It took us about 9 hours and two buses to get to Hampi, and long before we reached it we were both grumbling that this darn place better be worth this mind-numbingly, insanely uncomfortable journey. Riding on these buses feels like you’re sitting in a hot tin can, bouncing over miles and miles of broken tarmac. After a while I started to think I was going to have serious brain damage from it slamming against the inside of my skull. On top of the physical discomforts of the bus, I had caught a cold a couple days before, and I spent most of the journey constantly blowing my nose with rough toilet paper and then rubbing Carmex on my nostrils because they were so sore and chapped. I must have looked like a crazy person to the other passengers. But we finally got here, and with no amount of begrudging-ness I can say that the journey was definitely worth it. Hampi is a village/town right next to the ancient ruins of a city of temples from the 1500s, called Vijayanagar. The entire region is littered with huge volcanic boulders from which the ancient temple city was sculpted. There are about 13 kilometers of ruins to explore, so we decided to spend 4 days here to take it all in.
On the other side of the river from Hampi is another smaller village with guesthouses, so we decided to stay there to get away from the noisy bazaar area. The only problem with this is that you have to take a “ferry” (aka, a motorized rowboat) jam-packed with people, bicycles, and motorbikes to go back and forth from the village to Hampi. The boat supposedly stops making trips at 6pm. Our first we headed down to the “dock” around 5:30 thinking we had plenty of time before 6, but this was a grave underestimate of Hampi's boat-riding population. There was a huge, jostling crowd on the steps waiting to get into the boats. There was no queue or any type of organization, except for a very skinny man with a plastic broomstick which he used to splash large amounts of water on people to keep order. The whole thing got way too frightening, so we decided to take our chances on hiring our own boat after all the 6pm hoopla was over. When we returned an hour later the crowd was mostly gone, so we got sped over to the other side in semi-darkness but in comfort. All in all, though, the Indians were much more friendly and accomodating than some of the surly-looking tourists waiting to go over in the boat. We think some of these dippy-hippy types who come over to India with their dreadlocks and lame tribal tattoos give us normal tourists a bad name. As far as we’re concerned, these losers can go back to Granola Mountain and leave India to us!
On the other side of the river from Hampi is another smaller village with guesthouses, so we decided to stay there to get away from the noisy bazaar area. The only problem with this is that you have to take a “ferry” (aka, a motorized rowboat) jam-packed with people, bicycles, and motorbikes to go back and forth from the village to Hampi. The boat supposedly stops making trips at 6pm. Our first we headed down to the “dock” around 5:30 thinking we had plenty of time before 6, but this was a grave underestimate of Hampi's boat-riding population. There was a huge, jostling crowd on the steps waiting to get into the boats. There was no queue or any type of organization, except for a very skinny man with a plastic broomstick which he used to splash large amounts of water on people to keep order. The whole thing got way too frightening, so we decided to take our chances on hiring our own boat after all the 6pm hoopla was over. When we returned an hour later the crowd was mostly gone, so we got sped over to the other side in semi-darkness but in comfort. All in all, though, the Indians were much more friendly and accomodating than some of the surly-looking tourists waiting to go over in the boat. We think some of these dippy-hippy types who come over to India with their dreadlocks and lame tribal tattoos give us normal tourists a bad name. As far as we’re concerned, these losers can go back to Granola Mountain and leave India to us!
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