Back to Bangalore

'I can finally tell you now' begins Edd. This sounds ominous, we are sitting in a very smart Rajasthani vegetarian restaurant, in a designer mall in Bangalore. 

'Tell me what?' I ask.

'Well you know you thought you saw a rat on the first overnight train to Badami. Well you definitely did, as when I folded my bed down for the night it was there waiting. After it ran off, I stuffed some of my blanket down the hole it ran into and hoped it didn't reemerge. I thought I ought to wait until we finished the train parts of the holiday before I told you...'

We arrived from Hosapete into Bangalore City junction at 6 am. Fortunately on this overnight train neither of us saw any rodents. We set out to explore the city reasonably early, and found the city market in full swing. Miles of jasmine garlands had already been spun, and sat in piles the size of tractor tyres in the centre of the market. It also had an amazing selection of multicoloured flashing Hindu shrines, which Edd was very tempted by. 

The next stop was the city fort, which the English had successfully destroyed most of in the eighteenth century. Then on through the backstreets (as Bangalore is digging up a lot of its main streets for a new metro system) to Tipu Sultan's palace. I'm not sure Tipu would have appreciated our visit. His favourite toy was a French built life sized mechanical organ of a tiger mauling an English soldier- complete with sound effects. Ironically this is now in the V&A, but we did see a small model of it.

Meena gave us some excellent recommendations for restaurants in Bangalore and it is fair to say that we spent most of the rest of the day eating with a bit of shopping in between. The Rajasthani restaurant was a great adventure. The waiters seemed a little surprised that we wanted to eat Indian thali and weren't opting for the Italian opposite. However once we had persuaded them of  our enthusiasm for the menu and ( despite me managing to spill a bottle of Pepsi everywhere) we were shown to a lovely table with golden thali dishes and mugs. Each course was a little bit of surprise for us- but we could mostly guess what each dish was. We waddled out into the designer mall about an hour and a half later, for an afternoon of shopping in the rain. 

Our last meal in India was at a very cool Parsi restaurant. It was the first restaurant in two weeks which served alcohol, and I tried some Indian Wine ( Sulla )which was surprisingly good. The Parsi community were originally immigrants from Iran, and are famous for their cafes in Mumbai. The food was really good- especially the chocolate brownie, which was necessary acclimatisation ahead of the return to the UK tomorrow. With the exception of some homemade chocolate in Coorg, we have not had any chocolate this holiday. This has been very tricky for Edd, who is already planning a chocolate binge the moment we land. 

We had a slightly adrenalin fuelled trip back to the hotel from a tuk tuk driver who seemed to be trusting totally in Gods will when it came to steering.  

We went back to pack ready for a 3.45am start to the airport the next day.

The elephant bath

It's a truth universally acknowledged that every temple elephant in possession of a kind mahoot must be in want of a daily bath. Lakshmi strolled out of the temple at 8.25am ready for her morning soak. She artfully negotiated the steps from temple to the river, stopping only to snaffle a large helping of peanuts from a lady selling nuts on the edge of the steps. She waded out into the water past women washing their clothes and children swimming. Before slowly lowering herself into the water, and with a small splash lay on her side ready to be washed by  three men with soap and scrubbing brushes. Whilst changing sides one of the bathers approached her for a blessing.  Using her trunk she squirted him with some river water before rolling onto her other side for the bath to continue.

We left her to it, and went to catch a ferry to the other side of the river. It turned into a long wait, as we needed the boat to be full before the ferryman would cross the 20 metres of water to the other side. Eventually we set out with a full boat- including a motorcycle parked precariously on the front.

There is an ongoing battle between the residents of Hampi and the government about how to preserve the ruins. Unfortunately this seems to lead to fairly routine demolitions, and the day before a large section of the village appeared to have been demolished, and everything was shut. I don't really understand the argument at hand between the residents and government, but seeing homeless people in the wreckage of what appeared to be well built houses did nothing to improve the aesthetic of Hampi.

We found a tuk tuk to take us into another village- Anegondi. This was a capital city of an older empire than Hampi. We had a wonder around, but had forgotten to bring the guide book, which was a bit of a mistake. We struggled to find anywhere to eat, but ended up having a highly nutritious lunch of what can only be described as Indian nick-nacks on the steps of a small food stall. A map in the town centre appeared to show elephant and camel stables so we decided to go on an expedition to find them. This involved a walk through the backstreets of Anegondi, past spotlessly clean houses and out into the fields beyond. After a long wonder about we found a dome sticking out of an overgrown patch of jungly looking plants. There was much excitement for about 30 seconds until we realised that if these were the stables the civilisation of Anegondi, they must have specialised in 'bonzi' elephants and camels. Instead we had found another small temple- Edd was delighted.

We decided to abandon the exploration as frankly it just got too hot, and began the journey back to Hampi. The tuk tuk driver took us to the Lakshmi temple on the way back. This place had a large tank covered in a stagnant layer of red grime, and a particular fondness of tinsel as a source of decoration. The shrine was very peaceful half way up the hill, but we decided it was definitely time to return to Hampi and find some proper lunch.

We spent a long lazy afternoon basking under the fans of a rooftop cafe, with mugs of masala chai and lemon and ginger tea. I left Edd to his book for a bit, and went  and had some amazing reflexology on my feet that were not enjoying hiking in sandals (RIP walking boots- the heat melted your glue.) 

We were leaving Hampi that evening, and went to try and say goodbye to Lakshmi the elephant. Sadly she was nowhere to be seen, but we climbed up the hill behind the temple to watch another spectacular sunset. The only problem was the bands of marauding monkeys intent on stealing water bottles. One tried to grab a bottle from my hand, before it was chased away by Edd. He is still not a fan of monkeys.

We then headed for the overnight train back to Bangalore, from where we fly home to England first thing on Friday morning.

Well it's not quite Somerset is it?

'Well it's not quite Somerset is it?' It is the first temple of the day, and Edd has reached peak temple. The heat has definitely speeded up this process, it is barely 10.00am, and already over 35c. I've finally bought a hat- Edd says it channels my inner Victorian novelist- although this has not prevented him from steeling it and pouting at the camera. 

We could have cycled round Hampi on bicycles. But (for what has to be a first) Edd turned down the two wheel option for the three wheeled alternative, and we hopped between the ruins in a tuk tuk. Hampi is not a small place, we soon decided it is not better than Badami or as ornate as Belur. But it is huge. At its peak (14th-16th centuries) it was the capital city of an empire covering most of south India. Hampi (otherwise known as Vijayanagar) housed 500,000 people, and partook in international trade despite being miles from the coast. It had 5 bazaars, with one of these specialising in the trade of diamonds, gold and pearls. Vijayanagar's size and wealth impressed the Portuguese explorers. However, it all came to an abrupt stop when a confederacy of Deccan sultanates burnt the city to the ground in 1565. It was abandoned shortly afterwards, and today ruins lie amongst the boulders and banana plantations around three villages. 

We went to see a handful of temples, the Islamic quarter, and then headed over to the queen's enclosure. Edd went to buy a ticket, this meant passing through a large group of Indian ladies who were on a day trip to Hampi. They took quite a shine to Edd and encircled him singing. Edd looked terrified. Soon selfies were demanded and cameras appeared from every angle to take pictures of the slightly confused looking English people. One of the ladies approached another English girl and asked her do you have a husband?
'I have five in London.' The English girl replied completely deadpan. This caused a little bit of confusion...

The highlight of the queens enclosure was without doubt the elephant stables. I'm not sure what the planning department of south Cambs district council would make of them, but I think they'd look good at Marshalls Farm. Cobbles would love them. 

We then headed back for a long lunch to sit out the heat of the midday sun. The afternoon was a sticky walk round the Kings palace, and the queens baths. There isn't really any form of shade in Hampi, but because of the heat the ruins are deserted and we had them pretty much to ourselves. There is possibly a lot of truth in the old adage mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

We then headed along to the Vittula temple, which is the aesthetic highlight of Hampi, and includes an enormous stone chariot just outside the doorway to the temple. 

The last stop of the day was to watch the sun go down from the top of one of the Boulder hills. With sundowners of rehydration salts. We watched the sun go down, feeling exhausted and thoroughly gapyah. 

Hippy hippy Hampi

We are both wimps. Given the option between a local bus and a taxi we decided the taxi would be better. Although it did have air conditioning, and cut the journey from 6 hours to a gentle 3. We set out for Hampi first thing, and persuaded the driver to stop for breakfast after about an hour.

The taxi driver selected a venue, which was a small restaurant on the edge of the town. The men sat with their iddly and glasses of chai reading the morning papers. There was not a woman in sight. The papers were soon ignored, and there developed an intense competition of who could stare at the slightly strange foreigners the most. The winner of this was definitely the man who began at his table, walked outside to stare through the window for ten minutes before returning to a different table to continue looking at us from a different angle. Iddlys are absolutely delicious, they are spongy rice cakes and are served with vegetable curry and a thick coconut chutney. These ones were particularly good- three meals with chai came to £1.30.

We hopped back into the taxi and headed for Hampi. The dusty agricultural plains slowly transformed to mountains of red boulders that rose out of the emerald banana plantations. Scatterings of ruins began to appear by the side of the road, and then we reached Hampi Bazaar and found where most of the hippies had been hiding since the sixties.

One of our first jobs was to register at the local police station, and assure them we weren't going to fall into hippy ways. We then headed off for a walk around the temples close to town. Edd is getting close to reaching his temple saturation point. This was not helped by a trip to the Hanuman temple, which unsurprisingly given that Hanuman is the monkey God was teaming with many of Edd's favourite animals. We met a very friendly monk who gave us a tour (and assured Edd that the monkeys would not steal his shoes.) He finished the tour by smearing our heads with a stripe of red paint. This is surprisingly sticky stuff, a day later the red stripes survive.

The last stop of the evening was surprise surprise another temple.  The Virupakshur has an elephant sized added attraction in the shape of Lakshmi- the temple elephant. If you hand her ten rupees she will give you a blessing by laying her trunk on your head. While we were there she was very carefully having a drink from a tap- and not wasting a drop. We met the mahouts brother who explained that her parents are at Mysore palace (there seems a good chance we met them earlier in the trip.) He gave us a tour of the temple, and showed us where and how Lakshmi lives. Her morning begins with a long bath in the river, she then eats leaves for breakfast and lunch, but in the evening they feed her a large bowl of cooked rice. She seemed exceptionally placid and her face was painted with red spots. Apparently the temple used to have 6 elephants, but now there is only Lakshmi. 

The day was finished by another couple of games of backgammon. The current score is two games each...

Backgammon Victory

There has been a great victory. After months of trying, I have finally beaten Edd at backgammon. Apparently we are now playing for best of three, I have been relishing the victory (and dodging a rematch) all evening...

Of all the places to have my first backgammon victory the setting was spectacular. Sitting outside a temple on the top of a cliff face overlooking Badami town, an enormous 5th century water tank (read lake) below us, and the fort where Tipi Sultan hid all his treasure from the British behind us. 

It's tricky to know where to begin when describing Badami. We arrived early in the morning on the night train from Mysore. The train station is slightly out of town, and we had to take a tuk tuk to get to the hotel. Even at 7.45am on a Sunday morning the main street was chaos. The ratio of cows, oxen and pigs in the road soon confirmed that this place was a new level of bonkers, with the four legged beasts seemingly having a better grasp of rudimentary Highway Code than their two legged counterparts. 

Having dropped our bags off at the hotel, and had a much needed shower we headed up into the old town. Badami was once the capital of the Chalukyan empire, which stretched from Tamil Nadu in the south east to Gujarat in the north. Its heyday was from 540-757 AD.   The old town is built round a 5th century water tank, which is essentially a reservoir with steps leading down to he water on three sides. The steps were continually full with a least two ladies beating their laundry into submission, a man fishing and some children jumping into swim to cool off in the hot weather. Around the edge of the tank are large red cliffs, which look like the product of an affair between the state of Arizona and Petra in Jordan. In the morning we climbed up one set of cliffs to see four cave temples, which were carved from the rock. Sitting in the cool of the cave it is possible to look out across the water tank and watch the world go by. Given the echo from the steps and the valley the ladies beating their laundry in the water at the bottom of the steps sounded distinctly like gunfire.

In the afternoon we walked around the tank visiting the small, plainer temples. At all times we were avoiding the 'Monkey menace.' Gangs of monkeys are very keen on stealing water bottles (and probably any other thing of value they can get there hands on.) Our shoes (which we took off to go into one of the temples) were only saved by the quick thinking of the temple care taker and a small scythe from the pilfering monkeys.

We then climbed up the left hand cliffs, and it all became a little bit like entering an Indiana Jones movie. Sadly Harrison Ford was nowhere in sight- sorry Edd..Stairs cut out of the rock led off into passage ways that opened into temples. The main path was being rebuilt and a long line of workers carried cement bags on their heads from the bottom of the cliffs to the fort at the top. Even though it was 5pm at this point the temperature was probably still in the mid thirties, and it looked pretty unpleasant work. 

Heading back into the town at dusk we walked through the old town houses, which were interspersed with more ruins. The houses themselves looked ancient, with flat roofs and ornate wooden doors. They were interspersed with more gates and rubble from the ruins.

I had better go now as Edd wants another match of backgammon... We head off to Hampi at 7am tomorrow.

The calf and the autorickshaw

The next morning we set out at 7am to Halelbid. You might have noticed the pattern of early mornings, and I realise this is slightly out of character for me... However, Edd and I have managed to come to India in the height of summer, and not only that, but it is the hottest summer they have had for many years. In fact it is so unprecedentedly hot that some states have banned all cooking between 6am and 6pm in the little shanty towns and slums that surround most of the larger towns and cities. This is due to the amount of accidental fires there have been in these areas. Fortunately despite quite a low hotel budget- I promise we are not  staying in the slums... 

Hallebid is the sister temple of Belur, these temples are considered unique in south India and were built by the Hoysalas in the twelfth century. Hallebid turned out to be even more impressive that Belur, with an amazing sacred bull  carving guarding the outside. (It was lying down, but I think Cobbles would have appreciated the diminutive size of the legs- maybe his second cousin a few times removed?)

We then had a very tasty dosa (pancake filled with spicy potato) from one of the street food venders on corner of the station, before hopping back into a taxi and heading for Mysore.

We had decided we couldn't quite face the four hour non air conditioned journey back to Mysore, and were running a little short of time to see Hallebid so had hired a taxi for the day. Very profligate expenditure of money, but we did see a little bit more of India from it. My favourite sight was the calf happily travelling with its head looking out from the back of a 'tuk tuk'. Not quite sure where it was heading, but it didn't look too concerned about life, and looked quite accustomed to this mode of transport. I was slightly less keen on the taxi drivers adrenalin pumping overtaking moves. This eventually led to him clipping the back bumper of a very smart looking Hyundai i20 and a confusing hour wait on the side of the road where lots of people animatedly exchanged views on the situation.

We eventually reached Mysore for lunch and headed off for another excellent banana leaf lunch at hotel RRR. 

It was then time for the next adventure and we negotiated the Mysore junction train station and hopped onto an overnight train to the north of Karnataka state- Badami.

The overnight train  was surprisingly comfortable. Edd was very pleased with himself as he scored an enormous victory against me in boxes, and soon forgot I had thrashed at '21'.

Time to leave Coorg...

Unfortunately Friday morning meant that it was time for Edd and me to leave Turtlepond and Coorg. Like all mornings in Coorg it began with a cup of strong black tea, and the mist adding a refreshing chill in the air, neither of us really wanted to leave, and wished we could have stayed longer.

Meena and Ravi, who split their time between Turtlepond and Bangalore were heading back to Bangalore and offered to give us a lift to Mysore. They have been invaluable to helping Edd and me explore Coorg. We both cannot thank them enough, and hope to see them in London soon.  They have also helped us with a couple of spare days we had in our itinerary- so as a slight change of plan we are heading north of Mysore to see two unusual temples at Belur and Hallebid. 

We began the journey back to Mysore, this meant another trip through the Nagarhole national park. We saw one of the buffalo that the Tigers hadn't quite got round to eating yet. It didn't look like it was taking any chances though, and was standing firmly in the middle of the bush-just visible from the road. We hoped very much to see some elephants again, and just as we were beginning to think they had not come to wave us off, we rounded the corner to find a mother and her calf crossing the road. This has unfortunately led to yet another elephant video. Apologies for the spam I am sending out on whatsapp. I have an elephant sized elephant photo addiction. 

Meena and Ravi dropped us off (from their very nice air conditioned car) at a bus station in Mysore, and it was swiftly back to the Indian travel reality as we got on a four hour local bus that had no air conditioning. I sat by the window, which was ok apart from the driver was very keen at spitting and this seemed to work its way back along the coach and neatly into my window.

Neither of us were full of the joys of travelling by the time we got to Belur. We headed out to find some lunch at 5pm, hoping that the temple would be worth the dusty bus slog. 

Fortunately the temple was extraordinary. It had some of the most intricate stone carving I have ever seen, some entertaining images of the karma sutra, and a bunch of highly enthusiastic children who were desperate for selfies and to show us the 'lucky rock' of the temple. You had to sit on the ground and place your hands in an arch on a circular rock and make a wish. There seemed to be a slightly indeterminate time you had to sit there wishing before you were released- Edd got double the time to me- and was then told his wish didn't count. Whereas I was considered very lucky. The selfie craze continued with the adults. Admittedly there were no other westerners there, but by the time we left the temple substantially more pictures has been taken of us than I had taken of the temple. An odd trade surplus.