The Vijayanagara Empire. Hampi. By motorbike (even though it might have been the weakest motorbike in all of India). When we visited Siem Reap, the tuktuk mafia banned tourists from renting motorbikes so they could have more business. It was impossible to even find a motorbike to rent and we were told if we did find one, the tuktuk drivers would act all crazy on the road. Luckily, this wasn’t the case in Hampi and we were able to rent a bike fairly cheaply and head out to see the ancient ruins of the Vijayanagara on our our own!
We began close to Hampi bazaar (that’s the name of the area we stayed in) and walked through a few smaller temples next to the Tungabhadra River. Some women were sitting outside of one unnamed temple and offered some of their snack as we walked by. I think it was dried potato flakes. They looked like flat frosted flakes, only covered in grease, not sugar. They didn’t taste bad, but the women insisted on giving us quite a large portion, so I wrapped most of it up for the little chipmunks residing in the temples. We walked through the ruins of a bazaar outside of Achyutaraya Temple (also known as Tiruvengalanatha Temple) first. It was quiet compared to the rest of India. Few tourists walked through, hawkers weren’t present, and monkeys seemed to keep to themselves. (I think they had enough drama going on actually- they were quite territorial with each other, which was fun to watch!)
Before we went into Vitthala temple, a teacher asked to take his picture with us. He handed his camera over to his students and stood in between me and Andrew for a shot. Afterwards, the girls asked for their own photo. Aren’t they beautiful? I am so envious of how colorful their “school” clothes are compared to my Catholic school girl grey uniform.
I mostly sat in the temple and watched groups of students and tourists go by. And I fed a little chipmunk, which was equally entertaining. We could go below the temple (I’m not sure for what purpose) but it was incredibly dark. Some parts of it were pitch black. I scared a student or two because they were all excited and anxious to walk through. Haunted House style, you know? Afterwards, we went back to Hampi Bazaar and had dinner before we tried to sleep through the very loud family we were staying with. They say it’s a guesthouse, but it would be more accurate if it was labeled “home-stay” because the wall in our room didn’t reach the ceiling and it felt like we were in on every conversation, television show, and bouts of crying children in their living-room area!
