Hampi Weekend Day 1

It was a long weekend following the Independence day, the 61st. Long weekends have begun to frighten me a bit. What to do, I am quite restless by nature and spare time is something in which something needs to be done. As luck would have it happened to meet two freakos Ravi and Sumeet, these guys were planning to visit Hampi, and I just wanted to escape from the city so hopped in, they were gracious enough to accept me at such a short notice.

The frequency couldn't have matched better, right from the first meeting in Cyber Gateway I had a positive feeling, I knew for sure it would be perfect to travel with these people. No baggages, very open, excitable, confident I was really looking forward to this trip. After Mumbai and EMp75 403 flat this is the first time where I was on the same page as to what fun means.

So on 14th evening left early from office and took the bus to Hospet. Hospet is abt 9 hrs from Hyderabad and roads are in pretty good shape. Couldn't sleep in the bus, never been able to, but new place so no fatigue. From Hospet Hampi is an half hour drive and buses are frequent from the hospet bus stand. You travel for 9 hours and its a totally different place, India is so diverse, cant escape it. On the bus there were these group of kids coming back from Independence day celebrations from school and they were very chatty, you cant make out anything Kannada is very different from North Indian languages, its a bit intimidating I must say. Unusually, the kids were not shy at all, Ravi who is from Karnataka asked all sorts of questions and the kids did all the talking. All the girl kids had ribbons in their hair and apparently it looked like part of the uniform, they explained the color also is important, class 10th you get to wear red ribbons , 9th white ones and 8th green.

Reached Hampi, checked into a guest house, Rs 500 for a room seemed okey, the rooms were quite small though but attached bath was clean. Sumeet had got all the maps and the plan was to have some food first , then check out the ruins. Hampi has basically two areas of interest, the Royal Center and the Sacred Center. Day 1 we decided to explore the Royal center. Food is an issue here, but hungry we were, so managed. Then we rented out bicycles, rupees 40 per cycle per day.

Was riding a bicycle after a long time probably something like 4-5 years. And off we went the first place was Sri Krishna temple and then the Royal center, the ruins are spread over quite a large area, they are connected by a dirt road which makes it perfect to explore on a bicycle.

After seeing the structures you do get an sense of loss, what could have been so spectacular is now in ruins cause someone ransacked it. It was really sad to see some fine statues defaced, limbs missing, how could someone do that ? Humans are really a despicable lot they will go to any extent do anything and yet they will be the ones to preach morality, culture and what not. We are always so self centered so is our view of the world.

Was quite tired after the whole day, went for a walk along Tungabhadra, the river was quite swollen due to the rains and it was overcast so no moonlight riverside chilling out :(. Tomorrow morning had to get up early about 4 Am to catch the sunrise.