I head north towards Hampi, while Kathryn goes south. The bus into Hampi was much better than the ride from Vadakanal. Nonetheless it was extremely dirty and bumpy. When I reach Hampi, the bouldering capital of the world, I find a cheap guesthouse and decide to explore the surrounding area while it was still relatively cool.

Towards the other side of town, away from the main temple that towers over everything, is a series of smaller temples. It just happens that that particular day there was a bollywood movie being shot. They were shooting a series of dance routine that I was able to watch. Each shot lasted about 10-20 seconds of choreographed dancing. It was pretty fun to watch. Afterwards I even got to go up on stage and meet the stars. I had no idea who they were but I was able to get an autograph and picture with both the hero and heroine of the movie.

The day started to get really hot so I head back to the hotel. Upon arrival I see two familiar faces. Migs and Sarah who I met at the Sivananda Ashram are both are the same hotel. We end up doing some climbing and exploring in the area. We end up climbing the boulders on the other side of town to get a bird’s eye view of the town. From there the view of the town is spectacular.

The next day we check out some of the smaller villages on the other side of the river. On the way over there the temple elephant is taking its daily bath. There is a big crowd that gathers to watch. And stick around there until our boat picks us up.

On the other bank, we all rent bicycles to explore the area. Each village that we bike through we get a crowd of kids running after us. Most of them just come to stare at us and smile. A few ask for pens, candy and photos. At one point there are so my children running after us that we can barely pedal our bike and we all come to a halt.

The bike was a really nice way to see some of the smaller villages and the natural landscape of Hampi. I did run into one problem though. On the journey back the chain on my bike slipped off. This was during an uphill spring and my right foot slipped off the pedal right into the ground. I was wearing my chacos so they managed to protect my food, although my big toe slipped off and dug right into the gravel at full speed. I nearly racked myself, took a chunk off my big toe and flipped back my toe nail.

I happen to be carrying some hand sanitizer so I used to that clean the wound. Migs and Sarah happened to have a bandaid that I used to keep my toe clean and covered. After we got back they patched me up. It was a bag injury since I couldn’t put any pressure on my big toe without it bleeding and with me carrying my two big bags that was really hard to do.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS