Balderdash

After an inevitably tardy departure from Goa, we packed ourselves into the back of an alarmingly overcrowded rikshaw with 30kg of luggage and trundled hectically to the bus station, to discover our first encounter with Indian travel and time keeping. More or less non-existent, rendering our stressful taxi journey completely unnecessary. A mere one hour, and several utterly confusing conversations with seemingly equally confused bus operators later, we were reclined in a cooped up little corner of the sleeper bus ready to embark on a 10 hour journey East.

Cresting the brightening horizon at sunrise, we parted our curtains to see a sea of enormous, mystical boulders looming in the distace. From modest road side arrangements to precarious distant towers, and all the mountainous piles inbetween, Hampi is strewn with gigantic smooth boulders. Continuously hammered by winds for thousands of years, the soft soil has been swept away exposing hard rock outcrops. These rocky surfaces were further subject to the fury of the elements that caused deep cracks and ravines in the  ancient sediment, which was then shaped further into soft and bizzare shapes by the sandy winds. The mysterious landscape is shrouded in myth, and locals may try to explain that the boulders arrived having been hurtled in war between Vali and Sugreeva, monkey gods battling for the throne.

We'd passed a chai stop some 20km back, where we met a photographer with the same camera as Jack. The lengthy, technical interlude that followed between the two gave me time for a wander by myself where I met a small, slight and very reserved young Indian named Konga who quietly offered to take us in his taxi when we made it to Hampi. We arrived to a furious gabble of frantic tour operators, shop keepers and taxi drivers, some of whom proceeded to climb the side of our bus to sling back its rickety windows and reach inside pleaing for tourist's business. Stood calmly toward the back of the mayhem I noticed Konga's bright eyes shining out from behind his dark face and sweep of neat black hair, so we shook off all of the barbarous brutes around us and pointed resolutely to our man Konga to the sneers amd jeers of his unpleasant peers. Thus began our three day friendship, which predictably ended in our repeatedly vastly overpaying him and potentially getting utterly shafted financially by his savvy but entertaining travel agent friend Kesh who helped us book much onward travel. But who knows.

The pultchritudinous and placid Tungabhadra River which winds through the incredible landscape and divides Hampi in two is edged with an expanse of large stone steps and littered with little stony columnades on which we were lucky enough to spot an old keeper bathing his elephant early one morning. A ten rupee trip across the river by motoboat or in a little fisherman's wicker pad boat took us across to the Northside where a little dirt track of restaurants and homestays hugged the flanks of a vast sheet of rice paddies dappled with effulgent blue kingfishers tentatively hunting crickets and frogs. We stayed in a basic little room in at backpackers commune, and darted out at 5am to tackle Monkey Temple and the lofty 600 steps to the top. Seeing the sky crack and the sun break over the fractured landscape was a humbling sight. We soaked up the morning sun and lisened to the monks cheerful chants until descending the stairs, which was a far more agreeable journey. Several hours were spent cruising the endless arid roads discovering lakes and trickles to bathe in, before almost invariably a small clan of Indian motorists would stop to observe our movements like star attractions at a zoo, often baying for photographs of the event to proudly show friends from home of their kinship wtih the pale folk presumably. I was even lucky enough to acquire a deeply inappropriate borderline ass squeeze during a manufactured group shot from an unpleasant, corpulent specimen before the mood turned sour and we left vastly unimpressed.

Over the following two days we visited a relentless onslaught of a thousand little beautiful dilapidated temples guided by Konga, with a perpetual sense of respect and admiration (see accompanying image: right), dividing our time equally between observing the awesome architecture and seeking refuge from the searing midday sun to sit stunned under stony canopy or tree, whatever we could find. Each stop afforded some banter with the vibrant and wicked local childern. One big kid had handed me a fake cockroach to my serious and extremely vocal surprise, so weilding sharp sickles in overzealous mock battle, I unfortunatly ended up blunting their useful tool somwhat. Even the 6 year olds are frighteningly skillful with these insturments, stripping a coconut for consumption in two or three terrifying strikes. Before evening fell, Konga linked us with his friend East of the city and we all trudled through fields of grass and rock to the river side for a dip just before the rapids began. The strong current made swimming amusingly difficult so we got in some good exersise after our day of dawdling around. To close the day, we were taken to the top of a hill to a temple of sound which houses jovial monks who keep music alive 24 hours a day. With monkey temple in sight in the distance, we watched an equally awe inspiring sunet over the vast expanse of broken boulders. Finally Konga drove us 10km to Hospet, home to his his wife Chickeda and son Udaya (which mean sunrise and sunset in local dialect) and origin of our bus through South Karnataka and into Kerela.