the diary of a traveling dreadhead: Hampi-ing around...

I’ve only been in India for 3 weeks now, but it seemed weird that I hadn’t taken a weekend trip since I went on adventures literally every weekend in Ecuador. So my AIESEC friends and I planned an excursion to Hampi, India because we had heard great things about the little town. At first, there were 3 of us going on this trip, but when we arrived at the bus station, somehow our AIESEC Hampi group had grown to 13! All of my apartment mates and some of their project partners came along and we represented 7 different countries total… pretty cool, huh? There is no direct bus to Hampi so we took an 8-hour bus from Hyderabad to Bellary. After all my crazy South American overnight bus rides, this sleeper bus was a piece of cake – although all my inexperienced travel buddies thought the bus was too cold, too long, and too uncomfortable. They couldn’t even hold their bladders the entire 8 hours! Clearly not on my experience level… sorry guys. We arrived in Bellary at 6am and let me tell you, Bellary is the REAL India. Extremely dirty, extremely poor, and extremely sad. We met Sofia there, then piled 4 people in each auto, and drove 3 hours to Hampi for only 100 rupees per person (that’s just over $2)! The ride to Hampi was so uncomfortable, but it was beautiful – wide-open spaces, palm trees, quaint villages, and monkeys!

Once we got to Hampi, we were bombarded by men urging us to get in their taxis or buy their tour packages or stay at their hostels, which was all super annoying, but we found a great guest house off the main road for 100 rupees per person! Hampi is a small religious village located in the Vijayanagara ruins and it is filled with temples, markets, tons of creepy monkeys and amazing views! It has turned into a tourist site, but thankfully we went during down-season so we were some of the only white people there. After grabbing some lassis, we began exploring Hampi by climbing the ruins, seeing the Virupaksha Temple (Hampi’s main attraction), and enjoying the awesome weather. The views are hard to describe because I’m not sure what exactly I was looking at – a bunch of rocks spread over a massive palm tree-filled desert? Doesn’t sound too great, but the pictures are proof of how cool it was! After spending all day outside and getting the worst farmer’s tan possible, I got a 30-minute full body massage. It wasn’t the best massage ever, as I was laying on basically a tarp and I was so dirty from the day’s activities, but it was pretty darn relaxing nonetheless. After the massage and a quick shower, my friends and I went to Mango Tree for dinner. We got to walk along the river and into the jungle to the restaurant – it was so cool! – and then we sat on pillows on the ground, outside, under a gigantic mango tree and had a delicious meal. We were so tired from all the traveling, walking, and sun that we went to bed right after dinner and I had one of the best sleeps I’ve had in India!

Sunday morning we got up early and took a 4-hour bike tour in “Royal City” right outside of Hampi. We had neon colored bikes with bells and a personal guide named Jacques… it was so touristy and awesome. Four hours on a bike with a guide sounds awful, but it really was great because we got to ride through beautiful places and stopped at about 6 different temples or ruins along the way. Jacques did bore me sometimes but I learned that the reason Hampi has so many rocks is because, accordingly to legend, it was completely underwater 300 million years ago and the seafloor boulders still remain! We had a well-earned lunch after the long bike ride, shopped in the market, showered, and then headed back to Bellary to catch the bus home to Hyderabad. It was a quick trip (only about 36 hours in Hampi!), but I feel like we squeezed in everything important. A break from all the pollution and traffic of Hyderabad was fabulous and our first weekend trip was definitely a success!

Two more weeks in India then it’s on to Thailand to wreak havoc with my middle sis, can’t wait J

laterzz,

scm