Hippie Bootcamp

This past weekend I went to Hampi. 

Hampi is a small-ish ruin town a bit south-west from Hyderabad.

For a little bit of background, Hampi was the seat of the Vijayanagara Empire for quite some time between 1300-1500, before it was abandoned when it was conquered by the Deccan Sultanates. You can read more about the history nuances here: http://hampi.in/history-of-vijayanagara

The big thing that we need to know for our purposes is that Hampi has a ton of old temples lying around. It also had lots of monkeys and motorbikes you could rent. 

So, basically, it's awesome. 

It was just my roommate, Lydia, and I. We took a night bus on Thursday night and rolled into Hospet station around 6am. Neither of us slept well (or at all, for that matter). We quickly grabbed an autorikshaw, and off to Hampi we were.

We were told from one of our elder fellow Tagore-ians that there were some nice hostels on the opposite of the river, so we decided to head that way and seek a good deal. There is no bridge to the other side of the river--only a boat, and fare is about 15 rupees, which is about $.30.

When we get over to the other side, an Indian guy offers to show us his guest house, which has hammocks and costs about 200 rupees a night. It's very usual to have Indian people waiting to persuade you to buy this-or-that, so Lydia and I tell him we'll look around a bit before we decide. It is still early, after all. 

As we're walking away, another guy catches up to us and talks for a bit. We tell him that we're only staying the weekend, and that we're students, so we're looking to stay somewhere for as cheap as possible. 

So, he offers to let us stay in his guest house's restaurant for free, as long as we eat there. 

And we agreed. We figured if it got too weird or had some sort of catch, we could leave. 

There was no catch, though. Everyone there was very nice; all the staff appeared to be young men under the age of twenty-five, and since it was off-season, they really didn't do much. They were friendly, although sometimes a bit flirtatious, and we ended up spending a lot of time playing cards with them over the course of the weekend. A lot of foreigners came in and out, and we met a lot of cool people. 

Also, I should stress again that India tends to have frequent black-outs. Here was no exception--in fact, most of the days were spent with little power. And, because it was the country, little power also meant little water. More on that later.

It was around 9 once we got settled and ate some breakfast. Then, we left to go find ourselves some motorbikes. 

It was pretty easy. We were on our way.

We spent the rest of the morning getting lost in the surrounding areas. It was glorious. Lydia and I had conversations a-plenty while buzzing around on the little bike. We were searching, mostly half-heartedly, for some of the temples on this side of the river. Eventually, we located the monkey temple, which we had passed several times.

The monkey temple was basically on top of a mountain, and there were 600-some steep steps leading to it. 

I noticed that it was hot, and humid, and a higher altitude, and that I hadn't slept on the bus. It was strenuous. 

Everywhere along the path was written राम "Ram" -- reincarnation of Vishnu and hero of the epic of the Ramayana. The significance here was not necessarily Ram himself, but his relation with हनुमान  "Hanuman" -- the monkey god, to whom the temple was dedicated. Hanuman is an example of perfect loyalty to a lord or god, demonstrated also in the Ramayana and his complete devotion to Lord Rama. The temple at the top of the mountain was theorized by some to be his birthplace.

We pieced this together once we got to the top and noticed that there really weren't that many monkeys. There was, however, this sign:

So, that was fun. We went back down to the bike and drove off into the distance once again. And by distance, I mean we returned to the White Elephant because we were hungry and dehydrated. Lunch was delicious. 

After that, we napped briefly, then drove around in a monsoon for a bit. We stopped by a river crossing and watched some cows swim across--we watched cows and water buffalo do lots of things like that. They kind of just do whatever they want. Then, we noticed a sign for some temples pointing into a vacant lot, so we drove into it, and some guy was pointing us where to go, but then there were rocks and we were confused and wet. It was funny. 

We were really wet by the time we got back. The staff yelled at us to change into something dry in room 3--we later convinced them to let us sleep there instead of in the kitchen. We put some mats on the wooden bedframes, and we used things like a skirt and a towel for blankets. There was something of a bathroom, although there was no running water. 

We mostly used the squatty potty. Squatty potties are nice for peeing in--more sanitary. But they can also be quite terrifying when you have to do more than pee.

When in Rome. 

We chilled in the dining room on the floor mats, played cards, and drank rum. The Indians were not very good at taking shots. 

The next day, we crossed back over to the other side where the majority of the temples were. My camera died fairly early, and there was no power to charge it--oh well. Lydia got a lot of good pictures, and I hope she'll let me grab a copy later. 

The big temple was not open yet, so we decided to head to another group of temples. There was a really cool sort of temple campus, and the path continued up a nearby mountain to another mountaintop temple. The path was a lot less maintained, and it was also strenuous. There was a lot of joking, complaining, and hypothetical what-if-I-gave-a-speech-about-the-fleetingness-of-life-then-vaulted-off-the-cliff-face-and-had-you-take-a-picture-of-me-in-mid-freefall-as-a-celebration-for-the-most-awesome-way-to-die (and later would including vaulting from the cliff into a whirlpool). 

The temple at the top was completely abandoned. The rains were moving in the distance, although it didn't hit us that day. It was beautiful. 

We climbed back down and got some coconuts and more water. By this time, the main temple was open.

We hid our shoes because we couldn't for the life of us find the rack, then headed in. A man told us we had to pay 15 rupees for photos, so Lydia didn't take any (my camera was dead already). He then offered to give us a tour (we told him we didn't have any money, but he gave us one anyway...then expected a donation later, which we didn't give). We learned it was a Shiva temple with lots of cool religious (and some erotic) art, as well as an elephant (I touched her trunk) and a cool ancient photo-technology hole in a wall that cast the inverted image of the taller tower onto the opposite wall. 

After that, we headed back over to the guest house. We had dinner, played more cards, talked to other travelers, and played a dice-based drinking game with a very drunk German man. 

The last morning, we took it fairly easy. We ate, then left to the other side again--we walked around for a bit, watched some monkeys, and then sat on a hillside watching the rain roll over the far mountains for a good while. Some lassi and tea later, and it was time to head back (this time on a little local boat that was kind of like a large bowl). We ate a quick dinner and checked out. It cost about 800 rupees at the end, which was just food--that's about 15 dollars. Then, headed back to Hospet to catch our train.

We didn't really want to go back to Hyderabad--Hampi is lovely. It's peaceful and gorgeous. 

But we had not showered for four days. I had only washed my face once. 

After climbing up and down mountains and being in monsoons and trekking through heat and humidity, a shower sounded nice. 

Got back to Tagore at 7 o'clock Monday morning, and we slept on the bus this time--which is good, because we had class at 9:45. 

Worth it.

Some additional photos: