After prolonged planning and few last minute surprises, I, along with a friend, set out on a trip to Hampi on the weekend of February 28 – March 1, 2009.

We reached Hospet and then Hampi on Saturday morning and got a room in Ranjana Guest House in Hampi Bazaar. Its recommended by Lonely Planet and served us some excellent breakfast and snacks during the time we stayed there. If you are not looking for luxury, its a pretty good option.

I had already researched all the places we could cover in two days and we had a rough itinerary in mind. Also, we had detailed maps and information on all the places so we didn’t need a guide. (Thanks to Hampi.in and Indiamike!)

We kicked-off our tour of the Sacred centre with Virupaksha Temple, the largest temple in Hampi. Right from the start, both of us were enamoured by Hampi. The terrain, the rocks, the architecture – everything was fascinating.

We continued to Hemakuta hills, Sasivekalu Ganesha, Krishna Temple, Narsimha and Monolithic Shivalinga. The heat started getting bad as noon time approached. It was lunchtime and we decided to check out Mango Tree, a restaurant located on the Tungabhadra riverside, which I had read a lot about. And the place did not disappoint! We gulped down glasses of mango shake one after another and decided to make it our official hangout place after every round of sightseeing.

After a relaxing lunch, we decided to cover the riverside ruins next. The stretch begins from the end of Hampi Bazaar where a large Monolithic bull is placed. The heat was starting to get a little too much and there were almost no people in sight but our zeal to see more kept us going. In fact, we were the only tourists for quite some time at Achyut Raya Temple and Courtesans’ street.

The stretch till Vittala Temple was probably the most dry and difficult. We tried drinking all sorts of liquids to keep us cool and even had a sundae. We passed King’s Balance to get to Vittala Temple and got to see the most popular of Hampi, the stone chariot. We spent around 1 hour in Vittala Temple complex resting happily after successfully completing the day’s itinerary with some time to spare. On our way back, we made a short stop at Sugreeva’s cave and then headed back to our room.

For a small town, Hampi has a vibrant night life. There are numerous roof-top cafes and restaurants and loads of shops selling anything and everything. We did a tour of the whole market and bought ourselves a t-shirt with motif each. For dinner, however, we decided to go back to Mango Tree. After dinner, we came back home and went to sleep after a long tiresome day.

On the second day, we started early and took a coracle to the other side of the river.

We then trekked to the top of Anjaneya Hill. This is supposed to be the birth place of Lord Hanuman and the view from the top was more than worth the effort.

Afterwards, we went back and checked out of the room. For the remaining part of sightseeing, we decided to rent bicycles. We rode to the Royal Centre area and kicked-off our tour with Underground Shiv Temple, Mahanavmi Dibba and Hazara Rama Temple. The sites that included Watch Tower, Mosque, Krishnadeva Raya’s palace etc. looked more like an excavation site.

We also saw some tempting baths and tanks with little or no of water. We finished the leg with Lotus Mahal, Elephant Stables and Queen’s bath.

We then rode to Kamalapur to visit the archaeological museum and then concluded our trip with a well-deserved delayed lunch at Mango Tree. After spending an hour or so there, we returned to Hospet to catch our train back to Bangalore.

On the whole, it was an amazing trip! Hampi is a small but bustling town with friendly people who are not after your money. Its a trip I would recommend to everyone. After all, how often does a place offer historical, adventurous and religious sights together and gives you a chance to show off your well-earned tan with pride!

These and a lot of other photos from my Hampi trip are available at flickr here.

I present here some pictures and though the pictures in this post are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, I’ll give some background on these.

The first picture is of a shop on Whitefield Road that I pass everyday on my way to work and back. It was first noticed by a friend who shared it with me and its been the reason for many laughs for the two of us since then. But I felt something like this should be shared with the whole world so here it is in all its glory:

Notice how there’s no space between U and S which makes me believe that the apostrophe was just an afterthought. Now you know where not to go for all your refractory needs!

The second picture was taken by me just before the sunset last Monday from the terrace of my new apartment. Everything was just perfect and I was lucky enough to capture the sunlight piercing through the clouds:

The picture made one of my friends a little envious cos he’d been trying to get such a shot for some time now. I think its beautiful! The sunset can be seen here.

These are some of the funnier observations I made during my vacation. My phone cam really came in handy in capturing all of these. Some pictures are a little shaky cause I can’t stay still for too long.

1. Have you ever seen a store with a glass door use this kinda lock with a chain? Well, I hadn’t until I saw this at a mall in Lucknow.
   

   

2. This guy is some yogi and probably respected by some (??) but this photo of his holding a gada(mace) is just plain funny! Caught this in Gopinath Market, Delhi Cantonment.
   

   

3. Do you want a new child in your family but think the whole process is too cumbersome. Well, a multiplex in Sahibabad has just the thing for you. Take a look!
   

   

4. For people who can’t read Hindi, the next picture is of a store’s ad which lists all the things sold there. What makes it special though is that the list is extremely comprehensive and yet there’s a note at the end which claims that the store sells some other stuff too!
   

   

5. The next picture is of a caption at a fruit vendor’s stall. The caption says “Fix Rate” [sic] which is okay but look at the nicely drawn fruits. Reminds me of my art file from primary school.

   

6. As a bonus, here are two older pictures from Bangalore (both from Banaswadi Road) that have been on my flickr for a while now.

   

   

Last Wednesday, after being confined to my home on the bandh day, I swore to myself that I would not stay at home the whole day ever. And I spent the whole of Thursday and Friday very much at home because I was down with viral fever. Oh, the irony of life! But those two days and two long nights were horrible. I constantly ran a fever of 103.5 degrees and hence couldn’t sleep. To make things worse, this was the first time I fell ill since I started living alone and so I had no medicines other than few homeopathic ones from my dad.

On Wednesday night, when the illness started, I employed my mp3 player to help me sleep and it worked for sometime. I was starting to feel really sad about the whole situation cos I was sick and all alone but Frou Frou helped me get over it by singing “There’s beauty in the breakdown” in my ear. And so at 3:15 am, I called up my landlady and asked for medicines.

I am much better now. The motivation for getting better, of course, is that I’m going to Lucknow tomorrow for Diwali. And its been a year since I went home. I last went on last Diwali. The difference this time would be that my parents now have broadband at home so I will keep posting and keep reading other blogs. In fact, I may be able to post more than I do now.

And even though I don’t write too many posts these days, its good to know once in a while that my blog can keep people occupied for hour(s) and even make them come back as is evident in screenshot 1, screenshot 2 and screenshot 3. (The third visit was longer than the screenshot). I think that’s enough reason to feel good about. What do you think?

Update: In a major offence, I forgot to tell you all about my new pictures from my trip to Nagarahole in which I saw crocodiles, elephants, dears, birds, a fox and a will boar. The pictures can be found on flickr, as always.

Update 2 This is a small clip from one of the funniest episodes of Family Guy. Take a look. It’s just too funny!! Watch it, please!

On my last weekend in Germany, I, along with two colleagues, decided to go to Paris. But this time, we booked tickets for a tour which included bus trip to Paris and back, hotel stay in Paris and few sightseeing tours.

Our bus left for Paris on Friday night and I woke up to find myself in a new place. But Let me tell you what I thought of Paris before I continue. It’s fantastic! The best place I’ve ever been to! It’s artistic & beautiful, lively & colorful & yet modern & organized.

There’s just so much to see in Paris, it’s unbelievable. There’s art on every corner. So I obviously took 500 photos and videos. I would have taken more if my camera’S !GB memory card didn’t run out of space. I had to buy a Pro account on flickr to post the 218 better ones out of those. So please head over to Flickr and take a look. You must take a look at my pictures. You all owe me that much. I’ve put in hard work into it.

We went to lots of places and saw lots of things plus posting pictures from Flickr here is a pain so I would only show you few pictures here and for the rest, you will need to visit my flickr page and look for a set called “Paris”. I know I am being repetitive but you must do that.

And here are few pictures and their description:

Tour Montparnasse is the tallest skyscraper in Paris and we went up to the 56th floor for a fabulous view of Paris.

I took this from the top of Tour Montparnasse. The dome in the middle is St Peter’s Basilica of Les Invalides which houses the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Looking North West from Tour Montparnasse. Tour Eiffel and the La Défense skyline can be clearly seen.

It was cloudy and hence not the best day for taking pictures of Eiffel Tower. But I had to do it anyway. I took this one from Tracadero garden.

Looking North West towards Trocadero from the top of Eiffel Tower.

That’s Basilique du Sacré-Cœur on Montmarte. The sunlight was playing hide and seek and working as a natural limelight.

In the evening, we went for a very scenic boatride on the river Seine. I saw the sunset around 8:55 pm while on the boatride. (I really like this picture.) At the end of the boatrode, we saw the glittering Eiffel Tower.

And that’s L’Arc de Triomphe at night. We walked down from there through Avenue des Champs-Élysées like everyone who visits Paris is supposed to. We had diner at one of the restaurants there, saw the glittering Eiffel Tower from the obelisk one more time and then went back to the hotel.

Next morning, we went to Musée du Louvre and just like everything else, it was spectacular too.

The amount of art displayed here itself is overwhelming.

The Pyramid only adds to the beauty contrary to what few people suggest.

Two days is too small a time to see a city like Paris. But thats okay because I will definitely visit Paris again and with more time on my hand.

And finally, don’t forget to take a look at all my pictures.