January 26

Today up and about. We had breakfast of scrambled eggs with toast and coffee tea. Our view unfortunately this morning is hazy, and as the sun comes up more the view is worse. 🙁 Bummer! Anyway, we finished our breakfast and puttered around – waiting for phones to charge, and hoping the view would improve. (The view did not get better until after noon.)

We decided to go ahead and get out and about. It was just after ten. We caught a tuk-tuk and went back to the same area as last night: Sasivekalu Ganapathi to the Virupaksha Temple, stopping and looking into many of the smaller ruin areas/shrines. We are taking our time, and by doing so absorbing some small things we missed last night. Like carvings in many of the stone faces; chisel marks on the edges of big boulders that may have been used to crack the massive rocks. We went by a little place that was actually a carpenter “shop??”. The ancient people who lived and developed this area were of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. The total Hampi ruins are spread over 16 square miles! Needless to say, we will use our time to explore as much as we can.

We decided to have a break, and checked out Gopi Restaurant. We loaded up on drinks. I had a Limca and Diet Coke; Jeff had a lime water-salty and sweet, and a cashewnut, ginger shake. We also bought a liter of water. We met our homestay owner's brother, who runs this place and struck up a conversation with him. He, like his brother, Kiran, has places to stay. But it is a hotel – twelve rooms. Finished, we went back out to explore more.

Anyway, we reached the main temple, Virupaksha, and checked our shoes. (As with so much here we have to go in barefooted, for reverence and/or respect.) You pay and get a ticket to enter. (There is a seperate line – they aren't paying, but they only get into a place we can't go into anyway.) In through the 165 feet tall tower and arrive in the temple complex. So much rock carved pillars/columns and ceilings. Some are still in decent shape and you can make out the eyes, noses… details. Really special to know that they did pay attention such detail. We walked through seeing and checking out what we could and exited the inner temple area. Then there is another temple, Durga. It is on the way to the river, and right near the Manmatha Honda, which is a 'sacred tank'- a pool of water. A little cheeky monkey was eating some coconut as we were leaving. We collected our shoes and realized we could go down closer to the sacred tank. Got some neat reflection shots of the tower. Then as we were moving on, we saw the backside of the elephant who wanders around this temple complex! We seriously thought about paying to go back in the temple just to see the elephant!

We walked close to the river, but will save crossing and going over there for another day. We wondered on and found another sacred tank, Lokapavani Pushkaralu. This one has a natural spring, and never dries up. It has a unique carved cobra snake -'naga'. Then we worked our way through so many other shrines and ruins. One was a stucco-type painted structure. Next, a small temple we had been seeing but we could not find the way there – until now. We had so much of this (less traveled path) to ourselves. We clambered up and in the last ruin and enjoyed the view. Then on to a road then leads a back way out.  We hired a tuk-tuk to take us back to New Hampi.

What a morning!! We saw amazing ruins, but other things too: such as birds, including parakeets, beautiful small birds and of course crows; two kinds of monkeys, that are all over, everywhere; two goats up on a roof; a couple of lizards; and chipmunks. So great to see these all around with the ruins.

We hired another tuk-tuk and went back to our place. Taking a siesta and cool down, we stayed in the shade of our awning and I whipped out blogs of yesterday and today's adventures. We ate a light lunch of raisins, cashews. Up on this roof we catch a nice, light, and steady breeze. We even took advantage of the two hammocks strung up here. As the day grew to evening the haze seemed to lessen like yesterday, so maybe morning haze is a thing here. (Questions???) Individuals do still have their own fires, burning whatever they have. This is kind of scary, to say in the least, but this is the case all over where we have been in India. Also we witnessed a huge flock of goats coming back into a local neighbors house for their nights slumber – we saw the goats being fed this morning. 

Anyway, we watched sunset from as high as we could, and then a couple of Youtube videos. Then our homestay hostess, Kiran's wife, bought us our prearranged supper. We had a “veg and nonveg” meal (they were the same except small chicken curry dish). It consisted of a good sized bowl of rice; a scoop of lentil based curry; a scoop of chickpea and lentil curry; a scoop of thick water buffalo-type yogurt; two pieces of roti: and a spoon of the lime chutney. They were both very good, hitting many levels of  our tastes (spice level-wise, heat; and flavor profiles, spices and herbs).  We each had some of our chocolate stash and rum for our dessert. 

Plan for an early start tomorrow, so will turn early. What a blessing to see so much!!