January 27

Today we had breakfast of dosas with sides of coconut chutney; a onion/potato mash; and a papaya wedge. That was very lovely! Jeff had masala tea and I had my own coffee. Great way to start! We hired a tuk-tuk and arrived at Lakshmi Narasimha Temple (Narasimha Statue). The monolith statue is 6.7 meters tall (just shy of 22 feet). Pretty impressive! And they have record of it being consecrated in 1528! Then right next is another temple, Badavilinga Temple, which has a large linga- a water supply with a carved artist shallow bowl over the water source.

Next our tuk-tuk driver took us to Krishna Temple (Our tuk-tuk driver seems to be wanting to take us further, because he can not make change, so we will let him). Anyway, it is enclosed by a massive wall that still has red-hued statues decorating the gate entry, and other parts of walls. Inside there is another enclosure with the carved columns. It is nice in this morning light. From here we walk across the street to the vast lane of the remains of Krishna Bazaar. It must have been quite something in its heyday! We could just imagine hawkers shouting trying to sell their wares. We walked almost the length of the broad columned lined way to Pushkarni. This is a water pool, probably was a water supply for everyone in the bazaar. Finished here we load back up into the tuk-tuk. 

We arrive next at Kadalekalu Ganesha Temple, another temple of the elephant god, with a massive monolith statue 4.5 meters (14 1/2 feet) tall inside. It was probably as wide as it was tall! There was a big group of middle-school aged children being lectured – they were pretty attentive. Where this temple is situated, there were great views back toward Hampi with its dominate Virupaksha Temple – which is visible from almost anywhere, we are discovering (including our homestay in New Hampi). But right near us was Harihara Temple, it has a tiny little bull statue that was added much later. Inside this temple you can see faint remnants of paint on the columns and ceiling. There was also another temple, which we could not get to situated up in some big boulders. Get back into tuk-tuk and drive on for our next stop.

We arrive at the Hampi Bazaar. He drives us almost the full length down, and we get out to explore here. At the end are steps that give an elevated view back the length of this bazaar, with its end being the Virupaksha Temple. Somewhere on this bazaar is where Kiran, our homestay host lived as a boy. Still is incredible to think about! At the top of the steps is a path. So we went on.down it to a couple of small temples: one had a monkey painting inside of it; the other was painted reclining Krishna (reminded me of the reclining Buddha). Now turned around and descended back down the steps and did a little side to the Yeduru Basavanna – monolithic bull temple. It did not photograph well and was hard to see it. Now we walk onto the bazaar and caught our tuk-tuk. The driver took us back the length of the bazaar to a large wooden replica of something we hope to yet see. The carvings on this structure were very elaborate. It was here our tuk-tuk driver left us – feeling he had completed the tour, I guess?? Questions?! 

Anyway, we found a restaurant and bought some drinks – me a mango iced tea (which I never got), and a banana, peanut butter, honey shake; Jeff had a coconut, peanut butter, honey shake. Plus we had a liter bottle of water. We sat down around 1030, but our order was not ever taken till 1100, and we received our drinks by 1130. Crazy! There was only one waiter to a full restaurant – you could see he was frazzled. Anyway, this gave us processing time of what we had already seen. I think we finally left around noonish.

Here we went down to the Tungabhadra River, and found the Kampabhupa Pathway, that connects to another area of this great expanse of Hampi Ruins. It is in this section that we have some recollections of being in Petra and isolation of some of the ruins there. But unlike Petra, this place is about temples and shrines, not tombs. Anyway, now we see many ruins of temples, all about, on both sides of the river, some in higher bouldered areas some on more accessible open areas. And these temples & shrines are in different states of repair- some crumbling, some restored. We had to pick and choose where to go, because of the sheer number and location! 

The first place we went to was not a temple though. It was Vishnu Dashavatara Bas-Relief Sculpture. These are situated amongst massive steep boulders. It was challenging and somewhat difficult to get to them for me. But Wow! It was a just needed reward to see them. It is supposedly the various many incarnation images and manifestation images of Vishnu. The images all have the names mentioned on the carving! One guy came up and exclaimed some of the names!!  Anyway, the carvings in the stone were spectacular.

From here we hiked up to another shrine that still had some of the decorative brick-topped relief roof – don't know the name of it. But carved in a boulder right outside of this is a great rendition of the first temple we saw today, with the Narasimha Statue! It has not been defaced and can see his four arms and his consort on his lap. There were other stone carvings up here. The last one I'll mention is the another one of the reclining Krishna – here you can see it is not Buddha. It was amazing how well these bas-reliefs are preserved out here in the elements! Again there are great vistas overlooking the river and so many ruins – more seem to appear! It is astounding how prolific they were to build all these shrines and temples to their gods. We move on.

Next we head to Sugriva's Cave. Inside are two pairs of carved footprints, supposed to have something to do with one god wooing another – it was not of significance to us and more of a gawker. So underwhelming, from this aspect, but there are two veins of quartz running from the entrance of the cave back to the carved footprints area, that was nice to see.

From there we move onto a more broad path meandering through still more temples. We are starting to get temple overload. But we did find Narasimha Temple. It had a stairway of granite cut stones up to it and it rested on two different levels with quite a varied inner area at the top of the stairs. There were not any idol gods but many great carved doorways and columns. One was a great carved elephant, another the carved monkey god. Up at the top of this temple you can see back to the grand Virupaksha Temple. We went through two more temples with more greatly preserved carved columns.- one even of a peacock,which I don't recall seeing yet. (This is the country of India's bird! Don't know if it was back then?)

Next was Varaha Temple. The entrance here has the royal insignia of the Vijayanagar dynasty! It is a boar with a dagger. I think this is the first time seeing a boar carving also! Anyway, this temple has been braced and buttressed big time! It also has great carvings in the walls. We went to one more temple, climbing more stairs. But we shouldn't have, we did not go into the main part to see the stuff on the description plaque. 

It has been a great day, but we were done – tired, thirsty and hungry. We made our way back into Hampi village and went to Gopi Restaurant. I had a Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, basil and a mustard(?) olive oil dressing); a Shakshuka (a curry-type of veggies topped with a fired egg) served with french fries, side salad, and pita; and a Limca soda drink. Jeff had Greek salad; Paneer biriyani; and a mango juice. We split another liter of water also.

Hired a tuk-tuk back after Jeff fanagled with the price. Arrived back to our homestay and took a siesta for the body and our mind (due to temple overload). Then our hosts, Kiran and his wife, Shakuntala, brought us a masala tea. We watched sunset and ate raisins, cranberries, and chocolate for snack supper. Then I took on task of this blog!

What a day!!   Hampi is worth the hype!  🙂