A journey through Vijayanagara Empire - ನಮ್ಮ ಹಂಪಿ ಪ್ರವಾಸ

It is my maiden attempt to write my travel experience. Hope it comes out well :)

It was one of my childhood dreams to visit the capital city of erstwhile Vijayanagara empire and particularly to see the Raja beedi where people of that time used to trade muthu-rathna,vajra-vaidoorya in seru (a measuring equipment .. equivalent to 1 kg) and imagine myself being in that era. That dream was transformed into a reality on Dec 23rd 2006.

I floated the idea of Hampi trip among some of my like minded friends through a series of emails to which most of them agreed but some took exceptions in the last minute. Finally we were 3 , Myself,Gopal and Prashanth Acharya popularly known as PAM. It was decided, all three of us would head from different directions(Bangalore,Mangalore and Pune) towards Hampi and all would converge at Hospet on 23rd morning.

The D-day arrived and Gopal and PAM had already reached Hospet on 23rd morning but unfortunately my bus got delayed by 3 hours. So I came at 12:30 noon. By then Gopal had already finished one round of nap. A quick decision was taken to see the Hampi that day itself skipping TB dam. We hired a car and started our trip. We were all very hungry and hence the driver was directed to take us to a good hotel. He stopped at KSTDC hotel and we ordered for lunch. The lunch was so meagre, we had to order an extra bowl of rice. But when the bill came to desk we were shocked! It was a KSTDC hotel after all.

We headed directly to the Raja beedi leading to Vittala Devalaya and just then my childhood dream turned into a reality. I could see the merchants selling diamonds and pearls in heaps on either side of the street. I imagined buying a seru of vajra for my wife ;-)..

Vittala gudi is full of stone buildings and this is where the world famous stone chariot is. By looking at the stone carvings we felt its useless if we just look at them, so we thought of hiring a guide. We enquired a guide about his fees. Ooops ... that was too much. Just then a foreigner troup had hired a guide who knew a bit of English. He was explaining in aruku-muruku Kinglish and Gopal was following them silently. We too then followed him. We came to know through him that each stone in that complex has a magnificient story to tell. I was just stunned by the music those stones make. Each stone makes a different sound that matches with one of the musical instrument. Hats off to Sri Krishna Devaraya. I wish I was in that era if not as a soldier, at least as a guard ;-)

We then moved to the river and enjoyed local boat ride. Then comes the interesting part ie Queens Bath. We were puzzled why would the queen require such a big swimming pool. I convinced myself, may be Krishna Devaraya had many wives. Water supply to this pool comes through a stone pipeline! From here we moved to Mahanavami Dibba. This is a high place where the Raja used to witness the games and kasarathus during Dasara festivities. You can see many ruined underground constructions but there is no one to tell you what they were. You can assume anything you would like.

Our next move was to Lotus Mahal. History says music concerts used to be held in this building which resembles Kamala hoovu. Also it is naturally air conditioned! Very near to this is a row of gopuras which used to be dwelling places for elephants. They were interesting to watch.

Finally, we reached Virupaksha devalaya which is the epicenter of the Hampi town. On the way we had stopped at monolith Laksmi Narasimha and sasive kaalu Ganesha and Kadlekaalu Ganesha. We could not watch the latter as the sun had already set and Ganesha seemed to be sleeping with lights off. Virupaksha was the family deity of Sri Krishna Devaraya. This is the only temple in Hampi where there is an idol and poojas are being offered. Otherwise all the other temples were empty without God. All of us were atheists and hence were not interested in offering poojas. We just saw the temple and returned back.

It was around 7:30 pm and Gopal was crazy about Mango tree restuarant which he had heard from Naidu that it was famous for lassis. And we drove towards Mango tree ... We stopped at some place and a boy with a lantern came to pick us up. We just followed him. he took us through the banana tree plantations and that was exciting. We reached Mango tree restuarant after walking a short distance. Wow ... fantastic !! Its very different from other restuarants as it was spread around a huge mango tree facing the river with a Uyyale hanging in the middle. The ambience was awesome and we were all greatly impressed. We ordered for lassis,pakodas and special meals. In that kind of ambience anything would taste great. But we regret we should have visited that in the daytime. Myself and Gopal enjoyed the swing after the meal but PAM hesitated as he feared he might be thrown out into the river ;-)

We returned back to Malligi Hotel at around 9 PM. I had decided i would go for a Kannada movie, so asked other's opinion. PAM denied saying he is tired. Gopal agreed instantly and we both went to Ravichandran's "NeelaKantha" in a near by theatre. Needless to say Ravichandran will definitely pay back your ticket money in the first one or two scenes itself, howsoever the story may be ;-) I enjoyed the movie, donno about Gopal. We came back from movie and had a sound sleep. So curtains down for Day 1.

Next morning, we woke up fresh with a new bout of energy and got ready by 9 am where in we had to check out the Hotel. We checked out and kept luggage there itself and went to TB dam. We enjoyed the scenic beauty of the dam and the water and the park. Meanwhile somebody(PAM or Gopal) suggested Chitradurga as our next stop for visit and I just wanted that. I put forth a suggestion to visit Chitradurga instead of Badami,Aihole,Pattadakal and Bijapur. I had come from north and did not want to go backwards. My idea worked and they both agreed for Chitradurga.

So , we boarded a Bangalore bus and reached Chitraduraga at around 5:30 pm. Without wasting any time we rushed to the spot ie the fort and tried to cover as much as possible before dusk. We saw the Obavvana kindi and Gopal even came out of it like a Hyder Ali sainika. Thank God.. there was no Obavva with onake :) Gopal survived. We appreciated Obavva for her braveness and at the same time felt ashamed of ourselves...;-)

We again took a Bangalore bus and I got down at my home town Sira on the way to Bangalore and bid them good bye. That marked the end of our two day trip and we enjoyed it a whole lot.

Your comments are welcome!