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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Hampi

Hampi is a famous historical site in Southern India. The site consists of ruins from Vijayanagara, the powerful Hindu Empire that ruled much of Southern India from the 13th – 16th centuries. Muslim armies fought and destroyed the Vijayanagara empire, along with many of its ancient temples. Most of the temples in Hampi have been restored to their original state.

Everyone who has visited has said the same thing to me: The overnight bus ride really sucks, but it’s totally worth it.

The main temple in Hampi is one of the larger ones at the site. It’s also the only active temple in town.



While it may not be as old as some of the other temples, it does have a resident temple elephant!



After dropping a Ruppee in her trunk, she hands it to her trainer, then blesses you on the head with her trunk. She’s very well-trained!



Walking about 10 minutes East of the city center,you come across a large Krishna temple and a 30-foot monolithic Ganesha, my favorite Hindu god.



We spent one afternoon walking along the riverbank to one of the oldest temples in India, Virupaksha. There are many old ruins that are scattered among the massive boulders that define the hillsides here. Here’s a small temple structure with a long staircase.



One of the most famous structures in Hampi, the Stone Chariot, is located inside the walls of the Virupaksha temple (built in the 7th Century!)



There is also a nice bath area just down the road.



The view from the top of Hemakuta Hill was amazing. Didn’t quite make it for sunrise like I had wanted, but it was probably for the better anyway, since the trail may have been a bit tricky to navigate in the dark, with sandals. The day view was still pretty good…..



An underground temple:


A structure at the royal palace grounds called Lotus Mahal. Great architecture!



Twelve stables for the Queen’s royal elephants.



We came across some guys who were carving various structures out of stone and selling them on the street. I don’t usually buy these things, as they seem too manufactured, but it was really fun watching the guys make the structures out of plain stone. After some haggling, I decided to buy a stone Ganesh. I was in a hurry to get some pictures of them, so I shoved the newspaper-wrapped Ganesh into my pocket and grabbed my camera. As I started to walk away, the Ganesh fell out of my pocket and onto the pavement. Whoooops. I opened it up and saw that the stone was pretty banged up on the part that hit the ground. Fortunately the guys were nice enough to smooth out all the chips and dents, but they didn’t think it was too funny. They wrapped it up in approximately 10 full newspapers and then handed it to Neesha to put into her purse. My bad, but at least I have a story….



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