Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible.
I tend to religiously follow this in my life and the return has been significant. This story started with total randomness.
There was a cultural event going on in our college and it was supposed to end by 11 pm. Surprisingly, our performance ended by 10 and as it was friday, suddenly the thought struck me, 'let's go somewhere on this weekend".
When you search for 2 days getaways from hyderabad, Hampi naturally comes in every list. After reading this post, you'll want it to be number one. It was 10.15 and there was a train to Hampi at 11.10. At 10.30, it was decided that the weekend would be spent at this world heritage site.
Hampi remained the capital of Vijayanagara Empire for around 200 years. It was chosen because of its strategic location, bounded by the torrential Tungabhadra river on one side and surrounded by defensible hills on the other three sides. At that time, these elements served security. Now, they are a feast to the eyes and make Hampi an irressitibly beautiful place.
We reached the station on time and bought 8 general tickets. We were sure that we won't be getting any seat and it was confirmed when we all had to furnish the area outside the toilet (You know how Indian train toilets are) to make ourselves comfortable. But as they say always, when you have a good company, you can enjoy anywhere. Look at these happy faces.
We reached hampi around 11 in the morning. The train drops you at Hospet and from there you have to take a bus which runs every hour and the journey is about 30-40 minutes long. The moment you reach near Hampi, you can feel the difference in the surroundings. Everything is so calm and resonating with nature. There is so much positive energy that it forces you to loose all your inhibitions and you'd discover yourself being in the most relaxed state that you ever have in your life.
At 12pm in the month of March, the breeze was like what you'd get at some beach in Goa.
The bus stop is at the centre of the market, some 300 metres from Virupaksha temple. The auto stand is just outside, so the moment you get down from the bus, you'll see a group of auto walas rushing towards you to offer you a complete tour of the 'Ruins of hampi', as UNESCO calls it.
The tour will cost you somewhere between 400 to 500. If they start with a high price, you can negotiate with them as we did. One good thing they do is provide you a map that shows all the points that they will be covering. At first, it looks like there's a lot to cover here, but it's not more than a 4 hours tour. It actually depends on how much time do you spend at each place, or rather how much a particular place holds you. They drop you back at the same place.
The architecture is reallly magnificant. At some places like the hampi bazaar, you can actually picturise what the kingdom would have looked like at that time. Virupaksha temple, vittala temple, queen's bath, Narasimha Vigraha, Sasivekalu Ganesha, Elephant's stable and there are many others. If you properly read the inscriptions at the monuments, it wouldn't take you much time to travel to 16th century and feel that the air was a lot different at that time.
They had their annual festival the next day, so we were lucky enough to see the three-storey chariot that is used every year to carry out rath yatra.
So, architecture done ! After three hours, when we were nearly exhausted, it was time to search for a good place to eat. And let me tell you that the trip actually started from this restaurant, named mango tree restaurant. It's located just adjacent to the river road and tries to gives you a glimpse of what you are going to experience on the other side of the river. Trust me this is the best place you can go to after that tour. A laid-back place, delicious food, breathtaking psychedelic art and your mind at peace, you won't need anything else at that point of time. The sitting style and walls will remind you of those small cafes that you'd have seen in Gokarna. They have a vast menu and everything we tried was decent enough. Try their tomato cheese paratha and momos. In drinks, banana lassi is pretty good.
After relaxing there for around 2 hours and fearing that everybody will doze off there itself, we decided to proceed. The walk from Mango tree to river bank is quite engaging. Just after starting, you'll start seeing several small shops which like at any other tourist place, sell the local handicrafts. These kind of shops offer a number of things to adorn yourself, so don't ignore them while you are walking past them. Then as you move forward, the Tungbhadra river will appear on one side and the Virupaksha temple on other. At this point of time, it was difficult to appreciate both of them but in the next two days, there were some points in the trip when we were just sitting and staring at both of them. As it is the case with every major river in India, ghats have been built near the river. This is one of the aspects of our old kingdoms that I cannot resist to appreciate everywhere in this country. When you start to think about it, you can't possibly limit the number of benefits that it has. The depth of the river doesn't look much at this point, but when we asked the locals if we could swim across to the opposite side, the reply that we got was the depth is 20ft, and you may find crocodiles on your way :D. We decided to believe only the first part.
This road is named river road and a ferry( Hampi-kiskindha ferry) runs from here to take you the other side. The cost is 10 rs and it can take upto 10-12 people at a time. The locals here are very supportive. Initially a bunch of autowalas came rushing towards us to offer transport help. At this point, some other people came to us to ask if we needed any psychedelic-help.
You'd have heard that the grass always appers greener on the other side, but in this case, it was a different world, and we were yet to explore the 'grass'. When we reached the other side, it felt like we were in a totally different place. All the background noises seemed to vanish into the thin air. It appears as if this was a forest at some time, that has been specially designed so that you can come here and relax. A very pleasant breeze welcomes you and everything in your surroundings changes its colour to the one that reverberates with the nature. I accidently turned back to have a look at the river AND, discoverd the first point where you can appreciate the river, virupaksha and ghats, all together. The distant local people that we were able to see on the other side appeared as if were they part of a society that runs in a parallel universe.
Here again, you will be offered help by a group of people, this time for stay. I'd recommend to go with one of those guys, as they will show you different cottages and you can inquire about other things also. When we saw the first cottage, we knew this was the one we were going to choose. We didn't even ask the guy to show any more cottages to us. Imagine this scenario : When you walk out of your cottage, you are welcomed by the extra-green paddy fields upto a distance, with a blend of coconut plantation, and then those large rocks at the end which seem to call you the moment you look at them. More, the hammocks just outside the cottage are an icing. After seeing all this, we were in no mood to go anywhere else. The place's name is 'Funky-Monkey' and guess what's the rent for a single person. Just 200 Rs!
It was 4.30 in the evening. Ideally at this point of time, we should have been more enthusiastic to go and explore the city, but when we were offered this scene, leisure won over exploration. The evening was spent in our high senses, just staring at this spectacular landscape. Sometimes in life when I am in these kind of scenarios, I wonder if all what I am doing in my life apart from travel is worth or not. There is an intense and irrestible desire for freedom. For travel and to escape the regularities of life that unneccessarily try to occupy time and space. I am sure this thought occuers to everybody; the difference is what stimulates it.
Anyways, when we were back to this world and craving for some delicious food, we went out in search for a good restaurant. Luckily, the funky monkey had its own restaurant and there was a surprise waiting for us. They had various musical instruments. Needless to say what happened afterwards, dinner was followed by a jam session under the stars. Initially, everybody was full of energy and crying at the top of their lungs. There was so much happiness all around. After some time, things slowed down gradually, and we shifted from Euphoria to Piyush Mishra, from loud cries to hymns. There was the sound of music, and then there was silence all around. I don't know the exact word for this, but it usually happens that we you are happy and crying out loud, the nature also shouts and resonates with you. And when you are calm, the nature also lowers its voices to help you concenterate. There's a famous quote :
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
After some time, people started dispersing.
At this point, I was feeling that this trip is turning out to be a perfect one. But, there were more things awaiting us the next day. One of those things was cliff jumping. I didn't mention it till now, but I had read about it before, and that was the reason most of the people were convinced to come here at such a short notice. The plan for the next morning was to first observe the sunrise from the highest rock that we could see from our cottages (refer the photo) and then go for cliff jumping. At that time, it was very difficult to leave the hammocks so I decided to stay under the stars for the night. I think this is something that everybody wishes to do at least once in their lives : sleep under the stars. Hampi is one of those places that spreads out its arms and welcomes you to fulfill this wish.
In the morning, we left our cottage around 5.30am. The climb is quite easy one and it will take you around 25 minutes to reach the top. From that point, you can see the whole town on one side and the rocky mountains on the other. Have you ever wondered why we find the sunrise and sunset so much(remove) beautiful? Why all these natural elements appeal so much to our eyes? Whether it's mountains, sun, beaches, forests, stars, or even deserts. Everything in this world that is purely natural is divine. And no matter how much you enjoy the other things, at the end you'll find peace in one of these only. I think I need not write anything about the sunrise here.
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