We arrived in Hampi on February 26th after a reasonably comfortable night on the “Express Bus” from Goa. Well, this is not quite the name of the two tier sleeper bus full of the beach tanned, skimpy dressed international community of young backpackers: Russians, French, Israelis, Spanish and a middle aged Canadian from Vancouver and a Brazilian dragging luggage with wheels (Peter and I.)
We had a double bed on the upper level of the bus and although we were able to sleep, we arrived in Hampi very tired. So, it was a nice surprise to discover a little oasis of a guest house at the end of a side street from the city's main temple.“Paradise Garden” as the guest house and restaurant is called, is a collection of bamboo and straw huts between a river and boulders on one side a banana plantation on the other, and sheltered by massive mango trees.
Hampi, the capital of the Vijayanagar empire in the 16th century, must have had a lot of magic, because even five centuries later, its ruins still exudes a strong feeling of mystery, beauty and grandeur. Before the fall of this empire by 1565, apparently completely ransacked by an Islamic sultanate who ruled other parts of India during that time, Hampi had a population of 500,000 residents. Foreign merchants, and elite Indians came to this cosmopolitan city, attracted mainly by precious stones – ruby, emerald, diamonds and pearls, also textiles, including silk and everything else they could find at the bazaars.
After walking around areas where not many tourists venture, Peter is convinced, that there may have been an earthquake here at some point, by looking at temples reduced to a pile of granite rubble, some with inscriptions of a language we don't recognize and often with depictions of gods and Shiva lingams lying around in unexpected places. This is just a wild guess – I did not do any research on this, but from my own observation, it looks like a possibility.
Only a few sites in Hampi survived the many wars against the Krishnadevaraya kingdom. The ones that are best preserved are the Virupaksha Temple and its impressive 170 feet high main tower, Vittala Temple with its beautiful stone chariot, and eight miles away, a complex of buildings comprised of what I named “the auxiliary complex for the nobility:” Lotus Mahal, a structure built as a lotus flower known to be the Queens resting place; a round tower about 200 feet away known to be a harem, and the mint house on the opposite corner. The eleven royal elephant stables in the same area is also very impressive. I figured it was in this complex that money was made (the mint), expensive transportation was gotten (elephants) and lust/desire and procreation was taken care of (queens resting place and harem.)
Even though other sites only gave us a glimpse of their glamor in the old days, because they are mostly in ruins, we enjoyed walking down the canal flooded “Underground Temple”, admiring the arches of the Mosque, visiting the 18 feet high monolithic Ganapathi (Ganesha, the elephant God, destroyer of obstacles) and “Kings Balance, a stone frame that looks like a gate.” It is said that kings weighed themselves with diamonds and other gems that were later distributed to the poor. This is hard to believe given the history and signs of the exploitation of the poor in India and all over the world for that matter. But King Khrisnadevaraya was known to reward his brave warriors, so that may have been the case.
We are really enjoying our visit, but we are suffering a little with the heat. Here, between 11 am and 4 pm, the heat is so intense, that both Peter and I were bedded down with heat stroke on two different occasions after our explorations climbing boulders, riding bicycles, discovering shrines and temples, banana plantations, rice paddies, creeks and small waterfalls. During the hot part of the day, when we are not defeating nature and cooking ourselves inside and out, we hang out on the hammocks at the Paradise Garden drinking juice or tea. The restaurant has a vast menu that includes pancakes, fruit salad, muesli with yogurt and honey, all sorts of north Indian food, a shorter selection of Southern Indian food, pizzas, pastas, Tibetan and Chinese food. By the way, this is a very common menu in touristy places like Hampi and at the beach towns.
But one of the best things about the Paradise Garden restaurant is the area where we can lay down on one of the many beds overlooking the river with granite tables next to them where we can eat. This arrangement really comes in handy, especially when we suffer from heat stroke and are unable to stay upright for very long. On better days, we can just sit on the large benches even closer to the river. And.. oh, I almost forgot – the place also has wifi and plays Krishna Das every evening.
Tomorrow we head out to Bangalore on another sleeper bus. Then it is only a few more days before we are “home” on Vancouver Island.
