Life..

"Life should
NOT be a Journey to Grave with a Sole Intention Of Arriving In Safe And Well-Preserved Body, But Rather To Skid In Side-Ways, Body Thoroughly Used Up, Covered With Scars, and Screamin with Joy,
Wu...hhhuuuuuuuuu, What a Ride!"

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Monday, April 7, 2014

Hampi - The Plan & First glimpse

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HAMPI - INDEX

Chapter 6: The Royal Centre
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<< Back - Hampi The Begginings!

>> Next - The Virupaksha Temple

The Plan & The Sojourn Journey: 
Now the mystery surrounding the temple was un-earthed, the attraction had already begun after all, its my beloved god Vitthala's second home. No less than a pilgrimage to me.

A plan was chalked out. Since there is no direct train from Mumbai to Hampi, the plan was to go via Goa. One day in Goa, Two and half days in Hampi.

Reservations were done for the following routes;
1) Mumbai - Madgaon by overnight Mangalore express (12133).
2) Madgaon - Hospet by Amravathi express.
3) Since there is no direct train from Hampi to Mumbai, there are two transits, first being Hubli (No train in evening for Mumbai) and second being Guntakal in AndraPradesh. Guntakal is the nearest major rail hub.
Reservations for Hospet - Guntakal by 11304 KOP-HYD express.
4) Guntakal - LTT (11014)

The journey to Hospet begins with early morning Vasco-Howrah Amravathi express departing at 8:00AM from Madgaon.
The train traverses through western ghats. Passing through Castlerock and Londa. En-route is the spectacular Dudh-sagar waterfall. We were in Nov, the rain had already subdued. So the amount of water gushing was less. Nevertheless, the grandeur of this waterfall can be felt. Its MAMMOTH.

After Londa, the plains took over. It was at 11:30AM. The plains continued with large agricultural fields. We crossed Hubli junction. It was a half hour more journey. the landscape begin changing dramatically! Mountains arrived, but these were of different breed than the western ghats. They were full of rocks and giant boulders! Some boulder as huge as of them were 200 foot!

This was the first glimpse of Hampi landscape. The train arrived on station on-time! and so did those touts. We ignored everyone. Hospet is a midsize town and is a transit railway station.  There are ATM's available to refuel your pocket.

We checked out of the station. There are buses waiting outside. Since there is no direct bus from Hospet station to Hampi, we alighted at Hospet bus stand (1.5kms from station, 4rs ticket) and then change over for Hampi (13rs). We were hungry. Arrived at Hospet bus stand and had some delicious Idli and wada.


After a full belly, the enthusiasm about Hampi doubled! We go to KSRTC bus stand and to our surprise, we found the bus depot to be very clean. Generally, if you go in and around Maharashtra ST depots, you will find it no less than an urinal. The govt here seems to be more pro-active here. Apart from that, we see ultra low floor CNG buses nowhere found in towns of this size in Maharashtra. The first impression about Karnataka was superb.


These ultra low floor buses are fully equipped, with wide windows, semi-automatic doors, an LED display indicator and an announcement system in two languages Kannada and English (No Hindi! we are going to have a hard time!! i felt).

The announcement system threw some hilarious lines. That's where we learnt our first Kannada lines - "Mundira dildana - Hampi central" (Next station-hampi central). Mundira dildana then became our Whatsapp group chat name.

The bus began smoothly, there was no traffic around. It is a 30 minute journey.
A few quick stops, the south began showing its trademark. Its colorful Dravidian temples. One such catches your eye (don't know the destination name) but it wont skip your eye because it is full of vibrant colors!

It was quite fascinating to see temples other than the generic Dravidian temples. I am talking about the huge sai baba temple. It has a 30meter high minar of which is carved a standing statue of Sai baba. Hampi is still 15mins to go. But there are no ruins enroute yet.
I turned GPS on, it displayed 1km to go. Still there's nothing around.

Just as it was 400 meters to go, the bus climbed a steep slope (you cant see the other end) and then takes an immediate left and then a downhill! And then!! Oh My!!! OH MY!!!!
What! You see!! is Jaw dropping!!!!

A sight, full of boulders and temples! Everybody in our group was silent and adoring the structures. As my grey cells were adjusting to the awesomeness of this sight, it threw signals that forced me to remember what Abdul razzaq (1443 AD), an envoy of Shah Rukh, the Timurid sultan of Herat (Modern day Afghanistan) said; ""The city of Vijaynagar is such that the pupil of the eye has never seen a place like it, and the ear of intelligence has never been informed that there existed anything to equal it in the world."

The rome architecture like structure was Kadekalu ganesha temple. Within a minute, you alight at Hampi bus stand. It is not a bus stand as such just a parking lot. Be ready to deal with touts. One tout offered a good deal for lodging. We accepted his offer and stayed at Meghna guest house.

He took us towards Virupaksha temple crossing a gate beyond which no vehicles are allowed. At this point, i was recovering from the Hampi awe shock. Then another shocker hit us! It was the virupaksha temple itself. A 13th storyed structure which catches your eye. The big thing was the depiliating markets to both end of the road that leads to the temple. We'll comeback to it later on.
We took a right towards Hampi bazaar (Market). Its is not actually a market. Its a small village selling some of their own handmade stuff. You are looked upon by men with mouthstaches wearing white lungis and women who probably work in fields, girls who daily draw rangoli in front of their houses, and boys who dont understand hindi and children playing marbles. People who throw a selfless smile at you and expect you to do the same. Kids who are always ready to pose when they see a dslr in your hand.
We reached and checked in Meghna guest house. Booked two rooms (on the spot). One for Amit and his wife and the other for Me, Hemant and Sachin. Cost : 400/- INR.



As we were tired, we thought to crash in bed. But wait, are we here for sleeping? Asked Amit??
He was right, we got up changed clothes and headed out towards the Virupaksha temple.

We had a brief stroll into streets of Hampi market just to get a fair idea of what is around.

We saw kids playing marbles. We were figuring out what they are playing. Oh! it was a familiar game. We look at each others faces, ehehe we join in! They played for marbles, we played for pics.


The market has a few handicraft stores. A tee caught my eye, and then my lens..

Very true, isnt it..
I bought couple of handmade cloth purses for my sis. Piled up essential stock which i had forgot since i came directly from office. PS: There is no medical store at this place. You got to travel 3kms for nearest medical store.



After this stroll, we spent rest of this evening at Virupaksha temple..


1 comment:

  1. Good narration bro.. I'm planning to go on 2nd oct. Your information will be very helpfull.

    ReplyDelete