June 20-22, 2012

Hampi

After Mysore, flying solo and ready for a change of scene, Mike and I hopped on our first night bus to Hampi.

A word about night buses: we first thought that night buses were the answer to any travelers desires. You don't have to pay for a night's accommodation, they are outrageously cheap ($4 US for 11 hours of travel? Sign us up!), and while you sleep you are magically transported to another place that you wanted to go to anyway! Sounds awesome, right? Well, in our unending experimentation with different methods (and price levels) of transportation, we had experiences both pleasant and harrowing on India's night buses. Turns out it's worth it to pay a few more dollars for seats that go back and a driver who you don't have to wake up because they are sleeping at the wheel.

   

 

Hampi is in north central Karnataka, about 300 km north of Bangalore.It's known for its boulder strewn landscape and (relatively) well perserved historical palaces and temples.Therefore, Hampi is a very popular detination for rock climbers, and also spiritual pilgrims to its many temples.

 

  A goatherd moving his goats down the gauntlet of roadside boulders. 

The landscape and temples did not dissappoint! In all directions, hills and mountains of igneous rubble are piled up like the heaps of pulses and legumes in the markets. It's absolutely mindnumbing to think of the time and processes that occured in order to shape this landscape to what it looks like today. Boulders the size of school buses sitting on top of a pebble! If natural processes were personifiable, I'd say that geology has a good sense of showmanship.

Our first day, we hiked up yet even more stairs to the hilltop Hanuman Temple devoted to Hanuman, the monkey god who was Rama's sidekick. In fact, Hampi and it's surrounding area is mentioned as Kishkinda, or the realm of the monkey gods, in the Hindu epic Ramayana (one of their major spiritual texts). In this tiny temple, there are two men playing a drum and singing devotional hymns 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They sit in a tiny carpet and cloth lined room with insense and pillows around them and sing/play into a microphone that then projects out of speakers located outside of the temple, which can be heard in the valley down below. Every few hours, the two men are relieved by another set of stair climbing, drum beating, hymnal singing devotees to Hanuman.

 

At the top, we were greeted by monkeys and a pilgrimaging family from Uttar Pradesh on vacation. They were sitting in the temple, and invited us to sit with them while the father told us the mythology behind the temple and some of the interesting facts. He was of the Brahman caste, and gave us the tilak (powder on the forehead to symbolize purity that people put on their foreheads after they've been to temple), some sugar, and coconut to eat as part of the symbolism.

A view of the valley below from behind the spiritually adorned tree atop Hinuman temple hill. 

We rented a motorbike to explore around Hampi and, tilak's still intact, we went for a joyride in the surrounding countryside after visiting the temple. No crashes this time. Mike is improving his record for motorbike crashes. I think he's at .500 now.

Besides being mentioned in the ancient Ramayana, Hampi was the site of the capital of one of the largest empires in Indian history, the Vijayanagar empire from 1336-1565. The remains of palaces, temples, and town life (when the city was a bustling 500,000 people and the center of trade) dot the city and hill tops. Mike is front of the main gopuram (decorative gate) to the Virupaksha Temple, one of the oldest remaining structures in Hampi, built in 1442. There was a wedding in the temple that day, so we saw some very colorful and bedazzled saris! We also met a sadhu, or a Hindu monk. Sadhus are Hindus who give up all material, sexual, and other Earthly ambitions to focus on spiritual meditation and devotion. 

A view along the way to more temple ruins. It's hard to see because the photo is small, but if you enlarge it you can see temple ruins all along the right side of the river.

Cool design carved into the granite walkway in front of one of the temples.

Vittala Temple, built in 1509, is the most well preserved of the lot. The intricate detail of the stone work was pretty incredible, and a lot of designs reminded us of Angkor Wat, which makes sense since Angkor Wat had a Hindu influence at one time. 

One of the most impressive pieces of art and ingenuity was this enourmous stone chariot that was actually capable of rolling at one point. Rolling where, I couldn't tell you, but the roads were pretty hilly so I'd like to know myself.

More cool stone detail work.

A group of Indian men were on a tour and asked to take "just one picture" with us after draping us in their scarves. Which turned into a 15 minute photo shoot with all of their phones and cameras. This is a phenomenon I could do without while traveling, but it's been pretty common that complete strangers have asked to take pictures with us. I think it's because Mike is so stunningly handsome, but it might be because he can't grow a full beard, or he's just...so...fat (as one little girl said, jokingly...we think).

These columns are carved out of a single piece of granite, so pretty incredible. They make a hollow musical tone when you hit them. The whole Hampi complex has over 89 temple and palace remains, so you can imagine that we had hit our ancient palace/temple quota at this point. After riding around on our rented bicycles, we hit a nice restaurant overlooking the river. 

Women doing laundry down by the river.

 Lakshmi is the elephant in the Virupaksha Temple. If you hold out a rupee coin, she will take it from your hand, give it to her handler, and then bless you by grazing your head with her trunk. Mike was beat upon by Lakshmi, but we weren't allowed to take pictures, so we had to wait until the next morning. Every morning at 8:30 a.m. Lakshmi gets a bath in the river. She walks down the ghats (steps), lays down, and gets rubbed and scrubbed for 30 minutes on each side.

Lakshmi smiling while geting her trunk washed. 

We were clearly enamoured by this elephant. She finally stood up and gave herself a final rinse, and the direction of her handler, before she nimbly lifted her left foot for him to climb on board her back. While completely different, this experience helped make up for not getting to see elephants in the wild.

This was the view outside of our relaxing little hostel bungalo. We climbed up about halfway to the top the last day we were in Hampi...

...and enjoyed a beautiful view of the city and surrounding countryside from the boulders.

Goats everywhere!

On our way out of town, Mike helped these men push start a bus in the rain. I thought it was amusing, and indicative of the state of some of the government buses.

Next stop: the famed beaches of Goa!

June 17-19, 2012

Kabini Lake and Mysore

After Bangarlore, we hired a driver to take us south and west to Kabini River Lodge which is situated between two national parks, Bandipur NP and Nagarhole NP.  Our main goal was to see elephants in the wild.  From everyones experiences and expectations this would be a given, a tiger would be icing on the cake.  

We had our first experience with rural India on the way to our lodge. When you "rent" a car in India it comes with a driver.  Although I'd rather have the freedom of being behind the wheel, people drive so aggressively it probably wouldn't end well.  After a wrong turn resulting in an hour and half detour, we arrived after about 7 hours on the road.  We didn't mind the wrong turn too much because we got to see a glimpse of rural life in India.

We quickly got used to sharing the road with herders and their goats or cows.

You can find women doing their daily wash along most easily accessible river banks.

Although expensive, our lodge offered the only way of gaining access into the wildflife sanctuary to hopefully see our elephants.  We had an evening jeep safari and boat safari the next morning as part of our package.  Unfortunately, the monsoon decided to start and it was raining during both of our safaris.  We sadly didn't see any wild elephants who must have been wisely hanging out under the protection of the jungle canopy instead of out in the open.  We did however sort of see a TIGER!  It was laying in bushes about 50 meters from the road and looking out at us.  Skip was able to get a picture with his super lens.  The following pictures are from our two safaris.

TIGER!

This was one of the friendly monkey monkeys (Langurs) that hung around the lodge's cafeteria.

Another National Park sign to add to our bulletin board at home!

We sat and watched this blue bird for about 10 minutes hoping it would fly off and give us a better shot.  It didn't, but these were beautiful non the less.

We saw a lot of gaur, Indian buffalo.  Big beautiful beasts, although you always seem to be hoping that a tiger will jump out of the bushes to attack.

Cara and Skip with his mega lense before our boat safari.

Traditional Indian fishing boat.  It was raining pretty hard, so one guy would paddle while the other would toss the net and then bail water.

One of the many awesome birds we saw.

Our driver picked us up after the boat safari and headed to Mysore for our last day of sightseeing together. 

Cows are everywhere in most cities.  This one was eating the floral hood ornament off this car.  Everything is free game for the cows.

The temple in front of Mysore Palace.  The detail in the stone carvings of these temples is amazing.

Mysore is known for its extravagent palace as shown behind us.  This picture doesn't do it justice but it will have to do since you are not allowed to take pictures inside.

Three Tigers!

This dye is used by the Hindus for worship at their temples.  From what I understand the different colors are for different gods and/or occassions. 

The morning following Skip's departure, Cara and I found our workout by running up the 1,001 steps of Chamundi Hill to the Sri Chamundeswari Temple.  Here I am on step 1.

At the temple, we found Hindi believers smashing coconuts in this designated coconut smashing pit.  Pretty awesome!  This was our first time to see this practice, but we later saw it in Hampi.

Cara in front of the temple after completing our first climb to the top.

Sri Chamundeswari Temple

Monkey monkeys haging out on someones house. These guys pretty much do what they want.

On our way up we passed several women who were marking each step on the way to the temple with a yellow and red mark with two fingers.  They were very meticulous.

After finishing our second trip up and down the temple stairs we took an auto rickshaw back into town.

June 14-16, 2012

Out with a Bangalore! 

Stupid puns aside, we were excited to get to Bangalore to visit with Sandesh, a co-worker and friend of Skip's, to make new friends, eat more delicious food, play Ultimate (!), and get some advice about what to do with the rest of our 2 weeks in India. We had no idea to what extent these things, and more, would materialize.

Sandesh Kadur is an accomplished wildlife documentary maker and author and Selah met him while filming a documentary about sea turtles in Mexico (and has since worked with him in India on a film about King Cobras). His female friend Priya (a wildlife biologist) and his sister Sangeetha (a wildlife artist) showed us an awesome time. They housed us, fed us, and kept us entertained with stories of man eating leopards and other unbelievable Indian wildlife adventures and facts. We had a great 3 days, despite having the black lung, and with their help devised an awesome travel plan for our last two weeks. 

The first night we stayed up until 2:00 a.m. talking, eating, and drinking Kingfisher. The second night, we hit the town to one of Sandesh's haunts, the legendary local watering hole Koshy's. We kept ordering 3 beers, but our waiter kept bringing us 4 and a plate of smiley's. We had no idea what was going on, until 5 plates of smiley's later we realized there was a "Buy 3 Kingfishers, get one free, plus a plate of smileys" promotion!  

Selah, Sandesh, and me at Koshy's. I had to alternate Kingfisher with tea since I was still fighting tuberculosis. Being melodramatic, but this cough was pretty nasty. 

An awesome coincidence: Sandesh's sister Sangheetha plays Ultimate (the scene has blown up in the past few years)! Skip had met her on a previous trip to Bangalore, so she hooked us up with a local pick up game. They played at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday because that was the only time they could get the field when the cricket players weren't on it. Hard core!

Sangheetha is awesome. She's an artist, Ultimate player, and climber. She took us to a climbing competition/exhibit that was happening inside an outdoor store that her friend just opened up, called Feet Off Ground. It was fun meeting some like minded outdoorsy people, since we hadn't experienced much of that scene yet. 

Sangheetha then took us to the Bangalore Museum of Modern Art for the opening of an exhibit by an Indian artist named Ramkinkar Baij. Known especially for his sculptures, I really dug his watercolors. Before hand, there was an incredible performance, both inspirational and haunting, by the woman above. She played a one string instrument with her right hand, beat a drum around her waist with her left hand, and sang (and at times screamed) these painfully soulful Bengali folk tunes and stories. 

Skip had to leave a couple days later, so we decided to try and go out with a bang and head to a local national park and safari resort recommended by Sandesh and friends to try and catch some wildlife...to Kabini Lake! 

 . 

June 13, 2012

The Cliffs of Varkala, Kerala!

We spent our last day with Scotty, Amanda, Matteo, Kim, Dnoll, and Selah in Varkala at a swank beach side resort.  An evening and morning of splashing around in the pool was a great way to celebrate and recover from Selah's 30th birthday.

Selah, Cara, and I fly to Bengalore next to stay with his filming friend, Sandesh.

 cliffs and beach of Varkala

cutest stray beach puppy in India

 

some jackfruits sitting poolside

locals doing yoga on the beach