Hampi

At 4:30am, our alarm went off.  Quick shower before the Anjuna Villa staff fixed me a bowl of yogurt with a banana and honey, and a masala chai.  Brush teeth, grab 25lb, 45 ltr backpack, and head out to the "van."  Sqeeze in to th eback seat with Tom and Penguin, with Ra up front, and drive 80 minutes to the train station in Margao.

The train station has its own aromas, most of which are blocked out by my stuffy nose.  Many of those smells derive from the fact that the bathrooms on the trains empty out directly onto the train tracks.  All around us are the calls of the chai wallas, and the samosa wallas- "chai chai chai. . ."

"samoSA samosa SAMosa samoSA. . ."

Like a vendor yelling out "Peanuts!  Get your fresh roasted peanuts!"  at a baseball game, the canteens, baskets and accompanying calls are just part of the adventure.

We are seated in sleeper class, which means no AC, but three fans are mounted on the ceiling, and the hardbenches are long enough for a person of moderate heighth to lay down on.  We are seated with Ken and Imame- from Japan, and the two guys from Bath, England who come to India every winter to escape the coldest days in Britania. 

Chai chai ch-ch-chai! comes in little plastic cups, at 5 ruppees a cup.  (We could buy 9 cups of chai for $1.)  The tea is spicy- a mix of black tea steeped in warm milk with spices and a bit of sugar- and it goes down easy at 7:30am.  We are more dubious of the veg bryani and dahl, but we order it anyway.  I'm pretty sure that the black lump was a black bean. . .

The smells range from the burning trash, to the dampness of the fog over rice paddies, to the pungent odor or urine in the train station.  Ra lights incense in our train car to create a little bit of atmosphere.

Once in Hospet, we take a tuktuck ride of doom through that town to Hampi.  Our 3 wheeled car is separated from the passing busses, bicycles, cars and cows by no more than a few inches, a metal frame, and a leather roof.  The sides of the tuktuk are open. 

We get to the hotel, and somehow the numbers have been transposed, and although we have made A hotel reservation, we intended to make it for a different hotel.  Oh, well.  We will take our one AC room for Penguin, and the two others for Tom and ourselves. 

We wake up this morning to see monkeys running around the banana trees on our patio.  A girl comes downstairs to feed one of the many wandering cows the remnants of her breakfast.

I go up the street and get two newpaper parcels filled with 10 little spicey rice pancakes with coconut chutney for breakfast. Om nom nom nom.

Our tuk tuk driver's name is Vikram, and his birthday is the next day.  He takes us around from temple to temple to temple. . . So many of them, it gets almost overwhelming. 

There are groups filled with school kids from neighboring villages.  As they pass us they stare, they wave, and at first they say "Hi," very shyly.  Slowly, they get more bold until we find ourselves surrounded by 25 Indian school kids while one of their friends takes a picture of us.  This is amplified until someone else also puts a baby in my lap, with 25 indian kids surrounding us, and takes a picture of the whole group.  All day the kids are eager to talk to us, and to shake our hands.  Though it seems they are most excited to talk to me.  Ra is afraid that I will begin to feel too much like a celebrity here in India, and it might go to my head. 

Ra and I eat lunch at an Indian place, and NOT a tourist resaurant.  We each get a vegetarian Thali, and it is really spicey and good.  Penguin is skeptical, and decides not to eat anything.  So far, my stomach has been fine here!

Hampi is beautiful- a much less populated place than where we were in Goa.  The palm trees and rocks look like they are out of a prehistoric dinasaur movie, the boulders are so HUGE and the palm and banana trees so big.  There are temples and ruins for days, and who knows how much more is burried underground. . .

Sadly, we have to leave already tomorrow to make the Zakir Hussein concert in Panjim, and so Penguin and Tom can catch their plane back home on Saturday.  I would have gladly stayed here a few more days.  Oh, and if you want to come to hampi, I have the name of a really great tuktuk driver. . .