January 25

We had to set an alarm to make sure we were up and ready to go for a taxi at 630! The taxi driver called us 15 minutes before the alarm was set to go off @ 0545!! No kidding! He wanted to make sure we were still going. On the way to getting into the taxi, we saw the glorious, mostly full setting moon. Spectacular! This made up for the early start. Anyway, we arrived at the train station by 0640. The train was late, go figure. We left at 720, was supposed to have been 700 – 20 minutes, ho-hum!! Another day of “whenever” train life in India.

We are in an AC 3-tier compartment again. Even though it is a day train, the people sharing our space wanted to set up the bunks… so we laid down. I actually did sleep some. But we decided to set our side back up to chairs. It was supposed to have been a 7.5 hr ride, arriving at 230, but we did not get in until 315. A man had a “Jeff Todd” sign as we were exiting the Hosapete Train station. Jeff had arranged us a ride to our homestay, which is 11 kms, at town of New Hampi. Our homestay is Gopi Homestay. Our host, Kiran, greeted us, and lead us up two flights of stairs to our new home for next five days (maybe a week). Our room is on the roof and tall enough, compared to the surroundings, we have views of some of the ruins. Sweet!!! There is a cover/awning over a table and chairs right in front of our room – very nice!

He got us checked-in and his wife bought us a drink refreshment – Jeff had a mango lassi, me a tea. Kiran told us he grew up in Hampi. His parents were poor, and illiterate. At the age of nine, he remembers Hampi becoming a popular tourist attraction, and he would follow English speaking people to learn the language. Anyway, the government made the Hampi village (of 350 homes) move. That is how New Hampi came about. Kiran said his house used to be right in the middle of the ruins, what was the Hampi Main Bazaar. This is crazy to me! His mom actually still has a restaurant in Hampi – Gopi Restaurant. We will have to check it out.

All checked-in we head out, walking, for sunset somewhere in the Hampi Complex. We arrived at Sasivekalu Ganapathi – an open temple of the elephant god. Here we caught a good sunset and watched monkeys. Then we with others head down into the Virupaksha Temple area and the Hampi Main Bazaar. Quite something. Hampi will be great to explore over the upcoming days. Now we went into what is left of Hampi village, we found and ate at Thrishul Restaurant German Bakery. I had cream of mushroom soup; mashed potatoes with fried onion and mushrooms; and a coffee shake. Both dishes were so good, and I bet they were with water buffalo cream. Jeff had an onion, tomato, cheese sandwich with french fries; and a mango juice. The sandwich was simple, but delicious.

We head back to New Hampi (witnessing a beautiful full moonrise), walking the 4.1 km (3 miles). We walked just over five miles, which we needed after all day on the train. Upon arriving in New Hampi we saw the start of a decorated religious cart on wheels going around. Anyway, back to our homestay, relaxed and readied for bed. Great start of Hampi!!