Hampi, Holy Town and Traveler Hang Out
On our trip to Hospet (the stopping off point for Hampi), the overnight sleeper train was full. Opposite was a woman with a sick child that wailed most of the night. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the mum, it was obvious that it was her first child and all attempts of getting him off to sleep were failing, probably from the lack of experience. She kept bouncing him rather energetically on her lap and patting his chest with certain vigor, but to no avail. Her tactics were probably not the best. Her husband, who had procured a berth not too close to his wife and baby, was totally useless. His best efforts were to come up occasionally to the baby and repeatedly and viciously click his fingers in front of the kid’s face, which of course did nothing to help matters! As if that was going to pacify him, bless his cotton socks. He gave up after a few attempts, which was for the best in my opinion, and retired back to his berth, away from all the “trouble”, bored with the whole thing. He left the wife looking a little embarrassed. I think with a wailing child on a sleeper train and a husband who was worse than completely ineffectual, most people would, so I gave her a kindly smile which I hoped said, “Don’t worry”, and turned over to look out of the window at the stars.
Next morning we passed through an area of sublime beauty – fields and fields of sunflowers, as far as the eye could see. The bright, sunshine yellows of a summer’s day, what a sight. Little stations belonging to tiny villages that no one hears about, stations with flowers and picket fences, no platform just a couple of concrete seats at ground level. But all with the big yellow sign that bears its name. When you travel by train over so many kilometers over such a long time, through all the different visuals, you can only just start to imagine the sheer size and complexity of the hugely differing environments that is India.
And Hampi is one of those environments. It is one of India’s most holy of places and boasts 2000+ temples dotted around the close area, and it’s true to say that it is a travelers hang out. All sorts of people converge on this small and once (I’m sure) peaceful town, turning it into a pizza/macaroni, spliff smoking place, dislodging a lot of the local atmosphere for a more cosmopolitan, hip scene. The main Bazaar is now lined with tourist tat shops, restaurants and craft-shops. Kids selling postcards and guidebooks after school, or even when they should be at school, pseudo guides that want to show you around and rickshaw drivers that hassle you at every corner.
However, I do find Hampi a magical place, with mystique and splendor. The atmosphere is lively and engaging and the surroundings breathtaking. Walking around temples has become a little passe with us, we now feel we get a better perspective from admiring from afar (probably because we can never afford to get into these places), so walking around one large temple complex in town didn’t seem too much different from a lot of the other temples we had been to. We retired to Hemakuta Hill to wander a few deserted, strewn ruins of temples that adorned the hillside. They hide between huge boulders that litter the landscape, nestling themselves away from prying eyes, only the person that wants can see them.
Sitting upon the hill on a large expanse of flat rock we rested and looked down on Hampi. The temple we had walked around previously loomed tall and proud and incredibly impressive. Intricately carved figures in provocative postures hung out aside the pointed towers piercing the blue sky, sandstone against cobalt with hillocks of red rocks in the distant, interspersed with banana plantations and coconut palms. And the waters of the Tungabhadra River flows on through it all.
Looking around 360�, the whole landscape reflects this, a desert-like view of red and brown rocks and cliffs, oases of green palms and plantations, little lost temples clinging to the hillsides hidden from those below, only there for us up high. Temples with inner sanctums and gracious, equilateral, ancient designs. Here on the hills the stones are enormous, towering high and built upon each other, some of them so precariously balanced that a sneeze might set them falling. Some defying gravity in a holy magical defiance, like a spell kept them from falling. We figured they had been there awhile and felt safe about resting within the cool shade of one teetering mass like a formidable ogre. It didn’t fall on us and I am living another day… These hills are great to wander, they give you a special feeling. It’s captivating here, it’s just a pity that an area of such holy significance and archeological importance is used by the townspeople as a toilet. Defecations are everywhere amongst the stones and the rocks, it makes it a tentative walking experience. I’d much rather look at the views than at my feet!
I can see how people get stuck here for some time if you have the right mindset, what with laid back, lounge about restaurants overlooking the river and marijuana being in abundance, you could easily spend a few weeks, or months before even seeing a temple… I heard of a German or maybe a Belgian lady who came for a few days and got so caught up with it all she remains here today, 20+ years later. I think we might have met her one day on a walk to a Hanuman Temple on a hilltop. She lives in a small stone building, although I was told it was a cave. She dresses in black and meditates and collects water from a village pump 10 minutes from her home. I wonder what her Visa overstay charge would be…?
Being so holy, alcohol and meat is forbidden. Smoking funny fags is accepted but is still illegal, respect should be shown at the temples, and in public clothes that cover are preferred. We are staying at a guest house that keeps beer in the fridge, eats mutton and offers it to their patrons, and other meats are available with 24 hrs notice if you’re desperate enough. Both items have greatly exaggerated price tags, of course. Tourists wander the streets in miniskirts and hotpants, with skimpy tops, complaining that Indians leer. The only thing that stays the same is the ganja, the funny fags, the loopy loo smokey sticks. That is still sacred, but then I think it always will be. Some things never change.
The Achyum Temple and the Soolai Bazaar are quiet places to stop. When we were there not even a handful of people were present. We wandered quietly around the ruins, sitting a bit, sleeping a bit, reading a bit. The security guard became a common face we sat there so long. It’s a place to contemplate, to think, to…well to do what ever you want to do. Somewhere we could sit without the threat of someone selling postcards and guides and gems and… The walk down the old Soolai Bazaar conjures up images of a long ago time, when merchants would shout their wares from the covered side stalls and business would clatter around you. Now deserted, it still holds the feeling of yesteryear, a ghost town place.
As we ended a day on top of Matanga Parvatam Hill, sitting on the roof of an old temple perched high on boulders and rock, waiting for the inevitable dipping of the sun beyond the horizon, I could see for miles around. All the places we’d been to, Hampi and it’s surroundings, banana plantations and rice paddies, rivers and palms. The irrigation channels that lead to the Royal Enclosure. The sun catches the water, warm colours of reds and gold, the slight breeze that lifts my hair and tickles my neck. This is another of those favorite things. Wow, this is India.
Sitting under a rock…
On the day we explored the royal enclosure we tracked through ruins and temples under the baking sun all day, walked along irrigation channels feeding banana plantations through a maze of channels, over rocky hills on sandy paths and through little passes that belonged in the old Wild, Wild West. On our way back to Hampi, along an out of the way path away from the madding crowds we stopped to rest and take shade under one of those magically balanced, impossibly positioned boulders that should topple in the real world, but stays put in this one. In the peace and quiet of the late afternoon Eddie and I lay down, Eddie with her eyes closed in the hope of a quick nap, while I watched colourful birds of greens and blues flit around along the irrigation channel spying flies and catching them on the wing. It was truly a peaceful setting, a tranquil place to stop and rest one’s weary feet, deadly quiet apart from the songs of birds and the rustle of leaves.
The four o’clock sun started to tinge the landscape redder and the throw the shadows longer. Before us up high was the temple on top of Matanga Parvatum hill where we sat and watched the sun dip down the night before, from where we found this backwater path. So there we were, the scene is set, the tranquility and peacefulness is there, when along trots a lone man on the other side of the channel. He stops, ponders, and crosses the bridge and sits below our looming rock in a shady repose at a comfortable distance. We glance at each other and smile as if to say hello without actually saying it. Again the quiet descended, until a man wrapped in a dish cloth arrived on a bicycle. He stopped and greeted fellow #1 and propped his bike up against a rock and came over to join us, under our quiet little rock, that wasn’t so little. They chatted, and smoked a bidi together.
Ten minutes pass and man #3 three walks by with a huge roll of banana leaves balanced on his head. He stops and unceremoniously drops the roll to the dusty floor and crosses the bridge to squat with man #’s 1 and 2. Soon there will be a convention here I thought, a meeting of the locals, maybe even a festival of some kind…
Eddie naps, and I read, and a bullock cart load worth of school children appear along the track we had taken. They passed us by (slowly), crossed the bridge and sat down on and around the rock with the bike propped up on it, as if this was the regular stopping place where they hang out everyday on their walk home from school to wherever they go. One or two stop by us and share the shade from our not so little rock that we sat under.
Once it was established that seats were available and seemingly safe under our rock, a trickle of kids in twos and threes crossed the bridge from the rock and gathered with us under our rock that isn’t so small, and isn’t so quiet and peaceful anymore. All but two made it across, the other two sitting alone on the other side talking amongst them selves, whilst all about us were voices and whispers and giggles and such. The peace had gone, and with that so had we, we gathered our belongings and wandered off. Crossing the bridge and down the path back to Hampi.
The path took us down a small slope to a stream which I waded as no bridge was evident, and Eddie got a piggy back because I was feeling generous. The path wound around and followed a low rocky outcrop and up the hill. After about 8-10 minutes from leaving our shady, looming ogre rock we stopped and for the view, looked back the way we had come. Below us the irrigation channel and the little path we had followed, and our rock that isn’t so small that balanced in a way it shouldn’t, and it’s shade was empty, not a soul remained. Again it was quiet and peaceful and… deserted. As if no one had ever been there at all.
I think Hampi is like that though, full of surprises and quirks, a place that really draws you in. I really liked Hampi, even though it was a bit traveler orientated, a bit touristy and hassley. A few days of wandering and watching and sitting and reading, is ideal. The place certainly does have a little magic, and you don’t have to look too far to find it. Some people find it irresistible and stay for a while, sometimes a long, long while it seems. But our next stop is Mysore, and we are leaving the next day, another overnight train and maybe another new experience to take in. We’ll be there on Sunday, in time to see the Palace lit up in the evening.
Oh, by the way, the food in Hampi… it was great! A little local place called Bhavani on the main bazaar got our undivided attention, where the dosas where great and the thali even better, where we tried idly for the first time and liked it. (Just in case you wanted to know)
