After getting up nice and early to check out of the Guest House and into another, I had to wait for AGES to get the room! It turns out that the people currently in it were not aware that the checkout time was 10.00am…so I sat waiting whilst I had breakfast and they checked out.
Once in and settled I took the trusty 50cc moto out for a spin around Hampi’s delightful sounds. After I had set off I was happy. The first stop was the little boat crossing to get to Hampi: it has a small motor boat with space for maybe twenty people, but they pack in the people and even put the motorbikes onto the boats…very entertaining!
I stopped first at the Vittala Temple which is, according to Lonely Planet, ‘The undisputed highlight of the Hampi ruins…’ I agree that it is amazing, but I’m not too sure that it is the best part; I think that I maybe prefer some of the other ruins that aren’t so in your face. This is a temple but the work that was started in around the 1500’s was never finished and the temple never consecrated. There is a really interesting stone chariot that pretty much does what it says on the tin, a chariot made from stone…however it is supposed to have been drivable (as in elephants or similar animals could have pulled it and the wheels turned), but I’m not so sure. It didn’t really look like the wheel axels would have held up, or the wheels actually turned, but who knows?!
After going inside the actual temple I ventured outside to have a look around, but I had begun to feel the effects of the mornings Doxycycline tablet and sat down to let my stomach get back to normal.
Next I moved on to drive into the main part of Hampi, but on the way I found an interesting looking Saraswati Temple and some Octagonal Water Baths. A little way down the road I found the ‘Queen’s Bath’ which looks very plain and quite boring from the outside, but once you go inside you see that there is a large bathing pool and lots of intricate balconies for the ladies to lounge on. I made my way into Hampi, finally arriving outside the ‘Virupaksha Temple’, smack bang in the middle of the town. I was going to go inside, but decided that I would wait until another day, as I had other parts of the town that I wanted to find first. The main bazaar in Hampi is actually really hard to find, the road leading up to the temple is all but a ruin and there is no indication that there is life behind the ruined street.
Eventually I found the main tourist area and managed to get some food at a rooftop café.
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