Montag, 24. Januar 2011

Hampi – my first week of the New Year 2011


Hampi is a magical place, after 4 weeks of beach life; I was very excited to travel to this beautiful place.

The fascinating ruins of the 15th-century city of Vijayanagar, near the village of Hampi, are set in an extraordinary landscape of giant granite boulders, lush paddies and banana plantations. The clock seems to have stopped at this World Heritage site, and you can spend a surprisingly large amount of time gazing at the weirdly balanced rocks, wondering how millions of years of erosion could achieve such formations.

Boulder fields Hampi

 

Temple in the far background


Rice fields
I arrived in the morning after a 10 hour bus ride (which was much better than expected, not too bumpy) and waited for the boat to bring me over to the other side of the city – while waiting, the temple elephant took his morning bath and afterwards he blesses people in the temple – if you donate money and only then. It’s an intelligent elephant because somehow he can make out the difference from an Indian to a foreigner. Or shall we say his owner can, because Indian’s have to pay less to get blessed than the tourists…ts, ts.

Temple elephant taking is morning bath

Temple elephant at work
Hampi is known for its many beautiful temples – below you'll see the Hanuman temple - it took me 570 stairs to get up there - but the view from there was totally worth the effort.


Other activities than visiting temples included: biking, swimming and bouldering.




like the Indian's do - talking on the phone while driving :)
My time in Hampi was beautiful, but: Everyone gets sick in Hampi – it’s the water quality and I was sick for a day, which is mild in comparison to some of my fellow travellers. So if you visit Hampi, be prepared…




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