A visit to Hampi
Day 1
It was the 10th of June and I woke up and I woke
up to the sound of my mother calling me downstairs for my morning milk. As I
sat down I remembered about our road trip to Hampi and I had promised my mother
I would pack my bag and as I rushed up the stairs I saw my dad all ready and in
going frenzy. So I quickly popped in my cube and some paper to sketch on. As I
hurried down the stairs I saw my mother shouting at my sister to go for a bath.
So I put my bag down and hurried to the bathroom to get absolutely ready to go.
It was 9:30 by the time we reached the car and loaded up our bags and were off.
We thundered down the highways and expressways and stopped for five minutes for
some food and drink for the car and us. We had beat the morning rush and were
going to go nonstop because my grandmother had packed us some rolls and we had
provisions to last throughout this
entire trip. Close to two we passed down this village called Hospet. It was a
very nice village and it was afternoon when we had passed the village and all
the shops were closed and it was quiet. It was as if the entire village had
gone to sleep. The roads were sandy and
in some places paved. We then came onto an entire stretch of paved roads and we
continued on them. We saw many birds on the way. Then it suddenly appeared in
front of us; our lodge, The Sloth Bear Resort.
As we entered it was around 2:30 pm and the tires crunched
on the sandy surface and one man directed us to the office. There was a man
waiting for us and we showed him our reservation and he chuckled. He said that
we were the only ones who were here. We were showed our room and were left to
peace and had I hour to take rest. Of course only my dad slept and my mom, my
sister and me played a game called 3 2 5 and it was a lot of fun. After getting
up and finishing our game we left for the Daroji Bear Sanctuary. We sat in the
jeep that they had arranged for us and were off. It was quite far away but soon
we were at the gates and signed in. we were taken to the watch tower where they
gave us some binoculars and we were to find some sloth bears. Off course it was
only 4 o’clock and the sloth bears were
to wake up about just now. We were shown some feeding spots where the workers would put food for
the sloth bears and when they would wake up they could just stroll and eat.
Some
facts that I learnt about sloth bears
·
There were about 150 bears in that sanctuary
·
20 kgs of food were sent everyday
·
There were feeding spots and the bears could come and eat
·
The bears woke up at four in the evening, partied the entire
night and went to sleep ant seven
·
The female who had got babies would protect them so
carefully, killing the predator
It was around six o clock when we came back to camp. We
hadn't seen any sloth bears but we had seen several peacocks and peahens. The
bear sanctuary had shut and we were on our way back to the lodge. Over there we
played many card games and we had a good
dinner. With dinner we saw a movie about Hampi so we knew what we were going to
see tomorrow and went back to our room
to sleep.
Day 2
The next day we were to be out
by 9:00 but we started out a bit early because my mother insisted. We got into
the jeep and our driver drove us to Hampi. We started with the Virupakshya
temple. It was one of the main temples of that period. The main gate was eleven
stories tall and was very decorative. There were encarved animals on the
pillars, the walls and the ceilings. They were quite outstanding pieces of
architecture. As we walked in I saw a huge map which was showing most of Hampi. Our guide showed us around temple
where there was a huge space for banquets. We went inside and he showed a dark,
room sort of thing in which there was no openings except for a tiny hole in
which sunlight filled a wall. The man said it was a picture of the outside
statue but upside down. It was like an old camera and he used a cloth to zoom
in and out. Outside there were many bells but were locked away by the ASI. We
got out of the temple and our driver drove us to the next site.
We were then taken to a
stand-alone structure which was like a temple again. In this we saw a huge
ganesha. It is called Kadalekalu because it
means peanut and it was shaped like a peanut. This giant statue of Ganesha was carved out of a huge boulder at the
north eastern slope of the Hemankatu Hill . It was so big it
was barely even fitting into the temple. He explained how the king and queens
used to pray he before a journey. As we walked further away from the ganesha we
actually saw the ASI doing some excavation. Beyond that was the river TUNGABHADRA
and we went down to see it. Over there we saw an elephant bathing and we moved
a bit closer. As the rocks were slippery and we were little from the land my
sister slipped. My dad bent down to help her and he too slipped. I had to help
them out and when my mom saw them wet she was so mad. Plus my dad had her phone
and his phone in his pocket. They both were not working. We all sat into the
jeep and moved onto the next sight.
Next we saw the
mustard seed Ganesha and it was very small in a very big which was like a
temple again. I think that they had to be exchanged. Then it would be perfect.
We then reached the
underground Shiva temple and when I mean underground that means underground. It
was built under the ground so when the ASI dug it up it was under the ground
level. It was a temple with actually no Shivling but was still called a Shiva
temple because it had a Nandi bull. We went up and we saw a place where
everything was barricaded and we saw through the barricade a kind of ruined
guest house. In the car we had a can of coke and moved onto our next monument.
The next one was a
Narsimha. It was an avatar of lord Vishnu. He had changed into that form to
kill the mighty Hiranyakasipu. As you can see that the seven headed serpent is
on top of the statue, covering it. This statue had been broken by the invaders
but rejoined by the ASI. Next to it was a Shivling which was huge and 3 feet of
it was submerged in water. When the Pujaris came they would have only one sent
to put the offerings onto the shivling.
We then saw the bank
where all the coins were kept. There was a hole in the wall and I joked that
somebody had broken in.
we then went in front and saw some palace grounds.
There was a kind of stage and next to it
the lotus house. It was like a resting place to escape from the sun. there was
also a kind of pool in front of the lotus house. As I looked around I saw that
there were watchtowers on all four side of the grounds. There was a wall separating
the grounds and something else so we decided to have a look around.
There was another
ground and there were 11 majestic looking huge spaces which could fit an
elephant . and they were to fit an elephant. They were elephant stables and the
elephants were kept in there. As we know that the people of this place were
very peaceful and didn't have any wars until the Mughal invaders came and
destroyed it. The elephants were used for processions and far away journeys. On
the other side of the ground there were smaller looking stables and they were
for the numerous horses the people of vijayanagara had. My dad then found a
coconut water stand and we sat under the shade and sipped our water.
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On the way out we
saw two rocks which were literally leaning on each other. The guide said it was
the sister rocks. Legend had it that in the village they were telling stories
about the great gods and these sisters didn't believe it, they started
laughing. The gods got angry and they transformed the two sisters into rocks so
they could never laugh or mimic anybody in their life.
Just at the entrance
we stopped for this was our last monument for this half of the day. It was the
queens bath. As the name suggests the queen used to bathe here. The was a large
pool in the centre o f the bath and one staircase leading down into it. There
as a moat around the bath so no one could come in while she was bathing and it
was also used to bring water into the bath. There were many fancy pillars and
the ceiling was very decretive to walk under.
As we got out I felt
this hunger in my stomach and the sun on my face. We went back to lodge where
we had lunch and had a break. We lounged till 3:30 and then we went back again
for some more monuments.
We went to the interesting place ever. The kings
palace and palace grounds. There was a huge step type of thing which led to the
top. His castle had been made out of sandalwood because it would be very
cooling because their summers were very hot. But one problem was that
sandalwood burned very fiercely. So when the invaders cam they burned down the
castle to ashes. We climbed up the stairs and we got a good look of everything.
We
came down those steps and we were showed the other mysterious places in the
grounds. We saw a big platform where there used to be performing arts such as
dancing and playing music. Near it was a Nandi bull which was hollow from the
inside and so when we place our ears to the statue and somebody rapped on the
outside we could hear it echoing inside. We walked and then the thing I was
waiting for. : The secret passage. This was a kind of hideout, which was
underground and the royals used it to hide from enemies. There were steps
leading down and it was like a maze. It was very dark the passage was quite well
mad with no bumps. We walked and it was like a square and then we finally came
out.
As
we walked we saw a kind of waterslide for insects. We learned that it was a
drainage thing and it got fresh water in. behind it we saw a kind of tank but
it had a step kind of design. It was actually called the step tank and it was
used for washing deities only. After visiting this place I realised my history
sense kicked in. the drainage was so awesome for the 15th century and it was
exactly like the one in the Indus Valley Civilization. They had expert
architecture and it was certainly from the plans of the Indus Valley
Civilization. Next to it was these perfectly square stone things and they had
these circles in them and we get to know that they used to eat things in this
kind of plate. We then went back to the jeep and then we went to the last
segment of our trip to this archaeological area.
We
went to some parking lot and we were ushered into a golf karts which took us to
the top of the hill and one of the most anticipated temples. As we were going
up the hill we saw this kind of pillars. The guide explained that this was a
horse and elephant market. They had different sizes of stalls for different
sizes of animals. We then reached the most anticipated temple: The Vitthala
Temple.
Like the Viruppaksya Temple this also had the very
south Indian entrance- Gopuram. In the front we saw the stone chariot. The guide
explained that Lord Vitthala was an aspect of Lord Vishnu and he kept lord Vishnu's
vehicle a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560 (Garuda).
He kept a statue of Garuda in the stone chariot although now it is empty. There
are elephants pulling the chariot as they are very strong. In most temples on
the left side there are places to eat as the king hosted many different
banquets in many different temples. In the front was the thing that I waited
for this entire trip: the musical pillars. It was said that if you rapped
against the pillars they would make the sound of DO RE ME FA SO LA TI DO or as
in Hindi SA RE GA MA PA DHA NI SA. But unfortunately the ASI had closed that
part of the temple and we could not go in there. But the man then showed us a
another place where he rapped against the pillar and we could hear it by
pressing our ear to it. It was like that Nandi bull back at the kings palace.
A little further away was the
kings weight balance. It was a hug thing resembling the hand balance that they
fruit and vegetable vendors have. They put on one side weights and on one side
stood the king. So much for checking weight. The king could put on as much as
he wanted because all he would do is sit on his throne and they could even
extend the throne a bit.
We walked on to see the Tungabhadra river again. This used
to be the part where the old stone bridge was but now it was broken. Legend had
it had when Viyanagara was under attack the king let all his gold into the Tungabhadra
river instead of giving it away to the invaders. So you could see people in the
river fishing out coins. So this brought us to the end of our trip to Hampi. As
we got into the jeep we were taken to the museum which also contained the
important discoveries at Hampi. It was quite small but it was quite good. After
returning back to the lodge we had a snack and played cards and read books.
At dinner we watched a movie
about the sloth bears and facts about it. In the night at about 9:00 we sat
outside on a porch and saw the stars. We could see the planets Jupiter, Saturn
and mars in one line.
Day 3
We
all were up by 6 but they served breakfast only at 8:30 so we chilled and had
fun. We left by 9 and we went to the riverside. We parked there and after
fifteen minutes a ferry came which would make us cross the river. There were
bikes also and I thought how would they
fit in such a tiny boat? The answer: they could. We were seven bikes and
fifteen people on one small boat but we made it across.
We had to rent a Auto
which took us to the mountain we were to climb. We had to climb 600 hundred
steps up to the temple. It took us 45 minutes to climb up but it was worth the
view. It was amazing but we couldn't admire it for too long. My mom ushered us
into this temple kinds thing. Mom said that Lord Hanuman was born here and this
was called the Anjana temple. It is called the Anjana Temple after his mother. We did darshan and
then we had climb down the 600 steps. We sat in the auto and we did darshan of
many temples and we then sat back on the boat and went back to the lodge. We were
going to reach there when my dad said we are going to be having food outside
but not in the lodge. So we went back to the Viruppakshya temple. Behind were a
number of restaurants and we chose under the mango tree. Over there I had the most weird food ever:
Chapati with Humus. After a good food and ice cream we went back to the lodge.
We left from the lodge at five and were taken
to the Tungabhadra dam. Over there we saw the huge dam and how they were using
hydro electricity. We went down to this fountain park and saw fountains and
played a bit in the grass. We returned that evening by eight and we were asleep
by 8:45 because of the big day tomorrow.
Day 4
We
were up by five and in the jeep by six because we were going on the most
exciting part of the trip: Bird watching. We went to one part of the
Tungabhadra river channel and we saw many birds. Here is the list:
·
Have you ever
seen an owl? Like even in the night? We saw one in the early morning. We saw a
spotted owl.
·
We saw a hoopoe
which was bright orange with a yellow beak.
·
We saw an Indian
robin which was plump and was a violet .
And we also saw numerous other birds for
which I have forgotten the names of
We came to the hotel
and we had breakfast. But today we had company. Two visitors had come. But when
we finished our breakfast we went to our room to pack. We were leaving today
and we had to load our things into the car. By 10:30 we left from there and we
were on the road. Since we didn't have any food we had to make stops on the way
and reached back home by six. IT was my masas birthday and we celebrated it and
even went swimming. It was loads of fun!
This trip to Hampi had
been such a hit . If anybody has been to Hampi pls comment below and tell me something's
that I have missed.
