The chronicles of KA35 : Hampi, Bellary

When I returned home after my last visit to Hampi, the feeling was an incomplete one. Three years from then, I was craving to come here once again. I wanted to submit myself to the serene beauties of the amazing structures once again. Hence, it had to be the first destination of our ambitious trip - Bharatvarsh!

This place has a lot of mythological as well as historical importance associated with it. It was here, on the Hemkuta hill, that Lord Shiva accepted Parvati as his wife after being impressed by her tapasya. Parvati is also called Pampa and the river where she worshiped Shiva came to be called as Pampa river (now Tungabhadra). The Sanskrit word Pampa transformed to the Kannada word Hampa which later became Hampi. Kishkindha, the place where Ram and Laxman met Sugreev and his army, is nearby too.

Somewhere around the 1300s north-central Karnataka was ruled by the Hoysala and Kampili kingdoms until Allauddin Khilji and Mohammed Tughlaq raided them. The Vijayanagara empire rose from the ruins of the Kampili kingdom and Hampi was the capital. They built temples, mahals, shrines, housing and shopping complexes and expanded the empire for 200 years until a coalition of Muslim rulers ransacked Vijayanagara, beheaded the king and set the city on fire. Among the kings who ruled, Krishnadevraya was the most powerful and just king and people of Hampi remember him even today as a hero. His reign was the golden era of Vijayanagara.

There are several options for commuting in Hampi - auto-rickshaws, taxis, bikes or bicycles. The first day we hired an auto-driver who showed us 5-6 temples. But I was not satisfied with that, especially when you have about 1600 structures around you! The next day, after a terrifying two-kilometer walk in the dark from Lotus temple to our room, we had no choice but to rent bicycles. We were here for about six days and I enjoyed every bit of it. The main attractions of our visit were the stage we stood on at Hampi festival and the cleanliness pledge taken by 2500 people, the Hampi public school where we took a small session for the kids, the cleaning drive of Ganesha temple premises and the visit to Malyavanta hill for sunset!

Best places to eat in Hampi include Mango tree restaurant for a multi cuisine meal, Venkateshwara for a quick budget meal and Moonlight restaurant for a nice South Indian thali, but none of these match the idlis of Chanda! You can find her in front of Virupaksha temple between 8am to 10 am daily with her chants of 'Hath rupaye naak idli' meaning 10 rupees for 4 idlis.

We  met a couple of interesting people in Hampi : Claudie from Italy - who had every inch of his body inked and two stars planted inside his forehead, Utsamma - the caretaker of Chandikeshwari temple, Ranjit - the guy from whom Priyadarshan Jadhav's character is inspired in the movie Hampi, Christina and Andre - a brother and sister pair from Israel, Mariana from Italy - who was promoting Swachh Bharat with her colleagues from Bangalore, Aditi and Tilak - a couple from Kothrud (Pune) who were very excited to meet Marathi people in Karnataka, Naresh - an Englishman of Gujarati origin who had cousins in 12-15 countries and a cousin in every continent and ofcourse our host Malli - who had traveled the length and breadth of India!

It was a very diverse experience with a lot of culture exchange and I will cherish every bit of it..