Hampi, the Ancient City

Hampi, the Ancient City

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2006--Hospet (Cont.)

After being at the cyber cafe, I wanted to eat. It was only 5:30, but I had eaten nothing all day because of the long bus trip. I was starving. I went to a local place recommended by my guidebook. I knew it was really too early to eat, but I knew I could get something. My only choices were dosa, idly, and puri. Well, I've had dosas too often. So I went with puri. It's like having dosa in that all the side dishes are the same but the bread is different. Instead of a crispy, thin pancake with dosa, puri is three fried flat breads that puff up. Actually, they are almost exactly the same as Mexican soapapillas without any sugar or honey to sweeten them. They came with coconut chutney, masala sauce, and the potato-onion mixture that is usually inside the dosa. I will still hungry, so a little later, I had some fresh pineapple juice with some butter cookies.

I walked out to the river and back just to mingle with the local people. Actually, there are two parallel channels to the river. One is a wide channel that has been paved with steps down to it for women to do the laundry and people to bath. The other channel is the bath room. As I walked by, at least 5 people were squating with their asses in the air out over the channel so that the waste would drop in and float away. Of course, every town probably uses the same system, so the waste from town upstream is already in the water that goes into the washing/bathing channel here!

There is a power problem here that is worse than most places in South India. The power goes off often and for long periods of time. Tied to it is a cable TV problem. Sometimes half or all of the channels (probably brought in by two satellite dishes) go off after a power problem. I've learned not to try to watch movies while here. I was in the middle of a thriller tonight when the power went off. The hotel started a generator a few minutes later, but after about 10 minutes, half of the cable channels, including the one I was watching, went off and stayed off until after I went to bed.

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006--Hospet/Hampi

The main reason for coming here is to visit Hampi. It's a huge area holding the ruins of an old capital city. Here are more pictures. It is much like similar places I have visited in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar. UNESCO is helping pay to restore the ruins. It's impressive with its old stone roadways, ruins of a huge bridge, many huge market areas, more temples than anyone would ever want to see, etc. It reminds me a little of Efesses in Turkey.

I ate lunch while I was there in Hampi. It's a backpacker center, so there are many restaurants with food other than Indian food. It's easy to find pancakes, muesli, noodles, etc. I ordered vegetable momos (steamed dumplings). They were made from scratch while I waited. And they were delicious. I also had a banana lassi--a yogurt-banana drink.

I was rather miserable all day unfortunately. I was suffering from allergies on the right side only. My right nostril and my right eye were watering all day. I had toilet tissue with me and had to keep blowing my nose. It was raw by the end of the day, and blowing it didn't help much, since I was sniffling again within a minute or two. I'm sure it was a reaction to all the dust from two days of bus riding over roads that were under construction.

I was still starving after two days of one meal each. So I went to dinner early again. This time, I found a place that would serve me fried vegetable rice even thought it was early. It was spicy and came with a sauce to put over it. I enjoyed it. And to deal with my hunger, I followed that with a slab of mango ice cream.

I had a nice visit in my hotel in the evening with Raghu. He's a 22-year-old software engineering student who I met over one of my travel sites. He helped me plan the rest of my stay here in Hospet and the rest of my travels here in India. But we had a great time together, too. He's an enthusiastic person. He has a bit of a sad story, though. His father had a stroke and is parallyzed. Therefore, his sister is postponing marriage and is working until Raghu finishes his schooling two years from now. Then it will be his turn to work while a marriage is arranged for his sister. It's going to be a while before any of them live well. He's hoping for a job overseas. He would like to go to the US, but he says it is more likely it will have to be in the Middle East or Asia.

Thursday, Nov. 16, 2006--Hospet/Hampi

Caught the 7:30 a.m. bus to Kamalapur--the beginning of the Hampi ruins I didn't see yesterday. It was about 4-5 km from the center of Hampi. I spent the next 4 hours slowly walking towards Hampi and seeing each of the main sites for ruins. There were some spectacular ones--bathing halls, ceremonial pyramid, underground temples, mosques, etc. It was a good morning of exploring. See some of the photos at this site.

I had lunch in Hampi before returning to Hospet. Today, I had fried noodles with mixed vegetables at the same restaurant where I ate yesterday. (I had seen the cook eating this dish before I left yesterday and thought it looked good.) It was spicy and tasty. I couldn't have a lassi, because the electricity was out and the blender wouldn't work. So I followed the lunch with a milk tea.

I wandered the back streets of Hampi. It's an interesting town. It's definitely a backpacker area. All the housing is in small places. Baths are often shared. My guess is that rooms there cost only 100-200 rupees per night (about $2.25-4.50). But I am paying only 200 here in Hospet and have a private bath and cable TV. But there are interesting shops, bakeries, etc., in Hampi that make it a backpacker's delight. It's too bad there are some nicer places to stay there, too. There's no reason to be in Hospet other than the fact that Hampi doesn't have "normal" hotels.