A ride through the lost empire - Hampi!

Crew Members: Dilip and myself.

Duration: 3 days.

Date: 24th, 25th and 26th of October.

Terrain: Rocky.

Expense: ~3500 Rs per head.

Bikes: Royal Enfield Classic 350 and Royal Enfield Electra 350.

Abstract: A perfect timed trip in all sense.

Note: A major portion of the credit of this blog goes to Dilip who was erupting with excitement and wanted to compile the body. Whole of the blog except for the icing and topping belongs to him! Thanks bro! 

Meghashyam and Manish were the ones who triggered the thought of doing a trip on Diwali weekend. Dilip was dying for a trip anyway. I had alternate plans which eventually got cancelled. By 21st of October, this trip thought that these guys seeded grew into a full fledged tree! By then, Shyam and Manish got engaged with some family activities for the weekend and it was all myself and Dilip who were left. I was all ready to do a ride and so was Dilip. I started searching for places around and shortlisted Sringeri-Kudremukh, Ooty, Kodaikanal and Coorg. But seeing the weather report, all these places were to be hit by rains over the week. None of these places' weather forecast had sun shining for another 7 days. Search for a destination continued until Dilip brought up Hampi. A ride to Hampi was always there in my list and weather forecast was just perfect. The place was expected to hit by rains over the Diwali weekend and was sunny till then. After deciding on the destination, we checked with our friends if anybody else is as interested as we were. As was expected, none were!! Deepesh almost said yes, but cancelled at the last moment.

We got our bikes serviced and ready for the ride, a couple days before we were to leave. Itinerary was continuously revised, making sure of the places we could visit on the way. Bought couple of spare tubes and clutch cables to fight the odds. Initially we had a plan to leave Bangalore early in the morning on Friday and then to have breakfast from Tumkur, then to hit Davangere by lunch, have the famous benne dosa and then to reach Hampi by 3PM - 4PM. But then we made a little alteration and decided to cover Chitradurga fort and cancelled the benne dosa plan. I was to reach Doddaballapur first, where Dilip stays and then start the ride to Tumkur.

Day 1

The day finally arrived, and guess both of us had minimal sleep as we were hyper-excited about the ride. I started from Domlur at 5:15 AM and woke up Dilip before starting. As I had a 50 km ride till Doddaballapur, that gave Dilip enough time to get ready and meet me. I reached Doddaballapur in 50 mins! That's like an achievement! :D 

We caught up by 6:10 AM and started off immediately. We rode on NH-4 through the early morning fog as it had rained heavily the previous night. The excitement was so much that the cold hardly made any difference. We neither slowed down nor stopped anywhere in between, and the first stop was for breakfast at Sira. The time was 8:35 AM. We had our breakfast and our usual dose of caffeine and left Sira by 9:15 AM. The next stop was at Chitradurga which was about 65 kms from Sira. We rode till the fort and were a little concerned about where to leave our luggage. A shopkeeper came to our rescue and agreed to look after our luggage till we returned. We started our exploration of the fort by 10:20 AM, took the entrance ticket of 5 Rs per head and we looked around the place, marveling at the magnitude and grandeur of the fort’s architecture! We couldn't spend a lot of time in Chitradurga, as it started getting really hot and we still had about 140 kms of journey left. We spent about 90 mins inside the fort.

We collected our bags from the shopkeeper, also bought some cool drinks from the same shop! It served two purposes; we could return the shopkeeper the favor by making some business for him and also quench our thirst before the long ride that was ahead!
We tied our bags to our bikes and started riding towards Hospet. We had to ask for directions to get
out of Chitradurga and on to the highway. With little difficulty, we could get out of the town and on NH-13, towards Hospet. The ride on that road was not as easy as the ride till Chitradurga, the road being a two-lane highway and numerous trucks commuting. After two hours of riding, with just a stop minor stop in between after Kudligi, we reached Hospet by 2 PM. We made a stop in Hospet only to ask for directions to Hampi, which we had no difficulty in finding later! We rode the last 12 kms of the stretch to Hampi. The feeling was exhilarating, after riding nearly 400 kms. The moment we crossed Kamalapura where you get a junction with sign board saying a left arrow to the heart of the Hampi, all you will see are the remnants of the past. Such an awesome feeling it was!
We had information about Home-Stay options available beside Virupaksha Temple (the main shrine of Hampi). So it wasn't hard to find a room and settle down. We relaxed for a couple of hours and by 5 PM we set out on walk to explore the places around. Tungabhadra river was a stone’s throw away from our room. We saw bikes being transported across the river on a boat and decided that it would be quite an experience to do that with our bikes!! We took out only one bike, Dilip's Classic 350, and rode to the river bed. (check the pic below, it’s an amazing ride).

The boat guy charged us Rs. 100 to transport the bike on the boat. We inquired about the cost for other bikes and it was a mere 20 Rs. Upon asking him the reason for so much difference in the cost, he plainly replied “Your’s is a ROYAL bike sir, not easy to transport.” We couldn't argue on that and decided to pay the price he asked. With some difficulty, we could get our bike onto and out of the boat. The other side of the river houses a couple of resorts and numerous tuck shops. Place looked very similar to Goa/Vattakanal area in Kodaikanal! Except for Anjaneya Gudda (the place is believed to be the birth place of Lord Hanuman), there’s nothing much to see there. As it was getting dark and the last boat ride was at 6:30 PM, we skipped going up the hill and came back. We had to pay the boat guy again and repeat the whole exercise of loading the bike onto the boat and unloading it on the other shore!

We took a small ride around Hampi and the place is disappointing, in terms of being commercial. We could hardly find a shop decent enough to be selling anything edible, other than mirchi bajjis!!! Then, headed back to room and decided to call it a day.
We walked straight to the terrace of our stay and sat there for a long chat and catch up. At around 8 PM, we had dinner from a hotel opposite to our stay. We walked around the home stay complex aimlessly. There were lot of Israelis enjoying the diwali celebrations with the kids  around and went to bed late with alarm set for 5:30 AM.

Day 2
Alarm rang at 5:30 AM and it was damn difficult to wake up after such a tiring day. Listening to rain outside, I decided to switch off the alarm and continue with the sleep. Finally, we woke up at 8 AM and got ourselves ready in a jiffy! To our surprise, there were no ATMs in Hampi and up on asking around, we got info about an ATM inside some bank branch some where in Hampi. We didn't want to spend time exploring an ATM with all the explorations left for the day! More over, we had to refill our tanks. We rode straight to Kamalapura were there were 3 ATMs - 1 closed and 2 not working! Cursing our luck, we rode to Hospet, withdrew enough cash for two days, refilled out tanks and tummies and started our Hampi darshan!
While entering Hampi, the first board one can see is the “PattabhiRama Temple” board with an arrow pointing right. We reached the temple premises and to our astonishment we were the only two persons there. The temple is a big one, mostly ruined! Gopura was intact but with a lot of fungus and plants grown over. An old lady who stood at the entrance replied said us not many people visit the place except a few foreigners who come once in a blue moon there! When we were done clicking a few pics, we headed back to Hampi and rode to Vitthala Temple.

Vittala temple was our next destination. From Kamalapura junction, we rode straight about 3-4 kms to reach the place. We had to park our bikes about a kilometre away and walk the distance. There’s also an option of reaching the temple through battery operated autos by paying 20 Rs for up and down plying!! We decided to walk. The place was swarming with ISCON followers as they had some Hampi visit scheduled for the day! We opted to walk seeing the Pushkarini, Kuthiregombe and Gejjala mantapa

Vittala temple gopura is half deteriorated and red in colour. Soon as we entered the Vitthala temple, we had a view of iconic stone chariot! I wanted to click a pic of the chariot that is a bit different from the routine ones we see every where. I had to wait and lot and test Dilip's patience to get the frame cleared.

We had a nice time spent there and by then dark clouds had accumulated and started drizzling pretty heavily. We walked around the temple. The musical pillars in the temple are truly amazing. One can find some really wonderful architectural marvels in Hampi. After a detailed photo session of the place, we walked further ahead of the temple. There are a couple more places to see, the King’s Balance and Purandara Mantapa, on the banks of Tungabhadra River.

There is this round boat ride available in the Tungabadra there where one will be taken through the river showing you 3 other monuments on the banks. Upon asking the rate, we were told its 250 Rs per head and we walked away! :D
There were few pillars on the other side of the river which looked beautiful.

We then rode back to the Kamalapura junction and enroute we visited a Jain temple.

From Kamalapura junction, we entered Hampi area and we rode straight till we saw a sign board saying Queen's bath, King's Enclosure, Lotus Palace towards left side. Queens bath was visible from the road and we entered the structure parking our bikes outside. This particular place had a unique Indo-Islamic architectural styled interior which looked very different from the Vijayanagaran architecture. Click, click, click and then we moved towards the king's enclosure.

Kings enclosure is an area spread across couple of acres may be. It had an elevated platform and numerous layouts which appeared to be like noble men's house or administrative buildings. It hosted couple of ponds as well out which one looked damn beautiful!

We were dumbstruck to see the water conveyance created to the pond with stone! They created everything with stone. Such skill they possessed back then. The mud road further leads to a temple called “HazaraRama”. This temple too is iconic for two reasons!! The walls of the temple consists of stone carvings, depicting the entire Ramayana, in thousand picture-like carvings and this is the only temple in Hampi which contains pillars made of Granite stone!

Then, we went to the place I was dying to visit! The underground Shiva temple. When Bangalore Ascenders conducted a photography contest in 2013, they shared the winning pics of 2012 back then. That's were I saw a stunning pic of this place and I had it my mind since then. Main shrine of this place is half submerged in water and people aren't advised to step in to the water body. The stagnant water there had been there for ages and is said to host variety of snakes and crabs. A group that were already there told us they could see a crab outside where the water level was less. We could spot lot of fishes there. With some difficulty, I could capture a picture to my satisfaction there.

We were left with Lotus Mahal and Elephant's stable in that complex and we reached there in no time. It was already 1 PM and our stomach started rumbling. With the dark cloudy sky, we wanted to finish of our exploration of this complex as soon as possible. Lotus Mahal looked beautiful with the multiple layer look alike walls.

Further walking inside the compound, we reached the elephant stable. That is a massive building with a huge lawn in front.

Even though it was 1:30 PM in the noon, it almost looked like 6 PM! We rushed towards our bikes and decided to hit our stay before it rains. By the time we were done, it was post noon and we were hungry! We decided to get back to central Hampi after visiting a couple more places around. We then headed to another ruined temple and further ahead to “Octagonal Bath”. We soon got bored of looking at all the stones around, with our stomachs churning it was even more difficult to get on with!

Again, seeing a sign board saying Lakshmi Narasimha temple, we stopped and visited the place and also went to the badavalinga temple next to it.

We decided not to stop till we reach our room! And that's when we saw Sasivekalu Ganesh statue on a small hill. We couldn't stop ourselves from going there! Sasivekalu ganesha got its name from the Sasive (Mustard) shaped tummy of the Ganesh is what many blogs said! We checked with the security there and he had a different story to tell - There was a merchant during the Vijayanagara Empire who used to travel from a place near Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) to Hampi to sell mustard. His business flourished and he started making a lot of profits. He then decided to give something in return to the Vijayanagara Kingdom and this Ganesha idol was his gift. The idol is apparently set up in the same place where the merchant had his godown to store his mustard!!.

We then went to check out the Jain temple that was beside. There’s a small climb to get there. As we got there, the clouds got thicker and in no time it started pouring heavily!

The time was around 2 pm and we took shelter at the entrance of the temple! We had to wait about 30 minutes for the rain to subside, and when it did slow down we ran to our bikes and decided to get back to room as quickly as possible. But as we started towards our bikes it started raining heavily again and we had to take shelter in the nearest shop. We had coffee while we waited and it was quite a wait indeed! It poured heavily for about 2 hours and that was heaviest rain that Hampi saw this year!! The place looked like its almost in floods!! When the rain finally slowed down, we rode back to our room, we were totally drenched by then! We relaxed a while and then headed to Mango Tree restaurant. It was almost 4:30 pm and the place was not so full. It was drizzling all the while and we got back to our room soon. We couldn't get out of the room the rest of the day, so we decided not to take any kind of risks and stay in the room. Later in the evening, by around 7.30 pm the rain had pretty much stopped and so we thought of getting dinner from Kamalapura. We rode 4 kms distance and got some North Karnataka special Jolada rotti (corn flour roti) and some curry that goes with it!! It was by far the best dish we had eaten on the trip! Both of us slept soon after dinner, as we had planned an early start the next day.

Day 3
As we planned, we woke up by 5:30 AM and by 6:15 AM, we were ready to conclude the last part of our exploration. The moment we stepped outside, rains were back. We waited for 30 mins for the rains to go less intense and then decided to walk to the heart of Hampi - Virupaksha temple! We clicked couple of photos in the temple compound and headed straight to the main shrine!

Post darshan, we were too damn excited about seeing the inverted shadow of the gopura! Behind the main shrine on the right side there is a board saying out-loud "Inverted Goupra" and we had to climb a small stairway to a dark room which housed a small hole facing the gopura. The hole was so small that my hand might not go through it! The wall opposite to this hole had an crystal clear inverted shadow of the gopura. We were so wrong thinking we'll be disappointed as the sky was all cloudy. We were dumbstruck seeing such a clear shadow that showcased the architectural marvel of Vijarayanagaran age. I tried clicking some pics of the shadow. But the room was dark that pictures didn't come out so good.
We stepped out of the temple and saw the Hemakuta temples upon a small hill on the left side of Virupakasha temple. It was while trying to enter this temple premises through the rear entrance the previous day, we got trapped with the rain. We decided to visit this temple as well. We could click a pic that has Hemakuta temple and Virupaksha temple in one single frame.

We soon got back to our room, then rode straight to Achyutaraya temple. Parking our bikes in front of the traffic police station and walked 10-15 mins to Achyutaraya temple. Temple is completely ruined and not many people come to visit the place. We walked around and clicked some pics there.

Very adjacent to this Achyutaraya temple is the Matanga hills. I so wanted to hike the hill and the see the temple there and the Achyutaraya temple full layout bird's eye view. But considering our time and Dilip's laziness, we decided to do it some other time. Sunrise view from this hill is claimed to  be majestic! Given the climatic conditions there sun would never appear till mid noon!
We vacated our room by 9:30 AM and payed our rent amount. Soon, we rode away from Hampi cherishing all the memories there. I said myself, I'll be back once again soon to this place. Our next destination was Tungabadra dam. We didn't have a plan to visit the dam initially! But anyway since we are only kilometers away from this dam about which I had read only in my geography text book during schooling, we decided to visit the place. But we were the notion that we'll be able to ride over the 2 kms long dam! The moment we reached the gates, security stopped us there and asked us to stop the vehicle in the parking area and to either take their bus to visit the dam or to walk till there. We had no choice but to walk! We walked about 30 mins and reached the top of the dam. Gates to enter the road way on top of dam is open to only those come with special permissions or recommendations! We clicked some pics and left the place soon!

Once we left Tungabadra, we rode non-stop till Kudligi. NH13 unlike two days back when we rode towards Hampi, had good amount of traffic. With lot of trucks blocking a smooth ride, NH13 looked as good as the number 13! Sky was all decorated with which I enjoyed a lot while riding this stretch!

From Kudligi, we rode non stop till Chitradurga, a stretch of 80 kms. It was 2:30 PM by then and we decided to fill our tummies from a hotel when we entered NH4. We had a good 130 kms of ride to Tumkur and we decided to nail it in 2 hours! We maintained a consistent 90 kmph. After 50 mins, when we stopped for a short break, we had covered 75 kms already. Another 50 mins of ride, we were in center of Tumkur. Reason why we entered Tumkur town was the famous ragi biscuits in Nanjundeshwara Bakery. I had mentioned this biscuit in my blog on Chikamaglur ride as well. I had made up my mind back then that every time I visit Tumkur. We left Tumkur and then we stopped at Pyara Punjabi Dhaba just before reaching Dabaspet. We had a rejuvenating shot of lassi each. From Dabaspet, we parted. I rode towards Bangalore and Dilip towards Doddaballapur thus concluding an epic ride!

Finally, our pic:

Things to remember:
1. Hampi is commercially very poor! So, carry enough cash/snacks if you don't want to visit Kamalapuram every time you come in need.
2. If you are planning to cross the river taking your bike, I would recommend not to especially if it is an Royal Enfield. Cross the river and you'll get ample bikes for rent on the ither side at cheap rate.
3. There is a road way to reach the other side of the road which is a stretch of 40 kms.
4. Entrance fee to the resort named Kishkinda is 250 Rs and we didn't bother to visit the place.

Dos:
1. Visit Hampi soon after monsoon in order to avoid yourself from getting fried.
2. 90% of the sites in Hampi don;t have pooja's going on. So one can go around wearing shoes and need not worry about removing them every time you enter a place!

Don'ts:
1. Hampi is maintained extremely clean. Please don't mark your territory by dropping plastics wastage. :D
2. Don't try to hurry through the sites in Hampi, that'll make you regret and you'll end up wanting to visit the place once again! Experience! :D