6. MONKEYS! (Bangalore to Hampi)

We left a little later than scheduled this morning; one of our number, who shall remain nameless, sleeping through their alarm. Roger finally showed-up and we got on our way, but our lost twenty minutes would have a irreparable impact on our day.

We had a new driver this morning. I've yet to pronounce his name correctly and can't write it down, but he came bundled with a new car and therefore additional capacity for our onward journey. However, whilst we would each be able to enjoy moderately spacious seating, i was told there wasn't room for my bag inside the car so it had to be tied to the roof. Had we been ready to leave a little earlier I'm almost certain I've had found a way to make it all fit.

A little ways down what most closely approximates a motorway we stopped at a fair similie of a coffee-shop for breakfast. I ordered some eggy-wrap thing, that was as satisfying as my description of it, and a café latte since I wasn't confident the barrista had properly understood my preferred proportions for an Americano with milk. Unfortunately, contravening what I understand to be an international coffee-house code of conduct, there was no Wi-Fi. I'm fairly sure I heard the staff discussing how there was usually Wi-Fi, but they'd literally just cancelled their service contract twenty minutes earlier.

Shortly afterwards we stopped at the roadside for some coconut water. I'd never tried this before, at least not direct from the coconut, and it was cool to watch the guy violently slash away the top quarter of the green fruit and casually pop a straw in. It tasted delicious ; much like coconut water consumed via other means only in a more degradable, less ergonomic container. Mind, to me coconut water has always felt like a pre-9AM drink and it was pushing 9:05 by the time we had it. Shame.

Our first proper, sight-seeing stop was at Chitradurga Fort, an historic site weaving it's way up the side of a hill and home to 19(!) temples. With only an hour to spend here, and Mark not being with us, we saw only a handful of these and intimately photographed even fewer. The etymology for Chitradurga is 'picture fort', rendering Chitradurga Fort a 'Fort-Fort' and placing on my list of phrases including 'ATM Machine' and 'PIN Number' whereby abbreviations are inadvertently and inefficiently elongated by the appending of one of the words being abbreviated, adding bulk to a conversation and delaying the conveyance of any point being uttered. Very much the lingual equivalent of a delayed departure.

It was an impressive archaeological structure that wound up a hillside to a high plateau. Making our way up in the baking midday rays, having narrowly missed the soft morning heat, it was when we neared the top that we spotted something, or somethings, first in the distance and then up close as we cautiously approached...

MONKEYS! First one then several then tons. MONKEYS! Ruddy loads of them! Everywhere we looked, mainly as we were only interested in looking at MONKEYS!, there they were; climbing, jumping, swinging, scavenging, generally MONKEYing around and being awesome! We took pictures of the MONKEYS! which I'll try to resist making the only uploads accompanying this post.

Momentarily, the terrible toils resultant of our twenty-minute tardiness evaporated as we soaked in the live and interactive simian sideshow. They didn't know we were late; monkeys don't know what time it is or even have a concept of time. Sure, an infinite number of them typing on an infinite quantity of typewriters would, presuming a supply of infinite ink-ribbons, eventually write Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' and every yet-to-be-written future text expanding on and indeed correcting many of Hawking's claims, but these monkeys were here, bereft of stationary and finite in number. Which is a good job, or I doubt I'd have fit them in frame.

If only we'd had a little longer to enjoy their company, but alas we were on a strict schedule (far stricter than it should have been) so we hurriedly took some pics then descended the hill and scrambled back into the car. Charlotte and David bought ice-lollies they had to wolf down so quickly they must have suffered brain-freeze.

Our destination would be Hampi. The only thing standing between us and there was the absolute worst road in the entire effing world. It was under construction, tacitly implying it was somehow previously even worse, and had been chopped into single-lane sections joined by patches of gravel and road-humps of such high elevation to be more akin to be less a sleeping policeman and more a slumbering sumo. This meant our driver would briefly accelerate to the absolute top-speed possible, determined by vehicular capability as opposed to petty concerns such as speed laws, then almost immediately brake as he immediately encountered either a slow-moving (ie. driving at legal limit) vehicle, bump or gravel patch. Add to this the swerving around vehicles he could pass and the necessary left and right shifts across the tarmac-free joining points and you've all the ingredients for a home-cooked course of nausea. Whilst, practically, I can't link this circumstance with our morning delay, as a fully versed chaotician (ie. I've seen Jurassic Park) I believe that any incidence within a deterministic, nonlinear system can have a consequential impact that might appear unconnected yet is in truth the direct stimulus. As such, the onus falls to prove that leaving late DIDN'T cause my sickness, for which I've yet to receive any acceptable proof.

After a while we stopped at a roadside restaurant for a rest-stop. Whilst the others ate, Charlotte and I just bought water and went to play on the swings in the playground next-door, as you do. My lunch-skipping might have been perceived as being due to the nausea I'd hardly been silent about, but was in fact a valiant and selfless deed of reducing demand on the kitchen and thusly expedite the food-orders placed, recovering for us a few moments of our lost time. Charlotte just wasn't hungry.

The drive was long but entailed passing through a number of varied, yet consistently interesting, small villages. This was increasingly the furthest we'd yet been from the more-developed zones of India, with many areas appearing to straddle the line between 'simple' and 'poor'. At one point Charlotte remarked on how impressive it was that our driver knew his way through the windy, twisty backstreets of remote Indian villages, so I pointed out the sat-nav that was in full view and been periodically delivering directions at fully audible volume. Expecting to arrive at a fully mod-conned 3-star hotel, because the itinerary said that's where we were going, we eventually arrived at what on first impressions I'd generously have described as a 'simple' and less-generously have termed a shit-hole.

But first impressions can be deceiving. True, the room accommodations were very basic breeze-block constructions, infested with wildlife, fitted with the first and only mosquito nets we'd encounter for the whole trip and with bathroom facilities you'd contently forgo eating/drinking/sweating lest you actually have to use them, but the location was simply breath-taking. Once we adjusted our mind-sets to the idea we'd be basically 'camping' as opposed to 'hotel-ing' for the night we quickly appreciated our lot but even more quickly got back in the car so as to try to visit a nearby attraction before the day was out. I'd have loved a little time to freshen-up a little, even twenty minutes would have done it, but no dice.

We drove about twenty minutes to 'Monkey Temple' which, despite some diligent googling, I can't find an authentic, local name for. It's a temple (shocker!) dedicated to the monkey god Hanuman, set atop a hill with a winding stairway/path leading up to it. The higher we got the greater the prevelance of monkeys, but given the name of the place their presence was mildly less exciting. Perhaps sensing this cooler reception, one of the monkeys stole Charlotte's coconut, to some degree restoring the species' novelty-value (MONKEYS!). At the peak we had to remove our shoes to proceed, clambering over the rocks and drinking in the views / posing for photos / strengthening the callouses on our soles. If only we'd gotten here twenty minutes earlier...

...we might have taken our pictures, gotten bored and left. As it turned out, we'd arrived at the absolute perfect moment to capture the views then settle down in the area known as 'sunset point' to experience the precise moment of the day for which it was named. Observing the golden sun sink and the light slowly fade across the gorgeous vista, dusk delicately descending upon the visible cliffs, valleys and villages was hands-down the most beautiful and sensory moment of the trip. It transpired that 'late' had in fact been precisely 'on time' after all, which raises the question; were my comments and concerns over the impact of our late-start petty/exagerrated/fabricated? No, not at all, but it's okay to ask.

We returned to the 'hotel' grounds and went to the 'restaurant', a covered area with low tables and cushions (in lieu of seats). The whole place had a very 'backpacker' vibe, precisely the breed of slacker reprobates I'd hoped to avoid by packing a suitcase, but invoked some pleasant nostalgia for my times travelling around Europe. Only thing missing was the smell of burning incense, which I voiced rather loudly and a few minutes later one of the staff brought some over.

Our evening meal was to be put on a tab to be settled by the company that made the booking. That is, the company that had persistently messed-up or changed every element of our itinerary post-purchase without notification or apology. We collectively ordered as much as we could possibly eat/charge. We were then told this tab extended to alcohol, so adopted a similar stratagem.Read more