Hampi

Our trip to Hampi involved an 11 hour bus drive through the night, stopping at every town and nearly every field along the way. The bus was jam packed, luckily we were first on and we were able to grab seats at the front with space for our bags. The bus didn't seem to have a person limit and also a whole manner of goods made its way onto the bus including cookers, bundles of sticks and straw, and what appeared to be a bag of bricks (I kid you not!). Arriving at the unhospitable Hospet at 5.30 in the morning we had to negotiate with a whole manner of cheating rickshw drivers in order to take us the 12 k to Hampi.

Once settled Hampi appeared to be a rather unusual place and the scenery was unlike any we'd seen before. The little town was shrouded by large boulders and coconut forests. Hampi is another pilgrimage spot in India which meant it was a 'dry' (something not everyone complies with) town and no meat could also be served. Only spending the one night there meant we had a whistle stop rickshaw tour of the surrounding temples and elephant stables, passing the many bannana fields on the way. Hampi is very prone to powercuts, something we were to get used to later in India and we spent half an hour trying to negogiate our way back to the hotel complex in total darkness.

Hampi was another place in which many people spent months 'finding themselves', though wee did run into a rather interesting Irish boy who was cycling across India. The next day we were off again on an overnight sleepwe bus back to Bangalore.