Hampi

I am in love with Hampi. We arrived after a night bus journey at 5.15am feeling the expected type of filthy and even then my heart stopped. After scraping the last 20 hours off myself in the shower it was time to check out the place. It is stunning, (pictures to be posted soon!) It has boulder strewn hills with lush greenery, ancient ruins scattered around with a river flowing through it. You could sit there forever watching the sun set and everyone taking their baths in the river.

We spent the first day being driven from site to run to temple and that was great. The historian in me loved that so much history was at my fingertips. The huge temple on the main bazaar was an national calling point for religious festivals as we soon found out. 40,000 people descended into Hampi to celebrate the anniversary of the marriage of Shiva to Parvati. Two giant rolling cart/temple things about 10m high were pulled by 300 people using ropes down the main bazaar. The throngs of people gave their puja (offering) to the Gods in the form of bananas. No shit. About two tonnes worth of bananas was pelted at these carts by people, and a couple used the opportunity to throw it at policeman too. Standing there in the midst of the crowds with blurs of yellow whirring past my head it struck me as ironic that in a country where millions are starving food to feed a nation was being thrown with joy and quickly squashed underneath the wheels. In one of the carts there were a handful of men lucky enough to be selected to ride in the cart on this holy day. After the bananas started to fly I thought instead that a neighbor had dobbed them in for eating meat or something and now their punishment was to be hit with fruit for a day.

At the temple there is the 'mascot' elephant named Lakshmi. Clauds and I got up at 7.30am to see here get a bath in the river. The whole shebang, scrubbing her feet to brushing her teeth. The we followed her up to the temple where I held out a 1 rupee coin, she picked it up with her trunk, passed it to her handler, then tapped me on the top of my head as a blessing. SWEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!

It was a full moon as we walked through the banana trees to a restaurant which was beautiful, it only got better when we saw we were being led there by fireflies. At first I was worried that I'm leaving pieces of my heart all over the place, but on reflection I saw there could be nothing safer.

xoxo
Sim