Last Stop: Hampi!

Hello all!

This is it, the last India post! We're about seven hours away from grabbing our flight to Thailand! Before we go, we have enough time to share some pictures from the last main destination of our five months in India, Hampi.

Hampi is a village in northern Karnataka, about 325km east of Gokarna. It lies in incredible terrain, boulders are scattered as far as the eye can see. The landscape has been shaped by thousands and thousands of years of erosion. It is situated on the banks of the Tungabhadra river.

The village itself was once the major capital for the Vijayanagara Empire (1343-1565), before it was destroyed by the Deccan Muslim Confederacy. The well preserved architecture are remnants of this ancient city. The Vijayanagara capital was protected by no fewer than seven lines of fortifications. The remains around Hampi village are from the last of the seven lines of fortifications and religious, military and other civil buildings that would of resided in the innermost section of the ancient city.

On the day we arrived there was a festival taking place. These ghats on the bank of the river Tungabhadra river were busy, colourful and fun. Hampi is somewhat split in two for visitors, a small ferry crosses from this part of the river to reach the other side. Hampi village is somewhat more authentic, successfully blending Indian village life with religious pilgrims/visitors and fruit salad seeking travellers. The other side of the river also has a lot to offer but is extremely tourist orientated, focusing almost entirely on catering for travellers. One guest house owner on the Hampi side said "We call Virupapur Gaddi (the region on the other side of the river) Tel Aviv!". We stayed on both sides.

It's hard to ever be bored in Hampi, the surrounding landscape is beautiful!

Several of the rocks in and by the river have beautiful carvings on them.

Local children swam and washed in the river. These boys spent the whole time we were waiting for the ferry trying to open a coconut!

Hampi village is built around Virupaksha temple. It dominates the landscape and can be seen from miles around.

As you can see, it was actually quite cloudy during part of our stay in Hampi. However, it actually made getting around and exploring a lot easier than in the blazing sun. I'm sure you still feel sorry for us though.

Many other 'ruins' dot the area around Hampi village.

Sitting on top of the hill that lies south of Hampi is the home of an impressive Ganesh monolith.

The monolith is carved out of a single piece of rock.

It seems that the local trees don't have a problem with the boulders, making do with any nook or cranny!

Heading east from Hampi you make your way to Matanga hill, which we climbed on a different day. Instead we walked up to this chap, a monolith bull that marks the path to the Tiruvengalanatha temple complex.

The path winded away from the usual trails, full of interesting structures.

Somewhat hidden on the far side of Matanga hill, the temple complex is revealed!

The temples were constructed in 1539 A.D, during the reign of Vijayangaran ruler, Achyuta Deva Raya.

It actually started raining whilst we were there! A restaurant owner back in town said it was the first time in ten years it had rained at this time of year!

Many locals cross and navigate the river in small circular boats, or Coracles. Coracles can ferry you across the river if you miss the last ferry (for a higher fee!) which happened to us when we got caught in the rain!

On the other side of the river, in Virupapur Gaddi, we stayed in one of these smart little huts.

This insect (possibly alien) fell on Jon's head one evening in the hut. If anyone has a clue what it is let us know because it doesn't look like anything we've seen before! Pretty scary!

One of the really cool things about staying on the V.Gaddi side of the river is that you can easily walk to areas in which nobody seems to go. We found one spot up on a boulder strewn ridge that was completely untouched by other people, locals or travellers. We walked through these crop fields to get there.

Near the top of the ridge was a rock plateau that housed loads of interesting boulders.

It started to rain so we took shelter under a huge and conveniently placed boulder.

Play was stopped by the rain, so we vowed to come back and explore more when it was dry. On the way back to our hut Eve spotted these hanging bird's nests. There are thousands of different birds in Hampi, making bird watching an extremely rewarding and unavoidable activity.

A couple of days later came the sun! With it came climbing on things! With the dry floor we were able to clamber all over the nearby terrain.

Clearer days mean clearer views!

Meanwhile, Jon climbed on boulders.

When Jon was suitably tired out we headed back home!

With the sun firmly re-established we made for Matanga hill. The local temple elephant was having a wash!

On the way up we encountered lots of huge millipedes!

Whilst away, nothing has felt as ancient and magical as looking out over Hampi and the surrounding area from Matanga hill.

The local macaques seem to think so too!

Copycat!

From the top you can overlook the Tiruvengalanatha temple complex that we visited earlier in our stay.

We walked down from Matanga hill on the temple side, leaving the complex via this wonderful pushkarani (water tank).

Wandering aimlessly, we discovered many more places of interest. To be honest, we missed some of the bigger attractions and found some of the smaller ones. But that's the manner of Hampi, everything is so beautiful and interesting that it's nice to just to walk and see what you find. 

On one such walk we encountered this huge banyan tree that had hundreds of offerings tied to it.



As we mentioned in our last post, from Hampi we caught buses and trains to Chennai, where we are now. 

It's impossible to write concisely about how we feel about our experiences in India. They are many in number and lie attached to many different things and feelings. We are sad to be leaving such a special place, so many aspects of the culture have soaked into our daily lives. I'm sure when we leave many more unnoticed qualities will present themselves in our thoughts, as we cease to experience them first-hand. That said, we are very excited about visiting south-east Asia and look forward to the new realms of diversity that lie ahead.

It has been wonderful to be able to share our journey so far with all of you. It is, however, not the end! There's plenty more to come further east!

Lot's of love from India!

Jon, Eve and Giraffery x x

Being Beach Bums - Gokarna.

Hello everyone!

Here it is, the big one, the real holiday moment!

Moving on from Bundi we headed to Udaipur. Whilst we had a relaxing time there, we didn't take many photos or see many sights. From there we embarked on the epic leap to Karnataka in south India. After a train to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a train to Margao, Goa and about four different bus rides, we arrived in Gokarna town, about 46 hours after leaving Udaipur!

Gokarna is split into different areas of interest for visitors. Namely, Gokarna town and the four beaches that lie around the headland to its south; Kudle (kood-lay), Om, Half-Moon and Paradise beaches.

We stayed in the town for the first night, as we arrived late. In the morning we set off for our beach of choice: Half-Moon!

Carrying our gear, we walked across the first headland to Kudle beach (our first view of a beach since we left Brighton!). From there, we crossed the next headland to Om beach, where we took a break from the sun under these wonderful trees. Kudle and Om are both fairly busy, so we wanted to take the extra step. Both of the first beaches are suffering slightly from rubbish and rampant property development.

There is no road to Half-Moon beach. Climbing over the next headland we arrived at this breath-taking space, which would become our home for the next ten days! The night we arrived there was a half moon! 

Swimming was a regular occurrence! Multiple times a day we would build our appetite before meals. A lot of the time there wasn't another soul around.

This was the view from our hut, about 15m from the sea. The huts are provided by a family who tend to their farm which is set back from the sea. The huts sit nestled under a coconut palm copse.

Our hut was very similar to the one in this picture.

The guys at the farm have a small sickle attached to a huge bamboo pole which they use to harvest the coconuts. It made for good entertainment! You'd be amazed how loud it is when one falls to the ground. It made windy night time walks to the toilet pretty scary!

This was the view from the restaurant at our place, the Half-Moon Garden Cafe. The bones originate from a beached whale that washed up on shore about four months previously. Now it's art.

When we felt like a change we would walk back through the jungle to Om beach.

The views from the headland were pretty breathtaking. The small beach you can see in this picture was accessible across the rocks from Half-Moon beach. It became our regular haunt.

Back to Om beach. This picture is taken right by the house of a local coconut seller who provided us with delicious fresh coconuts every day!

Cows need a little sand and surf too!

One of the main attractions of walking to Om for dinner was the visual accompaniment. This stretch of beach provided some incredible sunsets! The food was good too.

Staying at Half-Moon beach for the sunset wasn't a bad option either!

Moving the opposite way from the Om beach trail lies Paradise beach! It can only be reached by scrambling across the rocks.

We shared the sands with these little guys! They're very quick on their feet.

After an incredible stay at Half-Moon we made our way back to Gokarna town. We stayed there overnight and caught our bus to Hampi the following day. We were kept company overnight by the smallest and cutest friend we have encountered yet!

That's it for now. We're very near the next leg of our trip, the flight to Thailand. We catch our bus to nearby Hospet in a couple of hours and from there we catch a train towards Chennai.

There's always more, but not right now!

As always, lots of love,

Eve, Giraffery and Jon x x