Taking the overnight sleeper bus from Mapusa in Goa, we head to Hampi, the once proclaimed Hindu capital of India. Throughout the night, the bus stops, picking up foreigners along the way, and though we were the first and only ones to get onto the bus in Mapusa, by morning, the bus is full.
Hampi has scenery unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Giant boulders dot the land and are arranged haphazardly into different piles sprinkled across the area. Some of these boulders are stacked on top of each other as if they have been arranged in that fashion, only you have to negate that possibility as some of them are over 20 meters high. And against that enigmatic backdrop, is a town filled with temples and ruins.
Hampi also appears much poorer than the other places that I’ve seen in India. No chance of wi fi, banks or fast food here. We stay in a guest house that is located right beside one of the main temples. Prime real estate for a bargain price of $7 a night. And as a religious center, there is no meat or alcohol allowed in any of the restaurants.
At sunset, we go to one of the temples and watch a young girl, followed by a group of women, pray in what looks like a small ceremony to the Gods. Barefoot and starting from outside the temple, she walks a couple of steps, looks up to the heavens and then lies face and belly down on the ground with her arms outstretched above her head before she gets up and repeats the process. The ground is wet with water and filthy with cow dung, but neither she nor her small contingent of female followers seem to care. She continues until she finally reaches the alter in the temple. As I watch her, I feel overwhelming sadness for this girl, but I’m not really sure why. We later find out that everyone in Hampi engages in this ritual – the purpose being to punish your present in order to benefit your future.
Because of the heat (the locals consider it winter, but we’re dying here, it hits 34C during the day!), our days consist of temple and ruin hopping in the morning and late afternoon and a long siesta from around 11-4 pm where we take a small boat across the lake and chill out in a much more relaxed part of town. We bought a chess board in Goa and have been playing anytime we get a chance. Vic was a freak chess prodigy as a kid and it really is ridiculous how good he is. He even beats the computer on the chess app on my iPhone! (when I asked him how, he said the computer makes a lot of mistakes) Anyways, my goal is to catch him sleeping one day and win just one game by the end of this trip.
