Hampi

Day 92 - 95

It was a rather long bus journey to Hampi, fortunately most of this time was spent sleeping only to be occasionally interrupted by a local crazy for a selfie or two, nearly perfected to a tee my awkward please leave me alone now smile.

Hampi was a world apart from the hustle and bustle of big city life, mountains, rice fields and granite rock hills for as far as the eye can see, time to relax!

After spoiling ourselves with a night in a cheeky 3* hotel (Indian Stars mind) for our 3 month travelling anniversary we decided it was time to reign in that budget and get couch surfing for the rest of our stay. A few messages later and it was Rajessh who offered to host us at his place, it was a tent and mouldy old pillow for us, but when it's free who's complaining.

It was time to get back on the scooter and explore, plenty of good times cruising through rice fields, drag racing locals and some near life and death encounters with the local cattle. As ridiculous at it may sound and we fear repeating this to fellow travellers but we have concluded that Indian animals appear to show strong racist tendencies against white tourists. The evidence continues to mount after being charged at, not once but on TWO occasions whilst doing 60kmph by a local bull whilst he was happy to let the natives whizz on by without even a flinch. Its fair to say we had a shock.

Spent the evening sipping chai, watching the sun go down and scrambling maybe a little too high up the nearby boulders. Ellie is getting better at climbing albeit against her own will. If we break up and come home separately I can safely say it'll be because I asked her to take that one extra step she ''just can't reach''.

It was our final night and boy did Rajeesh not let us down. Fellow coach surfers had arrived from France and Romania and we spent the evening being ploughed with Indian Rum and good food. It later became apparent Rajeesh, our generous host, was rather wealthy and this mediocre campsite is merely a hobbie on the side of his brewery, hotel and farm! The gold necklaces, personal chauffer and all linen get up maybe should have given this away sooner.

That being said he just wanted to make international friends and by 1am the 7 of us had seen off 4 bottles of Rum over sharing stories and doing just that.

It was now time to leave Hampi, feeling relaxed and ready for the carnage that Mumbai has to offer..

Few Lessons Leant in Hampi.

- Do not scooter near bulls, they smell the fear.
- Do not eat Thali curry on a hangover, the sweats are real.
- Romanians after a few rums are pretty mental. Maybe before the rum also.
- Indians love to couch surf host, great for future travels.
- Ellie is a real selfie hit with the locals, lost count today but think she is likely on now 60+ Indian Facebooks.
- The phrase clean water to swim in means literally nothing in India, expect to be swimming in plastic.Read more