Hampi details

In my last entry I did not give you any historical info on the amazing temples and sculpture at Hampi, so here it is (with the help of our travel Bible, the Lonely Planet).
Hampi was mentioned in the Ramayana as the realm of the monkey gods.Some of the temples still have packs of monkeys but in town the villagers aren't real sweet on the monkeys - one restaurant owner kept his slingshot handy and whenever a monkey would swing down from a nearby tree onto his roof, he'd aim and shoot.

In 1336 prince Harihararaya made his new capital in Hampi and called in Vijayanagar - it grew into one of the largest Hindu empires in Indian history. This is a picture of the elephant stables which are part of the queen's zenana (enclosure) . I guess they are still in excellent condition after so many centuries because the builders had to keep in mind the strength of the elephants!! You may not be able to tell, but each of those archways leads to an elephant sized chamber. Each dome over the chamber adds the additional height necessary for an elephant to comfortably stand.


In 1565 a group of sultans razed the thriving metropolis and it fell into disuse and disarray. Now it is visited by large numbers of tourists, but don't think that means it is easy to get to!!

Hampi, Karnataka, India

(written on 3.25.11)
Hospet is a typical dusty, thriving, jostling, HOT town in south India. There were as many small water buffalo herds and ox carts as rickshaws as we drove into town from Hampi. In Hospet  we await our crack o'dawn train to Goa in a hotel just walking distance from the train station. Out my hotel window beyond the pervasive rubble/debris, is a series of rice paddies in which herons busily stalk whatever is living in the paddie water. Beyond the paddies is a large industrial complex spewing black smoke.

Hampi is the place we have been visiting. It is in a bowl shaped river valley surrounded by enormous boulders.  The river runs serenely through town and this morning the highlight of our day was witnessing the temple elephant, Lakshmi, having her joyous bath in the river. She was on the far side splashing herself with trunk loads of water.Then her trainers rode her across the river and much to my surprise she headed up the ghats that I was standing on so I was able to get some really nice photos (please note that she has red paint, like a large bindi on her forehead - she isn't injured). The rest of the day she will spend in the temple, picking rupees out of people's palms, handing them to her trainer and then "blessing" folks by bopping them on the head gently with her trunk, like the elephant (also named Lakshmi) in the Madurai temple .

Yesterday was our big day to visit the vast ruins of Hampi. We rented a scooter instead of hiring a rickshaw or walking (7 km). The roads were narrow, but what traffic there was consisted of men with large bundles of banana leaves, goat herds, and rickshaws with tourists. Our first stop was to the Vittala temple which has a chariot made out of stone! The wheels turn, but the chariot was once a boulder, so it is stationary. Inside one of the outstandingly carved temples, we finally greeted a Canadian couple. We first saw them two stops ago. They were at the same hotel,restaurant, etc. wherever we went. We politely gave each other wide berth until yesterday when we rounded the corner and came face to face. They are biologists and this is their third trip to India. We keep running into them because they are the only other couple of a certain age traveling by rail and peon bus.

At the Queen's bath, the Lotus Majal and the Elephant Stables, there was a distinct and recognizable "indo-sarasenic" style of architecture. No more human figures dancing in jewelry (only) and no terrorizing demons. Just elegant arches, domes, and floral decoration. Very soothing after all the overstimulation of the Hindu temples with more figures crammed in than the eye can absorb.

We had pushed on in the hottest part of the day because neither one of us was hungry and the breeze while on the scooter gave us the illusion that it wasn't hot as hell. When we finally emerged from the structures mentioned above, we discovered our scooter had a flat! We were far from anything but ruins in the very hottest part of the day. We were exhausted and hungry and thirsty. However, God is good! There were two young men, one from England, the other from Germany, who willingly gave us rides on their scooters into Hampi. The story was over for me - I went and took a shower. But Philip and scooter owner,Raju, went on another scooter back to the ruins to pick up ours. They had to pump up the tire 3 times just to make it back to Hampi (@2 km).Although the energy expenditure was great, the entire outlay for the all day rental, gas and flat came to $10.

What stays with me is how grateful we were to get a ride back to Hampi in the afternoon heat. For the young men, it was no big deal for us to jump on the backs of their bikes.They did not feel like heroes, but to us they were!!

Signs of Respect

Before entering a temple, a home and many businesses, people take off their shoes. There are shoe people in charge of watching the shoes outside temples. This sign of respect is REQUIRED. That is fine with me but not with my morton's neuroma. The most difficult part of going barefoot for a temple visit is that the STONE floors are oven hot. I've started wearing socks and although I have seen signs saying no shoes OR socks allowed, no one has called me on it yet. Hindu priests generally only wear their mundu (sarong) and a white string across their chests.
In the USA shirt and shoelessness is considered somewhat rude or crude. It isn't seen symbolic of  a direct primal connection with earth and God. Many US beach town businesses have signs that say "no shirt, no shoes = no business" or something to that effect.
Why do monkeys love temples? Tonight as we ate dinner on a rooftop restaurant with a close up view of the town temple (built in 1400's) and we could plainly see a troupe of monkeys crawling all over the illuminated temple. Sometimes there would be a squabble and they'd go scattering all over the surface, but quite high up! I am amazed at how comfortable I have become with packs of monkeys running around me and cows passing me on the street. I am still wary around elephants but more I meet, the more comfortable I have become.

Cultural programming

I woke up for no good reason last night and started pondering my reaction to something: the Indian head "bobble" or "wagging." Whatever you call it, it does NOT mean what I expect it to mean. In my life as an American, I have learned to interpret a sideways shifting of the head to imply ambiguousness, a kind of lukewarm reaction. For example, I ask a friend, "How was the movie?" My friend answers with a nonverbal tilting side to side of the head (maybe accompanied by a hand also wavering back and forth). This equals a "so-so" response.
However, the same movement in India means YES. In a restaurant, I will order a meal and the waiter will tilt his head back and forth. My immediate reaction is :  oh, I guess that's not a very good choice if the waiter is lukewarm about it. Then I remember, he is just "nodding" Indian style! No disapproval or ambiguity implied!!
I have now been in India for one month. What is fascinating is that although my head KNOWS people are saying YES when they move their heads that way, my gut is still caught up in a habitual response. I suppose that is OK, because I'd have to reprogram myself on my return to the US otherwise and start having novel communication problems back home.

Early morning nature walk in Periyar Preserve We had to cross a finger of the lake on an impossibly long bamboo raft. At the other end of the raft is a young couple from Austria/Germany with whom we shared the morning.

This is the wild gaur that came to graze morning and night at the youth hostel in Kodaikanal, the cool hill station we spent a few days in. This was taken from a balcony - a safe distance. In the evening we came face to face with him after dark as he had decided to climb the stairs to greener pastures. This is not a "street cow" like the ones that roam the streets here. This is a very large wild animal. Advice of locals: keep your distance, show no fear. It worked.

THE MOST AMAZING TEMPLE SO FAR (Madurai).

Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The Gandhi Memorial Museum. Here is one of his quotes. The museum had the cloth in which he was shot and the last pair of glasses he wore. It was very moving.

Western Ghats of Kerala

We are now in Kumily (or Tekkady) in the Western Ghats of the state of Kerala. As you approach this area you notice what look like neatly manicured hills. They are covered with tea plants. This mountanous region is one of several areas in India where tea and spices are grown. The town is full is spice shops and guest houses. It is a very popular place for Indian tourists.

Yesterday we took a tour of the Connemara Tea Plantation factory first. We discovered that most tea plantations have two crops - tea and pepper. Only women pick tea by hand or with a set of shears with a bag attached. (In the picture above you see two women heading out to pick tea with their bags folded on their heads.) Only men pick the pepper corns, also by hand. Pepper is a vine that grows up silver oaks (tall trees that provide shade for the tea plants) so the men scale the tree using a bamboo "ladder"- a single piece of bamboo with spikes for rungs.Above is a photo of two guys up near the top of a tree picking pepper. From now on, I will never take a tea leaf or a pepper corn for granted.
Back to tea - although tea (camelia family) was growing wild in India, it took a Brit to recognize the plant and start growing it for production (you were wondering about the Irish name of the tea company, right?). So, in fact the British introduced tea drinking to India.
It takes two days for tender new light green leaves to travel through what they call CTC: crushing, tearing and curling,to produce 8 grades of tea. However, all grades come from the same plant, folks!!

Next we went to Aroma Organic Spice Garden, run by Sebastian and his wife. That is Sebastian hugging Philip with the same enthusiasm that he explained the cultivation and use of every plant. He had us tasting and sniffing plant after plant. Philip got an A+ for plant identification. I had never seen nutmeg, cloves or cardamom growing on a plant before. Since our private tour took an hour and half, Sebastian's wife split a coconut for us and shredded some of the meat for a snack.


On a 3 hour walk through the Periyar Wildlife Preserve this morning we only ran into langurs, monkeys with a black body and "lion's mane."  There are quite a few wild elephants so we saw lots of elephant poop in varying degrees of decomposition. We also came upon the remains of a male elephant that had lost a fight with another male. The guide said every year the elephant's family comes to visit the bones and mourn the death. Also we saw some tribal people in the Preserve. They are the only ones who have the right to fish and hunt.

Thanks everyone for reading!