Hampi : Pure "Fleasure"

Boondon ke motiyon mein

Khulke ehsaas aaya

Waqt se nikalke

Lamha dil ke paas aaya

Chooke guzra tha

Par dil ko na mehsoos hua

Ab jo dekha toh

Woh lamha dil ko raas aaya

"Boondon ki Motiyon"

Javed Akhtar, Wake Up Sid

I've always always heard of Hampi and always wanted to go. It sounded like this beautiful tiny town with beautiful temples and everything rustic and nice. Living in Hyderabad made it easier to get to Hampi. But we never made a plan and hence never went.

Until one day, I got a ping. I was told to "carefully listen and consider" it. For a second I thought my friend on the other side was about to make a Sales Pitch and I had to carefully listen and evaluate it. Instead the question was: There's a long weekend coming, let's go to Hampi. Now all this build up was because I was studying for GRE and since it's just a month away, every single day was precious. I thought about it for exactly a second and said let's the goes!

After hunting for train tickets, which we did not get and bus tickets, which we eventually got, all packed on Thursday, extremely excited, we set out. The only glitch being : it was a non-ac bus and a 10 hour journey. Now the AC is not important, cleanliness is. We decided to go for it anyways! We stopped in our tracks when we saw the bus that was supposed to take us all the way to our weekend-getaway: Hampi! It was not only run down (without shockers on a village road) but also had an AC and non-AC compartment! We sat down and said ok, it's not that bad. But 1 hour into the journey and we were all complaining of aches! Anyways, raat gayi baat gayi.

We reached Hospet early next morning and decide to screw Diwakar (the bus) and get train tickets in tatkaal for our return journey. After spending a futile 45 mins at the Railway Station we sat in our auto and headed to our destination: Shanti Guest house in Hampi, 13 kms from Hospet. We crossed Hampi town and decided that we had to come back to SHOP (please exclude the boys, who slapped their foreheads and looked helpless)

To get to the guest house we had to cross Tungabhadra. There was a "motorboat" ferrying people from one side to the other, Rs 10/- per person. To get in was easy, we had to step into the water while getting out though. We reached Shanti Guest House and it was perfect. Exactly what we all wanted. The house boy showed us to our huts and we were thrilled to discover the swings outside. It looked serene, green, you could hear the river flowing in the distance and exactly the thing to take us all away from Hyderabad and our respective jobs.

After the freshening up and changing bit. We all collected, some on swings and others on chairs, some on the steps, and called for chai! An awesome glass full of chai and conversations, was what we needed. We talked and talked and talked. Called for food in between. Then talked more. Called for more food and more chai. And then finally after all that food and chai, decided to go get some beer and lunch.

All showered and in proper vacation clothes, we walk towards Laughing Buddha! A nice kick-ass place to chill and relax! With trippy posters all over and mattresses on the floor and stone tables in between, perfect music and a chiller-trippy waiter, the place was perfect to just....chill. I think Laughing Buddha defined what we did in Hampi: we just chilled for three days. After a couple of beers and some awesome food and my first ever Banana Nutella Pancake, we headed back to the guest house. We spontaneously decided to go to the river side, so we walked through the paddy fields, it was quite a distance, and it was getting dark. A little apprehensive, we still continued. When we reached the river the view was just worth it. The sun was just going back home and the moon, was a perfect prelude to the Eid ka Chaand that was to come out the next day. We walked back to the huts in silence, still enthralled with the view that we had just witnessed.

After the bus journey we were all tired, the boys even more so! We all decided to crash for a bit and then figure out. We woke up, hungry again and headed straight to the restaurant. I had a cup of Chai again. After Dinner we headed back to our huts and sat outside and talked. The topics revolved around people to career to relationships, life, parents, marriage..basically things people our age usually talk about. After making a lot of noise, something the neighbours admonished us for the nest day, we decided to call it a day at 3am.

The next morning after we met for breakfast at the restaurant in Shanti. It was called Sunrise Breakfast and omg! it was out of this world! Here's what it included:

• Chai/Coffee
• Baked Beans
• Eggs (made to your liking)
• Freshly baked bread
• Amul Butter
• Kissan Jam
• Mushrooms
• Fried Potatoes

Water came in mouth? Good, that was the point. It took us easily an hour to finish it, of course we had interesting conversations to go along with this yummy spread.

Today was the day the girls would get to shop and the boys, to chill more. We head out of the guest house and walk towards the motorboat guy, only to realise that because of a high tide, there will be no motorboats plying that day. Ok no sweat, we will figure out something. So we walk to the opposite end of the island. The round shaped boat made out of reeds was ferrying people to the opposite side. The boat guy knew we had to get to the town and since the motorboat wasnt an option, he could loot us and hence quoted Rs 800 to get to the other side (near the town). We said "Balls!" and crossed to the opposite end. From here we had to take an auto to Hampi, which was 50 kms and two hours away. A rickety rickshaw,all of us cramped in, we bargained and secured a deal : Rs 800 to and fro. Manju, our Auto driver had a Russian girlfriend,who bought him a bunglow in Goa worth Rs 17 Lakhs. When asked why he doesn't live there instead, he answered "the auto business there isn't good" We tried to keep a straight face, some sniggered. Anyways thanks to Manju we got to Hampi in exactly two hours.

One awesome thing that tourism has done to hampi is the way it has taught the locals English so well. Manju himself spoke fluent grammatically correct English. He bought us to Mango Tree. Another well-known, must-see place in Hampi. It is a restaurant. Veg. You see we were hungry again! the special part about Mango tree was not the food, but the view. The seating arrangement was such that you sat facing the river with nothing but branches of a huge Mango tree covering you. There was just a huge expanse of TungaBhadra before you. The view was breath-taking. We sat there for 5 mins, just taking the scenery in. The food was nice, though veg. After a filling meal, much to the boys dismay, we set out to the market to shop!Bangles, Bags, earrings, and boys bought shirts :)

7:30pm and it was time to call Manju to take us back. The auto ride back was a lot more active and fun, with songs from the 80s,90s (!) and now being sung in antaakshari. in Two hour and we reached the point from where we had to take the boat to cross. And voila! there was no water! The river that had come up in the morning had gone down by evening and Manju took us straight to Shanti. We bade him farewell and decided to put a few beers before heading to Laughing Buddha to "check out the night scene." Two beers and Chicken Tikka and Reshmi Kebab and my chai later we headed to Laughing Buddha to chill. Since it was Eid, there was no non-veg available (funny i know! I have always associated Eid with Mutton Biryani!) Anyways, a few more beers, me with my coca-cola. Talked talked and talked and decided to head back to Shanti for proper dinner, since Laughing Buddha was even out of cheese to make us Cheese fingers! Alas, we were too late, the restaurant at Shanti was shut. so we came running back to Laughing Buddha and ordered everything that was veg and does not involve cheese!

And then we were too full to move, so we chilled there!We finally got back to Shanti and decided to sit outside on the swing looking out to the Paddy fields and listening the river flow. Suddenly Ghost stories came up. One of us saw an old man standing near the tree and staring with sparkling eyes at us and the other shrieked and ran inside the room and shut herself. After much coaxing she agreed to come out only to run back again, when the old ma's topic re-surfaced. After another round of coaxing, and hand holding, she came out again, only to sit through another ghost story, which we managed to convince her was a prank. This time when she ran back inside, she took us along. We played Tabboo! and my , of course won! While the other was left "mi'n'cing" their words and getting "params" in the picture, it was all a part of the "fleasure".

The next morning was awesome, we had the same breakfast and cleared our dues and set out to the other side. Fortunately for us and our pockets, the river was down and the motorboat was back in business. We shopped more, and more and then just a little more. We ate at another Shanti restaurant. While I was addicted to momos, and banana nutella pancakes, one of us just couldn't get enough of hummus!

We then decided: that maybe we should just look at at least one ruin. We did see more than one. The structures were humongous, mesmerizing, you could just stand and stare for hours togehter. And and soon it was time to head back to Hospet.

This time, we had booked KSRTC Rajahamsa to take us back to Hyderabad. Though non-AC it was comfortable, had its parts in place and got us back without any aches.

At 5:00am, on a monday morning, we couldn't believe , as we got down from the bus, that our awesome vacation was over. We pledged to go back to Hampi, to those green paddy fields, to the river, to Shanti Guest House, to Laughing Buddha, Mango Tree, to chill!..........

....and yea for the ruins too!

Yun ki teh kar na pao re

Dil ki baat main hawa ke

Zariye pahunchaon re

Ya khud hawa pe chalke

Aaon re

Tumse pyaar hain yeh khulke

Jinme keh paaon re

Labz woh kahaan se

Laaon re

Life is calling our way!