The right way to say a good bye to 2008. Review on Hampi

Hampi - The ancient city of temples. It is an ideal place to find moksha and peace and if along with that you have a hunger for archaeology, you have come to the right place. Hampi is the ruins of some 500 year old dynasty, which is divided into 2 parts - The Temple Center and The Royal Center.

We, the ROSHBOAN group, preferred to stay in Hospet, which is the nearest big town some 13 kms from Hampi. We hired a car for the complete day for sight seeing and we made it sure we get a driver who does help us in guiding through the places. We started of with the Kadalekalu and Sasivekalu Ganesha shrines. We did a bit of trekking up the small hill and we could find a lot of small abandoned temples and Hemakuta hill shrines. One can proceed towards the Virupaksha temple through this route. We preferred going through the Hampi bazaar to the Virupaksha temple which is a massive temple with lots of devotees flocking around side by side with the foreigners. When we reached there, a yagya was in process and it was over crowded. This very place is alsowhere the Shankracharya lives. In the entrance structure of this temple one can find many monkeys posing for the camera freaks. Also a

lot of cows can be found in the vicinity as it is considered very sacred. Just outside the Virupaksha temple one can find stalls of handicraft materials and these act as an optimum place to get hold of a memento kind of stuff. Also cycles and 2 wheeler motor vehicles are available at this place for rent. One can hire them with some deposit money and an identity proof and roam about the nearby places.

Next we proceeded towards the Achyuta Raya’s Temple, Vittala Temple, Narasimha Temple, Kodandarama Temple and Varaha Temple. We halted inthese temples just for enough time to take snaps of all the corners.

Next we proceeded towards the Royal Center, which is approximately 2-3kms away. We started with the Royal Enclosure, which has the LotusMahal, ruins of Rani's palace, and also the Elephant's Stable. These places have been maintained very well and it is an

optimum place to give your legs a bit of rest by lying down below ashaded tree. There is a small museum kind of stuff and if with kids, can act as another good possibility of the tour. Another 200mts is the Hazara Rama Temple and very next stop is the Zenena Enclosure. There isan underground Shiva Temple and the King's Audience. Also adjoining toit is the Common man's bath. Just a look around will show how well the water supply system was maintained which is a clear indication of a very majestic civilization in its golden period. The next stop was the Queen's Bath.

By roaming so much at a very hectic pace we deserved to feel hungry andwere looking for a good eating joint. The Cab driver took us to theMayura restaurant but looking at the quality of food and the density ofpeople eating there, we preferred going for the well renowned “TheMango tree” restaurant. To get to this restaurant one needs to look fora small diversion just before the Ganesha shrine. The road to the foodjoint requires a small trekking through Banana trees and smallfarmlands parallel to the River Tungabhadra. The ambience is awesome.One has to open foot wears before entering the restaurant. The seatingis on the floor and the food is delicious. With the Tungabhadra flowingjust nearby, this was infact a sure high of the complete day.

There are lots of small places worth visiting near the Hospet and Hampi area. We preferred dedicating our next day to these hot-spots. The mostobvious choices are

1. Tungabhadra Dam( which consists of a Dear park, a very well-maintained Garden with fountains, Evening musical show which was justawesome, and obviously the look and feel of the huge Dam). This placeis worth visiting in the evening time and the musical show is a mustsee.

   
   




2. Kishkindha (Anegundi) – This is a great place if you want to relax. Though not much places in this part to roam about but you can never figure out how easily the time passes by. We started with theTemple across the river. Though we never entered the temple, we had a great time sitting on the rocks in middle of the river. We then went to the Kishkindha resort, which actually is a mini amusement park along with a restaurant. Though we couldn't make it to the Sugriva Kishkindha fort because of lack of time, but it was a worth visiting destination.

   
   




3. Daroji Bear Sanctuary

   
   




4. Bellary fort

   
   




5. Badami Caves

   
   

And many more such small-small interesting places.

TRAVEL – We took the KSTDC Airavat Bus from Bangalore to Hospet. Itcharges some 350 bugs per head for a one side journey. It is a 350 kms6 hour journey.

ACCOMMODATION – We were put up at Karthik Hotel. This is just 200mts from the Bus Stand and is a new hotel. The service is fine though the facilities are a bit of nuisance. In one of the rooms we hired, the bathroom door could not be closed properly and in another room there was no Hot water supply. The amenities provided were only basic but when you need a room just for a nice sleep after an awesome sightseeing, I don’t care about the facilities provided and those not provided. The food was not at all good and they had only very few selected items in the Menu. But as a relief there were good restaurantsjust outside the hotel. Pure non-veg foodies have to suffer a lot as there are no genuine good non-veg restaurants in the vicinity (atleast this is what we had to suffer).

WEATHER – Though we visited this place in the last week of December, its very hot there and we were sweating in liters. The evenings were cool and a T-shirt is more than enough.