World Heritage

And I’m back! I took another short trip out of the city just over two weeks ago (plus one this last weekend - so stay tuned for another update from that!!) and have been catching up with work since then. Some of you may have heard of this place, it is a UNSECO World Heritage Site after all. That’s right everybody… I went to Hampi!

We left Friday evening and traveled via A/C sleeper bus to Hampi, arriving at about 6:00am at Hosapete (aka Hospet). A 30-minute auto-rickshaw ride took us into Hampi where we freshened up and dropped off our bags before heading out for the day. 

Luckily enough, guest houses in tourist towns attract autos, so it wasn’t much trouble to find somebody to give us a tour. Most of the ruins aren’t open to visit until about 8, so we were taken to Tungabhadra River where the temple’s elephant goes to bathe each morning. Like clockwork, Lakshmi the elephant lumbered down the steps and waded into the water for a bath. Our driver led us by foot across the rocks for a better view of this daily ritual.

Coming from a place where elephants are only seen behind fences, I have to say this was pretty awesome to watch.

From there, we headed off to the ruins and visited so many I can barely remember how many or all of the names. Suffice it to say, they are all part of an ancient and important history, but I will endeavor to describe a few of them in some detail (I may cheat here a bit and use the descriptions posted near the site). 
1)      Krishna Temple & Bazaar

2)      Lakshmi Narasimha (also called Ugra Narasimha)

3)    Queens Bath is located near the royal enclosure and has its own complex of changing rooms and a bath. It was built in the Indo-Islamic style of Vijayanagara architecture, though the interior is stucco and plaster. The building is 30 square meters with a 15 square meter bath of 1.8 meters deep.

4)      Zenana Enclosure - Lotus Mahal

5)      The elephant stable would have once housed up to eleven elephants.

6)      Vitthala Temple & Stone Chariot

7)      Sasivekalu Ganesha

We even saw a wild peacock while we ate lunch! My travelling companion had her entire trip made after seeing him walk by our table. The temples and everything were cool too, of course, but the peacock was the highlight LOL.

Our second (and last) day was spent on the other side of the river looking at a few other temples. FYI, if any of you want to visit Daroji Bear Sanctuary, they recently switched their hours so they don’t open until 2 pm… which we learned the hard way. Anyways, all of the temples were cool, but the most memorable would be Anjanadri Hill Temple, probably because it was a 575-step climb to the top.

If anything, I did get a lot of walking in over the weekend! This place is said to be the birthplace of the monkey-god Hanuman as it is near the village of Anegundi. Anegundi is believed to be Kishkindha, which translates to a forest where the monkeys lived.

On our way back to town, I even had a chance to learn to drive a rickshaw under the tutelage of our guide. It actually was not too difficult as the clutch and gears are both on the left handle and the accelerator is on the right, it’s just a matter of remembering which gear you’re in.

For anybody that is interested in ancient history, particularly that of Asia, I would highly recommend a few days in Hampi where you can see what’s left of that civilization! If anybody is going, message me and I can send you the number of our guide who would be happy to show you around 😊