After a hot and sleepless night, and not the good kind, we headed out once again for a day of temple-ing. After persuading a rickshaw driver to drop us off at the further off palace complex, the drivers always being keen to double up as 'tour guides' are always keen to try and get your business for the day, we were off.
On entering the palace complex, being foreigners, we were relived of 250Rs (if you are lucky enough to be an Indian national you are admitted for a fraction of the cost, something which appears to be common around most of the big tourist sights!) we were met by a series of small monuments and the odd 'odd' museum. Far more impressive were the elephant stables which incidentally lay outside the palace complex and was therefor free to visit. The stables were positioned in front of a large green lawn which appeared to be tended to by a small woman, now the cow being a holy animal in India you would except it to demand a reasonable degree of respect from it's Hindu brethren and whilst these bovine deities can enjoy a free reign over any space from city center roads to beach side restaurants it would appear the common courtesy dis not apply to this woman's lawn. As the mother goddess strolled over the path and started to gorging itself on the lush greenery the woman started advancing towards it with great haste, arming herself with what she could en-route. With her arsenal of sticks and stones the beast came under a relentless aerial assault the woman advanced as fast as her restrictive sari would allow, the cow took the hint and made a quick retreat before the woman could make use of her newly acquired stick.
As our overpriced ticket allowed us entry to another temple on the other side of the sight we hot footed it, literally, back to Hampi town. Again finding ourselves walking around in the mid day heat we walked for what seemed like an eternity through a sparse, boulder strewn wasteland. After contemplating turning back we made one final push and stumbled upon the final temple on our tour, which possesed musical pillars which unfortunately after years of over/mis use were no longer playable in fear of complete destruction.
A long walk back and we had one last thing to tick off the list, to be blessed by the temple elephant at the main temple. Even the elephant appeared to be in on the tourist racket, she would happily dish out blessing to nationals for a coin (1 or 2 Rs) but a blessing, apparently, would not be bestowed on an international bonce for less than a 10 Rs note. On offering the note the elephant took it with its trunk and slipped it to her waiting handler, where it was slipped into his pocket, and you were dutifully bonked on the head.
Having been blessed and being pretty templed out it was time to leave Hampi behind and once again head beachwards. We had booked a sleeper bus to Gokarna and had been assured by the travel tout that it would be a 'luxury' bus, with suspension even, and would be a very smooth ride...
No comments:
Post a Comment