indian food, and was praising Delhi, my hometown, for the life it had. He preferred it to Goa and the other places he said. I let him know of the various places in Hampi that were worth a visit and the routes to take and took leave of the 6 foot, bearded fellow. He reminded me of another person staying at Gopi guesthouse I had met, Suraiya, a female from West Indies that had come and had made her residence here in India 10 years back. She had told me that she arranged meditational retreats for people all over places in India. Funny, I had never known that my country was such magnet for foreigners who decided to stay here, atleast I had not met some in person before.

I walked down to the start of the royal center about 2 km away to see whether the roads had cleared, they had to some extent, enough that you could wade through, but water was still standing in the fields next to the road. I also met Suresh, an IT chap from Bangalore, who was waiting for the sun to come out in full flow so that he could take a few snaps with his SLR. I directed him to the royal center as the road was fine now, and headed back to Gopi for a quick lemonade and light snack.

In the afternoon, I decided to visit Vitthala temple again, I had really liked that place. Walked past the bazaar and the monolithic bull and past Mathunga hill to the short hike that comes out at Achyutraya temple (this is a short cut if you don’t take a bike). Met a large group of Gujarati people who seemed to be lost, and asked me for directions to the main temple, so I directed them to Virupaksha (the only one still operational here). I carried on past Varaha temple and took the stony path this time compared to the mud path last time (I had worked out alternate routes out as well in my 4 days now!). saved me a bit of time as I came out right behind King’s balance after crossing a very small stream of rain water. At Vitthala I once again admired the chariot, but this time walked the outer compound as well close to the river, which I was not able to do in the rain last time. Most of it is broken up random structures, but offers a really good walk. I looked longingly at the Hanuman temple across the river which I was unable to cover this time around, next time I know not to come in rains.

When I came back I still had a couple of hours left before my train, so taught Kiran net music piracy 101, ‘cos, lets face it, no educated Indian should be deprived of the right to illegally download music from the internet! The guy had good taste in music, and wanted to download quite a few songs. I bid goodbye to the beautiful town at 6 in the evening catching the Hospet bus that took almost 45 minutes in the bumpy roads.

Definitely the craziest trips I have had, one of the most planned ones, except for the rains making it utterly unpredictable, certainly the most enjoyable, so this is one place that I definitely have to visit again, maybe in spring when there’s less water.