Bangalore and Hampi

As promised, here is my blog post for Part I of the final 3 weeks of my amazing adventure in India!

Bangalore - January 21-22
Hampi - January 23-26
Goa (Palolem Beach) - January 27- February 1
Kerala (Varkala Beach) - February 2-8
Madurai - February 9

Bangalore

I took the bus down the ghat from Kodai to Bangalore to meet up with Cyd, who had been at a theatre festival in Chennai for the week. Although I did not know it at the time, it turns out I was very lucky to get into Bangalore when I did. I arrived in Bangalore at approximately 5:30 am, got off the bus, found the driver who was picking me up, and got to my friend's apartment by 5:55 am. I found out later on that a bandh had started in Bangalore at 6:00 am. A bandh is where a political party calls a general strike in order to protest a government decision. The city grounds to a halt - shops are closed, buses don't run - the streets are basically emptied for the day, and can become dangerous for those who do not adhere to the bandh rules. On that day in Bangalore, some of the bus drivers had ignored the bandh by braving the empty streets, only to get stones thrown at them and be driven off the road. So I am glad I was safely off my bus and inside the apartment just in time to avoid the angry bandh stone-throwers.

Driving through Bangalore though was the most Western experience I had had since getting to India. Bangalore is quite a modern, multicultural and international city, and I felt like I could have just as easily been driving through the streets of Toronto. After a day in Bangalore though, I already missed the more endearing qualities that more "Indian" cities have, including the swerve and honk driving method, the cows, goats and chickens that provide formidable obstacles in the roads, and the traditional sari and lungi-clad townsfolk.

We got to the train station later that day after the bandh, only to experience an encounter with a Hijra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia), India's version of a transvestite. Hijras are males who dress as females, and often have mutilated their genitals in order to try and be more womanly. They make a living by begging, and will approach Indian men asking for money, threatening to show their mutilated genitals if they don't get a sufficient amount of money from the man in question. Other beggars expect to receive 1-3 rupees per person, but these Hijras won't be happy without at least 100 rupees, enough to buy about 3 full meals in India. Apparently men would be severely embarrassed if a Hijra were to drop his/her pants and show him the mutilated genitals, often resulting in a hundred rupee donation to the begging Hijra. So I was sitting on the train when a Hijra came up beside me leaned over me and stuck his/her hand right under the nose of the Indian man beside me. As he/she leaned over me, I could distinctly smell sweat, and could see the layers of caked make-up over the clearly male facial features. After a few-minute exchange in Kannada, the language spoken in Bangalore, the still empty-handed Hijra moved on to another victim, thankfully without giving us any view that we didn't want to see.

Hampi

Driving in an autorickshaw towards Hampi from the train station in Hospet, we suddenly begin to see these curious piles of rocks coming into view. As we get closer to the town, we begin to understand why everyone says that Hampi is their favourite place in all of India to visit. Hampi is a geological mystery that is almost surreal to experience. There are rocks randomly strewn all across the landscape, many of them balancing precariously, making it almost impossible to believe that this topography was formed naturally. Hindu mythology decrees that the landscape was formed by gods throwing the boulders at each other during a battle, which is actually exactly what the topography looks like.

Cyd and I spent our first day in Hampi wandering around, climbing on rocks and checking out temples. We then joined a long line of Indians going to what we assumed was a temple. After following them for maybe 15 minutes, they all veered off towards a lake and started undressing. We then realized that we had stumbled upon the local laundry and bath day. All of the locals headed down to the water and jumped in, washed themselves, and then their saris and lungis. After washing them, they laid their clothes out on a rock to dry in the hot sun. The thought of all us Kitchener locals heading down to the Grand River every Saturday to bathe and wash our clothes in the river is just a bit ridiculous.

During our stay in Hampi, people kept telling us to climb up Matanga Hill to watch the beautiful sunrise. We were told that in order to get there in time to see the show, we had to leave at 5:30 am. So after trying and failing 2 mornings in a row to get up at 5:30 to see the sunrise, finally on our last morning there, we dragged ourselves out of bed in time. We left at 5:45 am, with nothing but a flashlight, to join the throngs of other tourists we assumed would be climbing up to see the supposedly spectacular view.

Turns out that we were the only ones. With our tiny flashlight beam, we stumbled our way through the pitch black boulder-strewn landscape, trying to find the trail up to the top of the hill. We eventually found the trail and began our ascent to the top. After about half an hour of climbing, it was still pitch black, and we were still the only ones on the hunt for the sunrise. Almost at the top, we came to a narrow 4-foot ledge we had to cross with a sheer drop on one side, and a rock face on the other. I crawled across it, but Cyd was too scared, so I got to the temple at the top of the hill just in time for the sunrise! I was the only one there, other than the "chai guy", a man who makes a living by climbing up the hill before dawn each morning to sell tea to the tourists who climb up to see the sunrise. The sunrise was absolutely spectacular as it burned a bright fiery red, climbing up over the amazing rock-strewn topography. About half an hour later, the rest of the tourists arrived, a group of about 30 rowdy German tourists. Cyd was then able to crawl across the ledge and came to join us to watch the sun rise. The monkeys also swooped in with the tourists, having realized that being at the top of the hill at sunrise meant a  guaranteed tourist-supplied breakfast. We were appaled though that the tourists were terrorizing the monkeys, by tempting them with bananas and then hiding and throwing them. Making the monkeys jump for the bananas, rip open grocery bags to get at bananas, and swatting the bananas between their hands on the ground as the monkeys tried to catch it. As a result, the monkeys were extremely aggressive. I was drinking tea, and at one point a monkey came up and tried to grab the cup from my hand. I said shoo and waved my hand at it, causing the monkey to bare its long, razor-sharp teeth and jump up at me, just missing my arm. It was quite terrifying, as the last thing I wanted was to have to get rabies shots for a monkey bite.



During a hike with Mark, we sat down for a yummy lunch of kidney beans, papaya, chickpeas, pineapple and cabbage eaten on leaves from nearby banana trees.



Taking pictures out of the train window on the way from Bangalore to Hospet.





Ox-driven cart. Quite common in India.

Piles of rocks and old ruins in the geological mystery of Hampi.

Matanga Hill, where we climbed up to the top to see the sun rise.

Achyutaraya Temple.



Townsfolk headed down to the lake on laundry/bath day.




Getting ready to bathe.



Laying out their saris to dry.



...obesity...what?