On the last night of the festival there were elephant parades with dancing girls, fireworks, music and massive crowds, all of which I missed because I was stuck o the other side of the river. Lying on my swinging bed outside my new found friend's room, I could hear the music and the shouts of thousands of people. I drifted in and out of sleep for some time, eventually waking up with a start as the fireworks began with a series of explosions like machine gun fire. As soon as they stopped I was asleep.
I woke the next morning before dawn, cold. When I went down to the river there were still crowds on the other side waiting to go across to get back to their villages on the other side.They must have spent the night in the open, probably sleeping o the ground. By midday Hampi was back to its quiet, sleepy self. I spent a frustating hour trying to contact someone on couch surfing.org and gave up in the end.
At Mango Tree restaurant I met two Canadians and we went in a rikwhaw together round the area, admiring the big granite boulders, stopping at temples from time to time. There are over four thousand temples, mostly unfinished, around Hampi. Many of the boulders have been cut or bear marks where they have started to split them. It would appear that they were stll building teples when the empire fell. Hampi was the capital of the Vijaayanagar Kingdom, which rose to power in 1336 and fell in 1565. They seem to have believed in quantity, not quality, for very few of these temples were ever finished and even in those the quality of the workmanship is poor. The carvings are rough, maybe partly because they were carving in granite, but they were using local stone and the boulders around the area are granite.
I left Hampi and caught a train to Hubli, then an overnight train from Hubli to Madgao, this time with a booked ticket in three tier airconditioned carriage. They heated the carriage all night and it was really a bit too hot. Then I got another train to Kumta and from there a rattly old bus to Gokarna.
I went back to Om beach, Gokarna because I had left my watercolours there by mistake. They had kept my watercolours but thrown away the watercolour paper!!! Maybe for them all paper is the same - watercolour paper, newspaper, toilet paper . . .
I woke the next morning before dawn, cold. When I went down to the river there were still crowds on the other side waiting to go across to get back to their villages on the other side.They must have spent the night in the open, probably sleeping o the ground. By midday Hampi was back to its quiet, sleepy self. I spent a frustating hour trying to contact someone on couch surfing.org and gave up in the end.
At Mango Tree restaurant I met two Canadians and we went in a rikwhaw together round the area, admiring the big granite boulders, stopping at temples from time to time. There are over four thousand temples, mostly unfinished, around Hampi. Many of the boulders have been cut or bear marks where they have started to split them. It would appear that they were stll building teples when the empire fell. Hampi was the capital of the Vijaayanagar Kingdom, which rose to power in 1336 and fell in 1565. They seem to have believed in quantity, not quality, for very few of these temples were ever finished and even in those the quality of the workmanship is poor. The carvings are rough, maybe partly because they were carving in granite, but they were using local stone and the boulders around the area are granite.
I left Hampi and caught a train to Hubli, then an overnight train from Hubli to Madgao, this time with a booked ticket in three tier airconditioned carriage. They heated the carriage all night and it was really a bit too hot. Then I got another train to Kumta and from there a rattly old bus to Gokarna.
I went back to Om beach, Gokarna because I had left my watercolours there by mistake. They had kept my watercolours but thrown away the watercolour paper!!! Maybe for them all paper is the same - watercolour paper, newspaper, toilet paper . . .
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