Having cultivated the art of doing very little for two and a half weeks, it was time for a trip. I decided to visit the 14th-16th Century ruins of Hampi, the capital of the old Hindu empire of Prince Harihararaya. The site is a major attraction in this part of the world and was busy with both local and foreign visitors, the more so as I arrived just after the conclusion of a two-day festival which drew 25,000 visitors to this small – and, it turns out, less easy to get to than it ought to be – town.
In fact, “town” is almost overstating the case. Hampi consists of little more than a central main bazaar of a few blocks plus a main street that is a paragon of tat, plus an extended tail either side of restaurants and guest houses along the river. In its 16th Century heyday, half a million people lived here. Which must have made getting a chai of a morning a bit of a mare.
Anyway, Hampi can be reached in a number of ways, but my recommendation would be to go by train. I went by bus, amongst other things, and it managed to take 15.5 hours each way, for various reasons with which I shall bore you anon. Think “overnight express private bus” and you might conjure an image of air conditioned comfort, deeply padded lie-flat recliners, privacy screens and a silky smooth ride. Now forget all that and remember where you are. Instead think more along the lines of a cross between a cut-up version of the interior of a third class sleeper car from Indian Railways and a knackered-up, tin-plate box on wheels that looks like it’s been lashed together out of very second hand meccano by a gang of one-armed blind maniacs. Add a blown exhaust. Add thirty or so passengers in various states of disrepair. Add 25-35 degrees of heat depending on time of day. Add comedy clown spring suspension. That’s it. Very good. Now drive the whole thing overnight for 12 (scheduled) hours over some of the finest road-ridden potholes this side of Edinburgh, and you’re as good as there.
Except of course we weren’t. We awoke (well, failed to sleep in the light of a new day…) on the morning of the 30th January to find ourselves 30km out of Hampi after twelve hours’ driving, going absolutely nowhere. Up ahead, a four-bus crash had brought everything for miles to a halt. It was 10:00. It was getting warm. It didn’t take too long to conclude that we would spend the rest of the day here, and possibly die, if nothing was done. As sheep figuring out the whole cattle-grid thing, the bus was deserted within a matter of minutes of someone figuring out that there was a back road down which rickshaws could navigate. Rs900 split three ways, and hour and a half, adding a significant percentage in time and cost to the journey, but at least we’d get there. So that’s what we did.
As we drove through the back roads and villages that marked the long way round to Hampi, we learned (from Ben from South West London) that this area had another claim to fame as the backdrop to the Flintstones film. It was easy to see why. Nowhere else have I seen a landscape like it. Huge (I mean house-sized and upwards) boulders scattered in great heaps littered the countryside, of such dimensions that one doubted one’s own eyes. They are so incongruously large that they look to have been designed to a similar spec as used by Spinal Tap for their interpretation of Stonehenge. Only in reverse. Sort of thing. You know what I mean. Like, none more big.
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