So its time to leave the wonderful non-India beaches of Palolem and head inland to the small village of Hampi some 10 hours west via bus. Lots of rolling around all night but we rolled into Hampi around 8...some 5 hours ahead of the bus directly behind us that got stuck in a massive traffic jam. Hampi is a neat little (for India) village that is split by the Tungaphadra River and set in massive boulder field of rocks in which an amazing series of ruins (home to over 1 million people over 500 years ago) lies scattered over 25 sq kms.
No booze equals one quiet Christmas especially when the population is Hindu and Muslim and do not celebrate Christmas.
We spent 5 days exploring the various temples and ruins including one day of hiking to the temple of 600 steps and another day (which Lori said was the best so far in India when we pedalled some beat bikes to the far-off ruins. )
Despite the river resembling more of an open sewer than a river (warning signs about the currents in the river but they are nothing compared to the chemical and sewage soup the river is composed of!) (in fact it is actually pretty clean for an Indian River other than the "open latrines"scattered about on the rocks!)
Some of the ruins are really neat and are World Heritage Sites and surprisingly well maintained and kept clean by the Indian government. In fact there are literally hundreds of these stone ruins and one is completely blown away by the amount of work that went into carving these rocks into walls, roof, buildings etc.
Unfortunately my skin rash is a raging epidemic and making life a little miserable...but I can tell you I am the cleanest I have ever been with at least 6 or 8 cold showers a day to try and keep the heat/rash down. As per usual the best times of the day are before 11 and the evening sunset which we shared with hundreds of other people and some pretty serious "herds" of monkeys.
(Oh yeah we also climbed to the top of the highest temple from which we got a fantastic view of Hampi and surrounding areas)
Leaving Hampi we had a couple of options but decided to head south to Mysore as we didn't want to retrace our bus route back to the coast.
MYSORE (butt)..our first ride in a non-sleeper and she was a dog! Mysore...another BDIC boiling with traffic, smog and noise all mixed up in a stew of human love and misery! After some screwing around with the local rickshaw drivers (the place is packed with local Indians on holidays so its difficult to locate a place to stay after 15 hours of abuse on a Indian bus!) Once we got settled in we took in the sites (bit of a bitch finding ones way around this place but the ever-friendly locals can always give you advice!) including the Mysore Zoo (established in 1917 by the King of Mysore...over 6000 school kids (let alone other people!) visit the zoo every day (they pay nothing, Indian residents 10R and foreigners 100R) and I think each one of them wanted to talk to us, shake our hand and get their photo taken with us! If you don't want to get stared at and mobbed by locals don't come to India. Actually its lots of fun...until you get tired of it as it makes it kind of difficult to do anything when you are being talked to and mobbed constantly. Anyways the zoo was fantastic and the close by Karinga Lake sanctuary even better as it was QUIET...unreal..surreal..don't believe it..amazing...Quiet,quietquietquiet!
Next day we took in the Sandal wood factory (est in 1918 and primitive to say the least but super interesting as Sandalwood production (oil and wood for use in the burning ghats and carving is super controlled by the Indian government as the oil sells for 1000R for 5ml...liquid gold. Needless to say one does not find sandalwood trees in the forests any more!
Nest stop is the silk factory...dating back to 1912 she is one great big accident just waiting to happen. WCB would need to take a pickup truck full of infraction booklets to clean this place up. It is one huge factory full of workers who have probably worked the same mechanical looms for over 30 years and the NOISE is insane! Sounds like your standing behind a jet engine full of mechanical noise! But I really liked the dye tanks...surrounded by signs warning about the dangers of the fumes, caustic dyes etc. and with a few poor guys slopping bundles of silk into the open dye tanks (steaming hot fumes engulfing the place) and then wringing the dye out by hand (caustic??) My guess is that these guys don't work this job too long...for obvious reasons (they die!)
So we spent New Years with our friends Kit and Robin...we thinks that they have spent a wee bit to long in India as their diet consists of Kingfisher beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner (no kidding!) But we had a ton of laughs and they sure convinced us that England is NOT on the list of places to visit (or at least London!) New Years is surprisingly quiet in India in the tradition of India (obviously not so quiet on the "non-Indian beaches" with fireworks and a few kids screaming in the street..and not much else but we had a great time none the less! Checked out the Mysore Palace...so typical of India. The crowds are absolutely insane and in the good tradition of India the more people the more aggressive the Indians get and soon there is shoving etc and the noise is absolutely insane...as I sincerely believe that the Indians are actually scared of quiet! Anyways just when you are thinking this is a complete "shit show" (Dylans words!) you step into this palace that literally blows you away...absolutely incredible 200 foot plus stained glass ceilings, amazing wood carvings and the stone and marble work that leaves you speechless...there is no way this could ever be replicated in the modern time even with trillions of dollars at your disposal! (And typical: no cameras allowed in the palace but everywhere one looks there are people with phone cameras and small cameras taking photos with guards watching them...but then a tourist (NO not me!) pulls out a camera and bang the guards are all over them!!!
Leaving Mysore we had only the option of taking a non-sleeper bus to Kochin then a local bus to Allepey (house boats on the Kerala backwaters)..so we line up at the bus station to wait...in total confusion until our bus comes. On we go and in fact passed through some of the most amazing forest on this single lane road that had us crawling along at literally 10 kmph and having to stop numerous times to allow other vehicles to clear by us. Definitely not the situation to promote a good sleep..then we are woken by yelling and screaming! We were stopped in this city and I guess some one had overbooked the bus (typical)..after about 15 minutes of yelling/screaming about 20 more people climbed on board...kids, adults old people...all having to stand in the packed isles for over 2 hrs. Crying, snoring, coughing puking and spitting was the tune of the night...and obviously no sleep! Then we get dumped off at the Kochi bus station at 4 am...if you stepped into a urinal where 3000 people took a piss on the floor then turned the heat up to 100 degrees you would get the "flavour" of the Kochi bus station. Trying to figure out the Hindi on the local bus's as they pulled in and were literally mobbed by locals running into them (kind of diffucult for foreigners with 50 lb packs to keep up with!) you get an idea of the situation we were faced with...non the less we are on the road and by the time we hit Allepey there were over 25 people standing in the isle on a bus that only had windows in the front and back (a "rolling tomb" according to Lori!)...stay tuned for more!
No booze equals one quiet Christmas especially when the population is Hindu and Muslim and do not celebrate Christmas.
We spent 5 days exploring the various temples and ruins including one day of hiking to the temple of 600 steps and another day (which Lori said was the best so far in India when we pedalled some beat bikes to the far-off ruins. )
 |
| Add caption |
Despite the river resembling more of an open sewer than a river (warning signs about the currents in the river but they are nothing compared to the chemical and sewage soup the river is composed of!) (in fact it is actually pretty clean for an Indian River other than the "open latrines"scattered about on the rocks!)
Some of the ruins are really neat and are World Heritage Sites and surprisingly well maintained and kept clean by the Indian government. In fact there are literally hundreds of these stone ruins and one is completely blown away by the amount of work that went into carving these rocks into walls, roof, buildings etc.
(Oh yeah we also climbed to the top of the highest temple from which we got a fantastic view of Hampi and surrounding areas)
Leaving Hampi we had a couple of options but decided to head south to Mysore as we didn't want to retrace our bus route back to the coast.
MYSORE (butt)..our first ride in a non-sleeper and she was a dog! Mysore...another BDIC boiling with traffic, smog and noise all mixed up in a stew of human love and misery! After some screwing around with the local rickshaw drivers (the place is packed with local Indians on holidays so its difficult to locate a place to stay after 15 hours of abuse on a Indian bus!) Once we got settled in we took in the sites (bit of a bitch finding ones way around this place but the ever-friendly locals can always give you advice!) including the Mysore Zoo (established in 1917 by the King of Mysore...over 6000 school kids (let alone other people!) visit the zoo every day (they pay nothing, Indian residents 10R and foreigners 100R) and I think each one of them wanted to talk to us, shake our hand and get their photo taken with us! If you don't want to get stared at and mobbed by locals don't come to India. Actually its lots of fun...until you get tired of it as it makes it kind of difficult to do anything when you are being talked to and mobbed constantly. Anyways the zoo was fantastic and the close by Karinga Lake sanctuary even better as it was QUIET...unreal..surreal..don't believe it..amazing...Quiet,quietquietquiet!
Next day we took in the Sandal wood factory (est in 1918 and primitive to say the least but super interesting as Sandalwood production (oil and wood for use in the burning ghats and carving is super controlled by the Indian government as the oil sells for 1000R for 5ml...liquid gold. Needless to say one does not find sandalwood trees in the forests any more!
Nest stop is the silk factory...dating back to 1912 she is one great big accident just waiting to happen. WCB would need to take a pickup truck full of infraction booklets to clean this place up. It is one huge factory full of workers who have probably worked the same mechanical looms for over 30 years and the NOISE is insane! Sounds like your standing behind a jet engine full of mechanical noise! But I really liked the dye tanks...surrounded by signs warning about the dangers of the fumes, caustic dyes etc. and with a few poor guys slopping bundles of silk into the open dye tanks (steaming hot fumes engulfing the place) and then wringing the dye out by hand (caustic??) My guess is that these guys don't work this job too long...for obvious reasons (they die!)
So we spent New Years with our friends Kit and Robin...we thinks that they have spent a wee bit to long in India as their diet consists of Kingfisher beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner (no kidding!) But we had a ton of laughs and they sure convinced us that England is NOT on the list of places to visit (or at least London!) New Years is surprisingly quiet in India in the tradition of India (obviously not so quiet on the "non-Indian beaches" with fireworks and a few kids screaming in the street..and not much else but we had a great time none the less! Checked out the Mysore Palace...so typical of India. The crowds are absolutely insane and in the good tradition of India the more people the more aggressive the Indians get and soon there is shoving etc and the noise is absolutely insane...as I sincerely believe that the Indians are actually scared of quiet! Anyways just when you are thinking this is a complete "shit show" (Dylans words!) you step into this palace that literally blows you away...absolutely incredible 200 foot plus stained glass ceilings, amazing wood carvings and the stone and marble work that leaves you speechless...there is no way this could ever be replicated in the modern time even with trillions of dollars at your disposal! (And typical: no cameras allowed in the palace but everywhere one looks there are people with phone cameras and small cameras taking photos with guards watching them...but then a tourist (NO not me!) pulls out a camera and bang the guards are all over them!!!
