Day 387: Chan Chan

Chan Chan is the largest city in South America that is known to have existed before any European settlement or influence began. It was built by the kingdom of the Chimú around AD 850. I read that date, and almost cannot even wrap my head around it actually existing so long ago, moreover still being (somewhat… mostly…) intact since then! It’s an adobe walled-in city that once held 30,000 people. Today, the walls still stand largely to the lack of rain in the area- much like how the Nazca Lines have managed to stay intact as well. We took a public bus out to the site and got dropped off in what felt like the middle of nowhere. We chuckled a little bit at how strangely familiar we are with this scenario in a completely foreign country. “Well, at least it’s in the middle of the day, and we know where to wait to take a bus back to our place…” Andrew said as we thought back to the night we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere in Mozambique.

A taxi driver got out of his car parked near what we guessed to be the entrance to the ruins. He told us that he could drive us to all four different sites around Trujillo, but we weren’t sure we were up it, and told him we’d check out Chan Chan on our own first. Little did we know it was about a 1-2 kilometer walk from the main road. At least we had some banana chips (my favorite snack since this trip began) and water with us. We probably should have gotten a guide, or even one of the books that we saw one of the guides reading to those she was leading around… But we didn’t. Now that we’re nearing the end of our trip, we’re content to explore on our own and look things up afterwards if we’re so inclined (which I usually am).

What I was most interested in were the people of the Chimor Kingdom. According to some online research after our visit, I found out that they ruled the northern coast of Peru from 850 to 1470. They were the largest kingdom of the “late intermediate” period, in other words, the largest in the time period right before the Incas ruled. I think (I’m not sure at all) that the Incas incorporated some of the Chimu metalwork into their own.

After we walked through the site, (which took about an hour or so) we walked back out to the main road and waited for a bus back into the city. It’s a little like hitch-hiking, only you flag down a speeding bus full of passengers. It’s cheap. It’s easy. And it makes for excellent people watching.

Day 289: Veliko Tarnovo

Our bus ride from Sofia to Veliko Tarnovo was rather uneventful, until Todd picked us up. Todd works at the Hostel Mostel in Veliko Tarnovo and he picked us up like we were old friends, yet visiting his city for the first time. I love good people. (Todd, if you’re reading this, hope that last test went well before graduation!) We dropped our bags off, Andrew had a bit of a nap, and then we were off in search of food and Tsarevets Fortress.

The town is exactly what I thought Bulgaria would be like, what any small European town should be like. Quiet, with people sitting in front of their shops or peeking out of their windows to watch life on the street below. There were only a handful of restaurants on the main street running through town. When we wandered off the main street, we found ourselves on a more touristy street- without the annoyance of a typical ‘touristy street.’ Shopkeepers could have cared less if we ducked in for a keychain or handbag, as most were busy smoking or gossiping with a friend on the phone. Not many other tourists were around. The only surprise of the city was how unbelievably hot it was. We later found out the town is the hottest of all of Bulgaria. We have yet to figure out why.

We made our way to Tsarevets Fortress, what Veliko Tarnovo is known the most for. That, and being the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. I guess that’s worth mentioning as well. Andrew made me pose for the picture above after he realized I had caught him on video being silly. I obliged. The hike up was rough, in the heat, after a huge meal. We thought we were being smart by going around five, after it was supposed to be “cooler” but we were dying and I had to linger in the shade often. We were also told we needed at least two hours to explore the entire fortress, but we found that less time was enough for us. Maybe had it been cooler, we could have stayed longer… But it wasn’t. And we were hot. The views were wonderful though!

Tsarevets Fortress was the Second Bulgarian Empire’s primary fortress from 1185 to 1393. During this time there were houses, chuches, everything that used to be in most fortresses. Unfortunately, not much stands today, except for the reconstructed church; The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Holy Ascension of God at the very top of the fortress. It’s no longer functioning as a church, but visitors can go in and check out the frescoes that I’m fairly certain my mother would simply call ‘ugly.’ They weren’t my favorite, but it was fun to see something so different. Some looked so out of place, like they were collaged together, not painted. Like I said, interesting…

I liked the "DANGER!" signs as well. I would have liked them even more if someone had scrawled out “NO YOGA POSES ON THE WALL!”

Day 282: Knossos

Knossos, also known as the oldest city in Europe was the center of Minoan civilization during the Bronze Age. In other words, it’s super old and it’s the thing to see when you visit Crete. I’m not super familiar with the Minoan civilization other than it being responsible for the two early writing systems, Linear A and Linear B. Arthur Evans was the archeologist responsible for the discovery, the excavation, and the partial restoration of the palace. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t really expecting what we saw. I shouldn’t have been surprised there was so little… but in a way, I was. It was a bit like going to see The Temple of Artemus in Turkey. We saw, we took a picture, we left. That’s probably not fair to Knossos as there is a lot more to see than just one remaining column (as there is at The Temple of Artemus). We walked around for about an hour, perhaps more than that. I found the restored artwork the most impressive part of the entire palace.

Another impressive detail of the palace were the many levels. If I caught myself looking at the stairs at a certain angle, I liked to imagine it used to be an Escherian stairwell back in the day of the Bronze Age.

According to Greek mythology (I had to look this story up), Minos was the King who lived at Knossos. He had a labyrinth constructed for his son, the Minotaur. Maybe you’re wondering how Minos came to have a minotaur for a son. Let’s back up. Minos received a bull from Poseidon that he was supposed to sacrifice to honor the god in order to keep his power as king, not giving it up to his brothers. Unfortunately, Minos kept the white bull, and instead sacrificed another less pretty bull of his own. As punishment, Aphrodite made Minos wife fall in love with the bull that Minos didn’t sacrifice. His wife figured out how she could mate with the bull, and subsequently gave birth to a minotaur. Crazy, right?  The minotaur grew ferocious and ate men instead of other traditional food. Obviously this was a threat, so Minos had gigantic labyrinth constructed to hold the Minotaur (in or near Knossos). It’s said that Theseus (a prince from Athens) killed the minotaur with the double axe out of love, I think for Minos’ daughter.

There were a few double axes visible at Knossos, coincidentally the double axe is labrys in Greek. Which is, if you haven’t figured it out, it’s part of the world ‘labyrinth.’ I think that sums some of the mythology behind Knossos up. If it doesn’t, please ask Google. It’s interesting to compare the mythology to the actual ruins that are there today. There were so many stories within this palace and it was a bit maze-like. You would go up stairs and around a corner and be at a different level unable to get to the level just below you. This image below was the King’s room. There was a line to walk past and take a quick picture. Not a lot of explanation was given on the site, unless you had a guide with you. We were approached by one guide, asking us if we spoke German.

I’m not exactly sure how much is the reconstructed bits from Arthur Evans and how much was standing upon excavation. Either way, I appreciated what was there for visitors to see.

Since Turkey, and the archeological museum there, Andrew has enjoyed pointing out any and all ‘jugs’ on display. “So many jugs!” he’d exclaim. “Look at those jugs.” he’d wink. “Now those are some big jugs!” he’d nudge me- in the middle of the Istanbul, in Athens, and now in the middle of Knossos.

I gave up trying to be the mature, responsible one and asked if he wanted to take a pictures with those jugs. He rolled his eyes, like I was sooo immature, and then posed with a big smile.

The stairway to the sky was my favorite. Where did it once go? Anywhere? Nowhere?

The very first picture of this post is a close-up of the picture below. It’s restored, but you can see the original pieces of it are raised up from the background. I thought it was simply incredible. How did they know this was what it looked like? What if this is not it at all and they have fooled everyone? Regardless I fell in love with the design aesthetic. I tried to take a few more images of other pieces, but the glare on the glass on some was too much and it took away from the paintings themselves.

And then we were finished. We made our way out of Knossos and headed back to Heraklion to catch another bus to Milatos, where we would meet Andrew’s sister’s friend and husband who have retired there. Both well traveled, they knew how to make us feel at home and immediately took us down to one of their favorite cafes right alongside the sea. When the water got a little rough, the waitress, and their friend informed us that “the shower was for free.”

Day 270: Athens

Greece has been one of those countries that has been on my list for awhile now. I tried to go when I lived in Prague, it didn’t work out. I looked up flights from Seoul, they were too expensive. It was one of the first countries on the “Round the World” list that I was not going to cross out no matter what. While Thessaloniki was nice, it didn’t really feel like we arrived in Greece until we were walking the streets of Athens this afternoon. Don’t tell Thessaloniki.

We arrived super early and even though we could walk from the station to our hotel, Andrew knew it wasn’t in the best part of town. Taxi drivers were telling us the three minute ride would cost us 10-15 euro. We took the metro, and probably ended up walking farther from the metro stop than we would have had we just walked from the station at dawn. Despite it being a “bad part of town” I wasn’t phased after some of the stops on this trip. It seemed quiet when we walked to our hotel before six. I was also looking forward to immediately crashing, as we were told we would be able to the night before. Unfortunately the attendant on duty did not seem to think this was possible and we had to wait. I had unintentionally stepped in pee on our way. So there we sat in the lobby, me smelling like pee, trying not to fall asleep until we were able to check into our room. An hour later, the shift changed and we were able to get a room, at least for the morning to shower and sleep.

By early afternoon, we were walking back out of our hotel, ready to hit the town. I still wasn’t thinking the part of town we were in was that bad until a man walked by with blood dripping down his face. Andrew was a few meters ahead (per usual) and I almost chuckled when I saw Andrew notice and react to the dude’s bloody face. Meanwhile, the dude seemed oblivious to the fact that blood was dripping down his face and continued to walk down the street, checking a message on his phone at the same time. It was like he was an extra in a television or film shoot and had fifteen minutes to go get a coffee or something. Only there wasn’t a set around. What might be more troubling about this encounter is how remarkably not phased we were. We just exchanged a look like “Did you see that?” and kept walking.

Our first stop was Monastiraki. It’s known as the ‘flea market’ neighborhood of Athens. Unfortunately it seemed as though tourist shops selling the same selection of trinkets had taken over the area and we were nonplussed. Andrew had a Lonely Planet walking tour on his phone, but the subway stop where the tour began was closed for the day, so we were more or less working our way backwards of the tour. Haphazardly working our way backwards as the tour quickly unfolded into a meandering of sorts.

Athens seems to be covered with just as much graffiti as Thessaloniki was. I kept getting distracted by the quality (in my opinion) street art mixed in.

As we were walking, looking for a church we thought we were near, a chef stopped to help point us in (what he thought) was the right direction. Then he came back up to us to ask where we were from. After we told him we were American, he informed us that he was from Pakistan. He had a few words for us about our country’s involvement in Pakistan and our media’s response to the American involvement in his country. English obviously not being his first language, I’m not quite sure what his message was. But he tried really hard to deliver it to us, and we listened, because it seemed important to him. We didn’t even comment or give a response when he felt he was finished. He thanked us for listening and then turned and walked away.

We continued walking and I couldn’t help but be intrigued and a little bit proud? of the interaction. Before I lived abroad, and probably before we started this trip, I was always quicker to talk. To make sure someone else knew my opinion about something. Andrew will tease me that I still am… But now, especially I think, with those from another country I’m quicker to listen.

A few stairways later, we found ourselves in the middle of an Anafi community of houses. It was like we had been suddenly transported to an island, not at all as though we were a short walk away from downtown Athens. Signs pointed up to the Acropolis, but all you could see was the wall and all you could hear were the birds and one older man watering his rooftop garden. It was serene and absolutely beautiful.

We walked down to the more traveled touristy roads and out towards the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

It was closed, but we could still sneak a picture through the gate. And a snapshot of another Hadrian’s Gate. We made our way back the way we came and stopped off to get a huge Greek salad (YUM), feta fries (YUM), and a gyro (YUM). As if that wasn’t enough, when we stopped at a bakery on our way ‘home’ the chef behind the counter laughed at me making fun of Andrew not being able to decide what to get. Then he came around to our side to hand us some little treats on the house.

Day 269: Thessaloniki, a walking tour

Success is waking up before the front desk calls you to make sure you don’t miss breakfast. Success might not be drinking an Amstel after breakfast because leaving it behind in your hotel room refrigerator would be wasteful.

We began our walking tour from the post office (an expensive adventure I’ve finally come to terms with), making our way to the furthest point where the Lonely Planet walking tour began.

“Don’t look to your right.” Andrew demanded, as he held up his hands to shield my view.

“Is it on the walking tour?” I asked, already trying to look.

“Yes! Don’t look!” He insisted.

We made our way up the hill to the Kastra, basically a fortification of the city in ancient times. It provided an exceptional view of the city, and the sea below. There were a few chambers inside that you could climb up and read about the history of the walls and entrances. One room featured a lock and pulley gate system that would trap unwanted visitors below. The same room also had a couple “murder holes” which they would pour boiling water on the captors below. Andrew declared he would like a few murder holes of his own just so he can be like “Yea, this is my murder hole.”

We walked to a monastery, and then to a couple of churches. One monastery had a huge cage of peacocks outside. I counted at least thirty. I recognized their wails before we knew what kind of bird they were. Andrew rolled his eyes, but I was proud of myself and told him of my Grandmother’s neighbors who had a few peacocks when I was growing up. Aside from the outdoor cage of peacocks, everything else was closed.

To be fair, Lonely Planet advised to start the tour at nine. We started it at two.

We were able to go into The Church of Hagios Demetrios and walk through the crypt that was surprisingly not creepy at all. It’s pretty impressive, but what struck me more was the idea of a time when Christianity was illegal and its followers worshipped underground (in the crypt) in secret. Every Friday you can partake in a mass in the crypt at the church to get a feel for what those times would have been like. I expected it to be dark and a little bit morbid, but it was well lit and comforting in a way. More comforting than what seemed cold in comparison upstairs.

Then, not on the tour, but along the way was an old building that was either a mosque or a building that accompanied the mosque. (The security guard didn’t speak English and our Greek isn’t exactly up to par.) It was rather beautiful nonetheless and somewhat surprising that it stood in pretty good condition, but not being used, or so it seemed to us.

By the time we made it down to the same point where Andrew previously insisted I couldn’t look, I was tired. Cobblestoned hills, flip-flops, and a bum ankle don’t exactly go together and I was ready to sit down. And so we did, first for a snack that ended up being one of the more epic salads (aside from another pretty great one in India) of this trip and then later for a Greek coffee. I saw them everywhere during our walking tour. Glasses of what I expected to be foamy coffee goodness. It was just as good as I expected it to be.

And with a seemingly amazing combination of sugar and caffeine, it has kept me awake until now, 2:53 am, typing away on our overnight train to Athens. I may as well stay up until we arrive in the Greek capital in two short hours. What is it with these overnight buses and trains keeping all of the lights on during the night though? Why hasn’t someone introduced night-lights to these overnighters? Is it so no one misses their stop? The Turkish buses had attendants with everyone’s departure written down and they seemed to personally warn you when it was your turn to jump ship, er, bus. I guess the trains are too big to deal with that, at least in our class it was.

Day 261: Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek, then Roman city just outside of Selçuk in Turkey. We climbed a trail behind our guesthouse and then followed the road down to the back gate of the ancient city. It was calm and quiet until we arrived at the gate. Ephesus was packed. We were warned that cruise ships unloaded at nine, but it seemed that regular bus tours unloaded around ten thirty, when we arrived. We tried to wait out the groups, sitting in the theater, people watching. But it didn’t seem to matter, groups and groups of people continued to stream in, so we eventually got up and made our way through the surprisingly big city!

A woman at our guesthouse encountered a snake along the trail the day before, I think Andrew was relieved we only encountered a little turtle instead.

There’s a house of the Virgin Mary atop the hill outside of Ephesus. It’s believed she spent her last days there. We didn’t climb up the hill, but stopped at this statue for a picture. We had to wait for a few groups of American tourists to take their picture in front of the statue in certain groups of friends, then family, then friends AND family. They offered to take a picture of me and Andrew in front of the statue. I politely declined, insisting we already had a few pictures together…

This is where we sat for awhile. If it wasn’t so sunny and hot, we probably would have stayed longer. I love sitting and soaking up my surroundings and if there are many, I try to embrace the tourists around. There were a LOT of Americans and because we’ve encountered so few Americans on this trip, I wondered if this was their first time abroad (for some) and why Turkey (for others). I marveled at how easy Americans are to identify. We are a loud people. We tend to have a presence of making ourselves seen rather than allowing ourselves to see. We wear shorts. We wear flip flops. I don’t know if any of this makes any sense, but these are things you pick up on about “your people” in my case, my fellow Americans when you’ve been outside of America for so long.

Despite the heat and the throngs of tourists (still something we are adjusting to after being in countries with sparse tourism and/or few visitors) it was incredibly interesting to walk through. And as always, made me wonder what life must have been like when the city was in its heyday. For me, it’s the ancient times that seem so glamorous especially when the grandeur of the city is so immense like it was in Ephesus.

The most impressive part of the city was without a doubt, the library. I overheard a tour guide say that it has been rebuilt, but it seems to have been rebuilt rather well – without the use of obvious concrete like we saw in a few other parts of the ancient city.

Even when we walked out, it was through more ruins that you simply couldn’t believe were still standing and added to the size of the ancient city.

The ancient city also held the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). This wasn’t within the current day grounds of Ephesus and we had to walk a few kilometers back towards Selcuk to see the singular remaining column of the ancient wonder. It was one of those “Wonder of the Ancient World… Check” moments and then we weaved our way back out to the road, dodging tour buses until we were back on the highway deciding to walk back to our guesthouse.

Our guesthouse was two kilometers outside of the city. We had already walked to Ephesus, then to Artemis… Walking all the way back to our guesthouse probably wasn’t the best idea, but we made it and then collapsed, yet again outside of the pool until dinnertime.

Day 259: Hierapolis

Hierapolis is an ancient city in Phrygia on top, and slightly behind today’s Pamukkale’s hot springs. It is also considered to be an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Being as it’s right at the upper most entrance to the hot springs, your visit throughout the Hierapolis will likely include more amateur modeling shoots. Russian women (mostly) in their bikinis posing on the stairs of the ancient ruins will likely provide a lot of entertainment to your visit. Walking through ruins of ancient cities, again, makes me marvel at what life was like and it also makes Andrew and I both laugh at what “ruins” of our cities today might look like. As Andrew said, our buildings today are disposable. If only modern skyscrapers could be made of stone blocks like these ancient baths, libraries, gymnasiums, and colosseums were. I’m sure that wouldn’t be expensive at all… or pose any kind of safety threat…

According to Wikipedia, the large necropolis (burial site) includes the Sarcophagus of Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, something we didn’t know when we walked through. Maybe we would have learned of this in the museum, but it was Monday, and alas, that meant the museum was closed.

As always, it was lovely walking through. I feel so fortunate that Andrew likes to just walk around and explore just as much as I do. We underestimated the power of the sun however and drank our water before we even started walking through the ruins. We probably would have lingered longer had we not been so hot and thirsty. You only need one day to explore Pamukkale and Hierapolis together. We did this, but because the town is so depressing (for lack of a better word) I split our visit up into two days on the blog instead of posting some rather boring video clips of empty streets and what appears to be a tourist town stuck in the 1970’s. It’s clear this town once was, but is no longer, and might not ever see better days…

Day 253: Hadrian’s Gate

Hadrian’s Gate is one of the few ruins in Antalya to see. We happened to stumble upon it looking for bus companies to book our tickets to Goreme. I’m glad we did, because even though it’s not as spectacular as other ruins, it’s still pretty incredible to think that this was built in the year 130. Yea, you read that right. 130. It was built for the Roman Emperor Hadrian who visited that year.

Apparently city walls were built around the gate and it wasn’t used for awhile, which is why perhaps it’s in such good condition these days. After being in Africa, where the history is mostly oral, it’s really incredible to be in a land overflowing with visual history. Afterwards, we swung by the bazaar, and much like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, I was a little dismayed at the majority of the market being more knock-off bags, rhinestone studded Euro jeans, knock-off sunglasses, knock-off shoes, etc. etc. etc. We didn’t stay long.

Early in the evening, after figuring out where exactly the bus company was, we were able to purchase tickets and get a “service” ride to the station for our overnight bus to Goreme.

Day 116: Old Goa

Old Goa: Church of St. Francis of Assisi, The Basilica of Born Jesus, which holds the remains of St. Francis Xavier, and St. Augustine’s tower. These are just a few of what Old Goa has to offer, and what we saw when we took a break from the beach to do some sightseeing in the old Portugese town. Again, I was expecting something different, more of an old town atmosphere than an area that was seemingly limited to the different churches of the past, only some of them still being used today. As much as I enjoy walking through different temples and trying to pick up details of different religions, it felt very comfortable being able to walk through a couple of Catholic churches, and then climb the ruins of another. I also appreciated the collision of religions, displayed by the ropes of marigolds (Hindu practice) draped over an altar outside of the Basilica of Born Jesus.

Built in 1861 by the Portugese (who had colonized Goa in the 15th century until a plague hit, and the city was abandoned in the 18th century), the Church of St. Francis of Assisi is a Roman Catholic Church featuring frescos of his life and a main alter dedicated to him, Jesus, and Saints Peter and Paul. Pews have been removed (when I’m not sure) and burial markers lie in their place. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in a gutted out church like this before. It felt… empty, which is a shame, because the walls and side altars and the vastness of the church was all quite stunning.

The Basilica of Born Jesus is a short sprint down the road from the Church of St. Francis Assisi. It was completed in 1605, and is not only the first minor basilica in India, but it is also the best example of Baroque architecture in India. Although the facade is quite ornate, the interior wasn’t equally so, at least not the side walls of the church. However, it is a fully functioning church and held quite a few more people, pilgrims even, who had traveled to see the church, but more importantly to pay respects to the remains of St. Francis Xavier who is kept inside the Basilica.

Interesting, and slightly morbid, is that his body was originally buried on a beach in China, before being moved to Malacca for two years before again being exhumed and moved to Goa. It is said that his body was as “fresh” as it was the day he was buried in Malacca. A few pieces of his body have been removed to be put on display around the world- Rome, mostly. But the best story- again- story (I’m not entirely sure it’s true) is that a woman snuck into the church when his body was on display and bit off his toe. It is said that officials were able to track down who stole the toe from the trail of blood (from the toe) that led to her house. Crazy, right?!

His body is displayed every 10 years- the last display was in December of 2004, so only one more year and his body is scheduled to be displayed for your pilgrimage pleasure. Until then, his body is housed in a glass case inside of this tomb, below. There were so many tourists and pilgrims taking their picture in front of the tomb that I didn’t stay long and only snapped this photo as I walked out into a tiny museum like hall of religious paintings, his original casket (what a tiny person he must have been, because that box was not big at all!) and gift shop.

Our last stop in Old Goa was to see the ruins of the Church of St. Augustine. The ruins include a four story belfry tower, eight chapels, four altars, and an expansive convent. It was big. It was also quite fun to climb up and take in different views. Kate was my muse for the afternoon as we all went in different directions to explore, yet kept bumping back into each other at different turns.

And then, we played “scenario.” Scenario is a game that one of my favorite people in the world taught me. (Hi, Lindsay!) To play, you shout out an emotion or a place or activity and you act it out instead of just smiling or dropping a peace sign (like you do in Korea). 

When we got back to Calangute, I made Kate pose with the New Year ‘Old Man.’ We saw quite a few of these ‘old men’ around town and from my understanding- a man is made for good luck for the new year. Each man holds a bucket asking for donations- which, if you donate something, you get good luck as well? And then on New Year’s Eve, the man is burned, allowing you to have a fresh start for the new year, but will return next year to take away your misgivings or bad deeds or something like that. (We asked about this to different people three different times, and the answers were a little confusing. Basically. It’s a tradition. For the New Year. For luck. Is probably the simplest, most straightforward interpretation of it all.)

Day 110: the ancient ruins of the Vijayanagara Empire

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!

Day 109: Hampi, Virupaksha Temple

Hampi was not on our list of places to see in India. And then not one, nor two, but three different people (or sets of people) said it was their favorite place in all of India (or at least of all of where they visited). We shaved a day off of Mumbai and a couple off of Goa to squeeze it in. I’m so glad we did. The town is tiny, less than ten roads that go around or form a humble dirt grid of guesthouses and restaurants. The town is somewhat smack in the middle of the ancient capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. So all around these little dirt roads are huge boulders, a beautiful river, and ancient ruins.

The empire was created in 1336 by two brothers whose main goal was to protect the area from Islamic invasions. For nearly 300 years, the kingdom of Vijayanagara prospered and ruled over the majority of the southern peninsula. Andrew bought a book on Hampi from a small business owner (he was 13. maybe. I enjoyed his small business owner sales pitch immensely) and we read up on the empire’s rise and fall and tried to figure out which ruin was which during our visit.

Our first stop was the Virupaksha Temple right outside of Hampi proper. Virupaksha is a temple dedicated to Shiva and is considered the holiest temple in and around Hampi.

We walked through, past monkeys, into underground chambers, and even a tiny dark room that had a built-in pinhole like camera where the temple appeared on the back wall upside down. And then, on our way out, it was time for our latest impromptu photo shoot.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve seen this with others, where an Indian baby is pushed into the arms of a Western tourist and the baby is so confused and scared that he or she starts crying and the tourist is embarrassed… I knew the drill. That baby wasn’t having any of it, so I just laughed and insisted it was ok that I didn’t hold her for a group picture.

I fired off a few frames of this beautiful mother and daughter. After, as usual, when I went to show her the screen, a million little fingers started pushing buttons and I couldn’t figure out what setting was changed when I could only see one of the frames I shot of her. It was stuck on a rather unflattering ‘talking’ kind of shot. You know, where someone’s mouth is open weird and it just looks silly. She was a little embarrassed, laughing it off, but when I finally figured out the changed settings and uploaded the images, I was delighted to have gotten this image! If only I could have tracked her down again to show it to her so she would be delighted as well!

One of the boys kept asking for ‘photo’ which was confusing until I realized he really wanted to take a photo himself. He was delighted when I handed over my DSLR (making sure the strap was around his neck of course) and let him take a few shots.

By this point, there was quite the crowd of amused parents and Indian tourists watching the photo shoot. Many of them laughed at the excitement (Obviously these pictures are only some of the many that were taken inside the temple walls) and warmly smiled back at me when we finally tore ourselves away and walked out. Interacting with India when it clearly does not involve an exchange of money is an entirely different ballgame. A ballgame I want to play everyday. If only…

As you can imagine, I needed a little bit of an Indian pick-me-up and Hampi was already proving to be a necessary spoonful of sugar.