Hampi

After 10 days in Goa we thought we had better leave and go back into the real India...Goa was a state of amazing beaches and felt like we had left India behind, where we could relax, without all the chaos, bustling, and constant haggling with locals trying to sell us...rubbish!...whether it was a drum, a tiny Taj Mahal keyring, a wind up army man that crawls a long the floor or a huge balloon which is "very strong" as he smashes it into the ground as a demonstration!

Our taxi driver seemed to have a death wish, when taking us to the train station but we got there in 1 piece surprisingly and got the train to Hampi...8 hours long which was a small journey compared to our others (26hr, 14hr etc) but after around 4 hours had passed, we managed to attract a guy sitting on the top bunk, (who had originally shared my seat but got the message it was my seat and my seat only) licking his lips at Katrina...I dunno if that's how they pull over here...maybe it normally works, I don't know...



We got to Hampi and it was amazing, on a river, with ruins of an old Hindu Empire all set in a boulder-riden landscape covered in palm trees and banana trees.
You walk one way and your amongst the boulders, you walk the other way and you're amongst banana trees and palm trees with river estuaries running everywhwere....
The whole scenery was surreal..
The first day we all decided to rent bicycles and explore the ruins and the tracks all around Hampi. After reserving 3 pink bikes for the girls (although only 2 had a bell - and still no discount) and a flaming bike with bull horns for me...we set off on our adventure.
About 20 bottles of water and 300 pictures later we had all burnt our noses and were ready to head back before setting off the other way to find the 'main' temple which was a long the river.




The heat was sooooooo hot, it was mad. biking in 43'C heat, where we struggled to find any shaded areas and the electricity shut off every day for the evening...it made it impossible to cool down. Until on our last day we found a spot and just chilled out in the river! it was awesome!..although the Indians all in their tighty whities was a bit of an eye-sore to otherwise a perfect landscape!



That night we got the train to Bangalore which sounds all straight forward until we find out that the tickets are sold out and the only tickets we can buy are for general chairs...where all the indians cram on with their 200 bags per family! they were like chickens in a cage...so we decided we would try and find a few beds, but ofcourse with the trian fully booked we slowly found ourselves without any room!
In the end we got told their were spare beds in the Air-Conditioned rooms so made our way and found 4 beds!...perfect, until the conductor came a long asking for tickets, of which we didn't have!...luckily some Indian locals had a word with him and we managed to get 2 beds with 2 people in each! Somehow we got some sleep and arrived in Bangalore