Hampi is surrounded by beautiful banana plantations and a beautiful winding river of Tunga Badra.
When you enter this small village there are a lot of things that hit you at a time - the heat , the color of the sunlight (its different trust me ) , the smells , the sounds , the ruins , the stones , the beauty , the ravaged raw beauty ...... it takes sometime to sort all of them out ...
I went there with a friend and we first went in search of a place to dump all our stuff and take a bath , there are no hotels in that place , all of them are home stays ,given the fancy name of guest houses :) ... people rent out a couple of rooms in their houses -- that my dear people is your accommodation.Don't worry it is'nt bad , its all clean. But you need to bargain as hell , you would not believe the prices :O
Once you head out for food. always always go to this place called "Mango Tree" ... awesome . its on the banks of the river.... under a mango tree (really!! ) and awesome food .. yumm!!! :) We dint eat anywhere else , it is the only place decent enough to eat there.
Once you start exploring hampi , at first you are fascinated , the structure and the architecture just leaves you spell bound ... but then you start feeling slow burning anger ... how could someone malign and destroy something that beautiful... how can you even bring yourself to disfigure a sculpture so perfect that you can really see it come alive .. how how how ..
The whole place is full of temples , palaces pushkars each and each one more beautiful than the other , each one has a story associated with it . that makes the whole place unique .....
It is the whole fairy story come alive -- A powerful empire , art flourishes under the powerful kings .. they like beauty , respect it , create it ... but then the powerful kings die , the ugly enemy raises its head , destroys the kingdom , destroys everything that was once beautiful and pure .. sad.
Hampi is known for its sunrise and sunsets .. we could not bring ourselves to wake up early for the sunrise :) but we definitely saw the sunset ... it was all that was promised --- magical ... its a different sunset , amid the ruins .. slowly the light fades , its like the ruins are falling into a deep slumber one by one ... awesome..
The more you roam around the more you feel like an ant there ... each structure is so huge that you feel insignificant and totally awed. Each structure is an engineering and a logistical marvel ... without cranes or huge machinery people then managed to build structures that huge and with such precision .. marvellous .....
We met a German there ... something she said to me just stayed with me .. She was travelling alone , she said --- "I don't miss not going to Goa with my friends and travelling here alone with my camera. It would be a crime to have skipped this place.It is good that i came here alone than not coming here at all " .. True ... at least once in your life time you SHOULD visit Hampi ...
When you are there you get the feel that the whole place is like this old dino , its heart s beating slowly and it takes a huge sigh and its sleepy ... :)
Shopping ....... it is the place to shop for quirky stuff ... cheap stuff(bargain bargain bargain) ... all of them different .. jewellery - stone , shells , colorful beads ... funnnnn :)
P.S. There is not network there , Airtel , Vodofone no nothing ... the best part ... you can just be in the moment without people bugging you :)
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