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We arrived in Hampi on a very uncomfortable sleeper bus so after no sleep, Jess lost her temper and screamed at the 100 (okay 2) rikshaw men that descended upon us as soon as we put a foot out the bus door. After calming down a little bit, we found a guest house and had a nap. We woke up feeling refreshed and no longer angry with India and went out to explore.
Hampi was an old Hindu empire that was invaded by Muslims in the 15th century. Whats left is the ruins of temples and market places set in the most amazing landscape of rocky mountains. All around are "naturally balancing rocks" which are just incredible. We hired a guide, Chandra, to show us round and he took us on an afternoon walking tour of some of the ruins. It was pretty hard going in the blistering heat - and wearing filp flops!! It was amazing though, to see uch a pretty place and learn about what it used to be like. We also had a little ride in a coracle boat down the holy river before heading back to the bazaar for tea.
The next day we visited the Monkey Temple which is at the top of a giant hill. 600 steps later we crawled inside and had tea with a "saddu" from London! All he did was sit in the temple and get stoned..apparently getting closer to God! yeah right, he also told us it was free to live there!! The reason we went there was the view and it was well worth the awful climb up (again flip flops being the problem!), it was the most beautiful sight ever of the mountains and the river and hundreds of rice paddies, we stayed there for ages, just sat on a rock watching the sunset!! Hampi is certainly one of the highlights of India.
A personal highlight for Jess was a trip to the cinema to see DHOOM 2 - the latest Bollywood blockbuster starring Hrithik Roshan, the hottest star of the moment! It is the best film Jess has ever seen (Heather not so sure!) !!! The funniest thing though was the sound of men screaming, whisteling and cheering everytime Hristhik came on the screen!!! ( Hrithik is a man by the way) It was that good that we (well Jess) will be going to see it again in Mumbai!!
Unfortunatly, the last day was spent with Heath being nurse as Jess spent most of the day being sick. A little disappointed that she didn't make it through India without vomitting, (but we don't think any foreigner has ever managed this!) but we did get to use some of the 10 tons of medical stuff we brought with us and by the evening she was feeling well enough to hop on a comfier sleeper to Cochin in Kerela for the last leg of our travels in India
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