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Hampi (Explorer Day 1 - Dec 7th)
Our first day exploring Hampi we hired a taxi for the day for about $20. He drove us everywhere and waited while we saw the sites. This was a really good way to do it since he knew exactly where things were and took us to them in the proper order to get the most out of the day. The travel guy at the hotel was like, “Oh, you’ll get tired of Hampi by 4pm”. R. and I laughed at that a lot. It’s pretty hilarious to tell an anthropologist and an archaeologist that they’ll get tired of visiting a famous historical site teaming with people.
We started at Vithala Temple which is one of the temples with the most complete sculptures, a massive stone chariot, and musical pillars which we couldn’t figure out without a guide, but our taxi driver demonstrated them at a different temple (showing they’re not as unique as the brochure claims *L*). This was my first experience of an Indian tourist site and it was a bit disconcerting to have so many Indians want to take their picture with me, stare at us, and follow us around. We mostly ignored them but when it was a kid who wanted a pic I occasionally let them. It reminded me of the trip I once took to Nagasaki with a bunch of foreigner obsessed Japanese people who now all have me in their photos and probably still say I’m their friend. The temple really did have some beautiful sculptures and it was fascinating to see some of the color remaining on certain pillars. We then wandered down the road along a path that seemed to keep going all along the massive fortifications set up by the Vijayanagar Empire, but we decided to turn back and let our taxi take us to the next stop.
Our next stop was the Queen’s Bath which was easy to see since it’s just one building and is pretty much a rather ornate swimming pool. The King’s Palace was a huge site with a massive platform carved with hunting and battle scenes on its sides (called the Mahanavami Dibba, it was where the kings sat on their thrones to watch processions). There were lots of wells and a nicely done water distribution system. My favourite well was the step well which was awesome to see (you see a different step well in the movie The Fall).
From there stopped at the Lotus Mahal complex, though first we had a pit stop, and ended up buying a beautifully carved stone Ganesha from a street seller. That certainly added to my luggage weight *L* The Lotus Mahal is a mix of Hindu and Muslim architecture and is really gorgeous. It’s in the Queen’s area surrounded by a wall with watchtowers. A group of women and kids walked by us and both the kids and adults said hi (which is what they always do. I try to say hi back so long as it’s just kids or women. With the men, it’s not a good idea.) but one reached and touched my shoulder and commented on how beautiful my white skin was which was just really weird to experience. Just outside are the elephant stables which must have been amazing to see with actual elephants in them. There was a display of stone carvings of gods in a building next to the stables; probably taken from other sites around the area to prevent their damage. We explored a bit more ruins, mostly of smaller temples, then headed back to the taxi.
At this point, it was nearing 5pm and we were getting a bit overwhelmed. Mostly because we’d been stared at all day, and the Indian men were just gaping and following us around. It was very creepy since you had to constantly be on your guard and they really would just track us around a whole area. Another reason is that R. broke her leg several months before and while it was healed enough for her to do her research doing several hours of hiking was pushing it a bit.
However, our taxi driver took us to another temple. This was the Virupaaksha Temple which is still a fully functioning temple (all the others were sporadically or not at all worshiped at). It’s also built of stone at the top or possibly the plaster has been kept up since it’s really tall compared to most sites we visited. We had to walk through the marketplace to reach the temple and as we did we were surprised to see how busy it was. There were lots of people selling sweets and bowls full of different dyes. We made it into the outer courtyard and it was full of people chilling on mats/clothes, worshiping, doing some sort of stick dance, etc. We had, somehow, arrived on a festival day. The queue to get into the inner courtyard was really backed up, R. was getting really tired, I was tired of the crowds and there was a lot of smoke drifting around in there which would have set off my asthma so we decided that it was time to call it a day.
On the walk back, R. kicked accidentally kicked a coconut with her foot and ripped off part of her toenail. We were discussing one other temple but then I looked down and saw the blood staining her sandal and was like, “Okay. Time to call it a day.” The taxi driver caught up with us, and shouted something before running off to the car. “He wants us to wait while he gets the car,” I said. “Wait, how did I know he said that?” He didn’t speak any English of course, but body language conveys a lot and I guess I pay attention. Once in the car, he tried to get us to another temple, but we kept repeating that R. was hurt and we wanted to go back to our hotel (he did speak Hindi which R. speaks so we could more or less communicate). He got out some bandages and helped her bandage her foot for which we tipped him later and we headed back to the hotel.
Once there, we both felt disgusting so we took showers and then we didn’t feel like getting dressed for dinner so we ordered room service. We tried out their pasta with mushroom sauce which was surprisingly good (and good for our digestion), and some vegetable tomato curry (can't remember its real name). Unfortunately, it was really really spicy and not very good for our digestion so we picked at it then set it aside. Desert was a tasty apple pie (with few apples since those are rare) and butterscotch ice cream. We watched Princess Jellyfish which I politely addicted R. to at the beginning of the trip, then went to bed.
We started at Vithala Temple which is one of the temples with the most complete sculptures, a massive stone chariot, and musical pillars which we couldn’t figure out without a guide, but our taxi driver demonstrated them at a different temple (showing they’re not as unique as the brochure claims *L*). This was my first experience of an Indian tourist site and it was a bit disconcerting to have so many Indians want to take their picture with me, stare at us, and follow us around. We mostly ignored them but when it was a kid who wanted a pic I occasionally let them. It reminded me of the trip I once took to Nagasaki with a bunch of foreigner obsessed Japanese people who now all have me in their photos and probably still say I’m their friend. The temple really did have some beautiful sculptures and it was fascinating to see some of the color remaining on certain pillars. We then wandered down the road along a path that seemed to keep going all along the massive fortifications set up by the Vijayanagar Empire, but we decided to turn back and let our taxi take us to the next stop.
Our next stop was the Queen’s Bath which was easy to see since it’s just one building and is pretty much a rather ornate swimming pool. The King’s Palace was a huge site with a massive platform carved with hunting and battle scenes on its sides (called the Mahanavami Dibba, it was where the kings sat on their thrones to watch processions). There were lots of wells and a nicely done water distribution system. My favourite well was the step well which was awesome to see (you see a different step well in the movie The Fall).
From there stopped at the Lotus Mahal complex, though first we had a pit stop, and ended up buying a beautifully carved stone Ganesha from a street seller. That certainly added to my luggage weight *L* The Lotus Mahal is a mix of Hindu and Muslim architecture and is really gorgeous. It’s in the Queen’s area surrounded by a wall with watchtowers. A group of women and kids walked by us and both the kids and adults said hi (which is what they always do. I try to say hi back so long as it’s just kids or women. With the men, it’s not a good idea.) but one reached and touched my shoulder and commented on how beautiful my white skin was which was just really weird to experience. Just outside are the elephant stables which must have been amazing to see with actual elephants in them. There was a display of stone carvings of gods in a building next to the stables; probably taken from other sites around the area to prevent their damage. We explored a bit more ruins, mostly of smaller temples, then headed back to the taxi.
At this point, it was nearing 5pm and we were getting a bit overwhelmed. Mostly because we’d been stared at all day, and the Indian men were just gaping and following us around. It was very creepy since you had to constantly be on your guard and they really would just track us around a whole area. Another reason is that R. broke her leg several months before and while it was healed enough for her to do her research doing several hours of hiking was pushing it a bit.
However, our taxi driver took us to another temple. This was the Virupaaksha Temple which is still a fully functioning temple (all the others were sporadically or not at all worshiped at). It’s also built of stone at the top or possibly the plaster has been kept up since it’s really tall compared to most sites we visited. We had to walk through the marketplace to reach the temple and as we did we were surprised to see how busy it was. There were lots of people selling sweets and bowls full of different dyes. We made it into the outer courtyard and it was full of people chilling on mats/clothes, worshiping, doing some sort of stick dance, etc. We had, somehow, arrived on a festival day. The queue to get into the inner courtyard was really backed up, R. was getting really tired, I was tired of the crowds and there was a lot of smoke drifting around in there which would have set off my asthma so we decided that it was time to call it a day.
On the walk back, R. kicked accidentally kicked a coconut with her foot and ripped off part of her toenail. We were discussing one other temple but then I looked down and saw the blood staining her sandal and was like, “Okay. Time to call it a day.” The taxi driver caught up with us, and shouted something before running off to the car. “He wants us to wait while he gets the car,” I said. “Wait, how did I know he said that?” He didn’t speak any English of course, but body language conveys a lot and I guess I pay attention. Once in the car, he tried to get us to another temple, but we kept repeating that R. was hurt and we wanted to go back to our hotel (he did speak Hindi which R. speaks so we could more or less communicate). He got out some bandages and helped her bandage her foot for which we tipped him later and we headed back to the hotel.
Once there, we both felt disgusting so we took showers and then we didn’t feel like getting dressed for dinner so we ordered room service. We tried out their pasta with mushroom sauce which was surprisingly good (and good for our digestion), and some vegetable tomato curry (can't remember its real name). Unfortunately, it was really really spicy and not very good for our digestion so we picked at it then set it aside. Desert was a tasty apple pie (with few apples since those are rare) and butterscotch ice cream. We watched Princess Jellyfish which I politely addicted R. to at the beginning of the trip, then went to bed.