Hampi - The forgotten Empire

Finally i managed to go to hampi last thursday and returned back on sunday. The ride to and fro hampi was a rip fest, managed to cruise in 120 and 110 for long stretches in NH4 and 100 in NH 13.
The details:
People: Me and my friend mouli as my pillion (plus luggage bag) and my nomadic friend pradeep. (he was driving solo)

Bikes: My zma and pradeep's bajajpulsar 150 Dtsi

Total Kms Travelled : 765 kms.

Duration: 4 days, From 30th March 06 Thursday to 2nd April 06 Sunday.

Route taken to Hampi: Bangalore>tumkur>Chitradurga>Hospet>Hampi (NH4 to NH 13)Route taken from hampi: Hampi>Hospet>Chitradurga>tumkur>bangalore (NH13 to NH4)

Total fuel consumed: Rs 1100 /- worth of fuel (21.5 Litres)

Average mileage was around 35

Road conditions: NH4 excellent road with 4 lane till chitradurga. Only few stretches under construction near tumkur and chitradurga. NH13, over all road is good, but lot of truck traffic, so have to be very cautious. Also unexpected road humps along the way, especially near hospet with out any markings or signboards!

Tips about hampi: Hampi is a no liquor zone. So if you are caught with booze, be ready to shell out dough. You need to go to kamalapur to get liquor and have it there. Else get it concealed and have it peacefully in room and later should dispose the liquor bottles, no leaving the bottles in room. Also no bacardi available in the area. Only beer, whitemischief , mcdowells and khoday's stuff. Also very few shops sell goldflake and wills ciggs. So if you are a fag addict like me, you need to carry stock of the cigs from chitradurga.

Pics: I took pics from my cell and my nomadic friend pradeep took pics from a sony digi cam. My cell pics can be accessed at: http://picasaweb.google.com/vaas2000/ridetohampi

I tried to get company for the ride, but there were last minute pull outs. So finally i braced myself for driving alone to hampi. But at the nth moment, on wednesday night, i got a call from pradeep saying that he will meet us at nelamangala crossing in NH4 early morning and we can ride to together. I was elated, as this was going to be my first long trip with another biker for company. So went home rather late from office, finishing pending work and managed to pack things for the next big day and catch few winks of sleep.

Day1: 30th March 2006 Thursday
Woke up early and got ready, mouli called up saying that he will come home and drop his luggage and we can pack up and pushoff. We were supposed to meet Pradeep at nelamangala crossing by 8.30 Am. But mouli showed up with his luggage by 7.15 Am. Then parents started doing pooja for the bike and it was 8.15 Am by the time we left my home after packing and last minute checking. Filled up at shell bunk for Rs 600 and headed off towards nelamangala. Traffic was thin and soon we were near nelamangala crossing by 9.30 Am. Since i had not seen pradeep earlier, i had taken down his bike's description (reg number, colour etc) found one guy calmly reading a book sitting on his bike near the crossing, it was pradeep and soon we got introduced. We took quick pics, bought few cigs and we started off by 9.45 Am. The Dream stretch of NH4 started and soon i was throttle happy, zma was taking time to hit 100 initially, later she was always sticking to 100. We thought of having breakfast in tumkur, but couldn't see any decent hotels, we carried on. Soon we found a good hotel somewhere near sira, had our breakfast at 11.30 am. (much to the relief of mouli as he was getting too bugged with the late thingy from morning) We pushed off by 12.15 from there and then on it was 4 laned bliss! The road was ramrod straight for kms together and driving at 120 felt like 80. Mouli was too excited riding pillion at that speeds. He was constantly waving his hands against the wind, was telling that he could feel the g force. It was a dream stretch for me, i maxed out zma and she hit 125 at one point, but was comfortably crusing in 120. Then on we sobered down to 110. We pulled up before chitradurga at a dhaba, waited for pradeep. Then had tea, ciggs and freshened up. We had done 180 kms so far and time was around 1.15 Pm. We left towards hospet. We had to leave NH4 in chitradurga and join NH13 for hospet. Hospet was still 120kms away and we had ample time. NH13 was neatly laid single lane road for some 40 kms from Chitradurga., later on the road was in not so good condition, it was not too bad, it was just that the tar had cracked up at lot of places and the road was uneven. But it was easy maintaining 80 in this road. But there was lot of truck traffic on this road. But didn't get strained driving on this road as even this road was damn straight with minimal curves like NH4. But it was single lane and there was too much truck traffic. We stopped at road side dhaba with hospet still around 75 kms away, Took a long one hour break for lunch and proceeded towards hospet. On the way we found iron ore companies (jindal i suppose) the road was red in colour till we crossed this stretch. Then we could see tungabhadra river, took some snaps here and we were in tungabhadra dam by evening 5.30 pm. Peacefully saw the sunset there, then proceeded to hospet (around 1km from there) then took diversion to hampi (13kms frm hospet) we reached hampi by 7.45 Pm. The ruins lightened up with my headlamp and i was taken aback with the roads passing through the ruins. It was like a mythical city with ruins scattered all the way along the road side in the dark. We reached virupaksha temple road (hampi bazaar ) for a break. Enquired about accomodation. Found out that hippie's island ferry is closed by 6 pm and if we had to stay there, we need to take the bike on the boat to the other side of the river bank. Mouli and me didn't find it feasible, at this juncture we were approached by a guy who promised us to show some good rooms with parking place (my demand was that i needed parking place with good enclosure for our bikes first, then we would settle for any room)Finally we nailed one room and the owner arranged parking in her home passage for our bikes opposite to the hotel. So i was satisfied, the room was decent enuf. The trip meter was showing 345 Kms by end of the day. We unloaded our lugguage there and freshened up and went for dinner. Mouli and pradeep went to buy booze. Later we found out that hampi is no booze zone and one can fined if you are caught with booze bottle in hand. So we concealed it and managed to have it in our rooms with out making much noise and slept a sound sleep.

Day 2: 31st March 2006 Friday
Pradeep being an early bird, woke me up early and mouli was still asleep. Pradeep and me hit the river side, it was peaceful there, we took his bike all the way to the river bank, it was quite a task. We took the boat to the other side of the shore, it is called hippie's island. It has cottages and huts to stay in. Nice ambience. We enquired rent at one place and it was Rs 100 per day! the room was comfy enough with two beds, attached bath etc. We decided against shifting there as it would mean we had to come back to room by 6 pm (no ferries after 6 pm) we came back to the hampi shore. Mouli got ready and pradeep went in search of a guide. We had our breakfast by then. Our guided tour of hampi began at 10 am. We were amazed at the architecture, the scientific marvels like inverted image of virupaksha temple gopura using pinhole camera concept, the musical stone pillars at vittala temple. At the same time we were anguished over the complete lack of care and maintainance of the ruins. Many ruins were left to fend for themselves. People had scribbled their names over the walls of ruins, locals had encroached the land surrounding the ruins and were using it as banana plantation areas. We were pissed off about muslim invaders destroying hampi to the core (guide said that they looted and destroyed temples for 6 months!) The fanatic islamists had spared structures built with islamic architecture (lotus mahal, 10 elephant stables) but destroyed all hindu architecture buildings and temples (vittala temple, krishna temple, the single elephant stable etc) Especially the way they had severed almost all elephant trunks in the scriptures and the heads of all scriptures. Most of the temples don't have idols are the ones having idols are badly scarred and damaged. We finally ended the guided tour by evening 6.30 Pm in virupaksha temple. Then me and mouli decided to visit hippie's island as mouli was too eager to see the cottages (famous for all night long rave parties during full moon nights) i had to take my zma down to the river bank and pratically at one slope i was stuck! i was too scared of loosing balance and i was just holding the brakes and standing there on the slope, finally after much effort, i managed to park zma on the river bank side and we hit the boat to go to the other side of the river bank. We stuck a conversation with an isreali couple on the boat, the guy started by asking about zma, it's make, power, cc etc. I told him and he was asking about me and mouli, where we came from (amazingly he had never heard/been to bangalore!) he was telling us to go to goa and north india too! i told him that we are still exploring south india and we will try to hit north once we have seen places in south. Then we were asking about him and he told that he was an agriculturist in isreal. We asked him how many months break had he taken to come to india. He cooly told us six months! we were so surprised to hear, six months vacation in another country, now that would be akin to hitting a jackpot for us! Then me and mouli explored the hippie's island cottages, one even had a swimming pool and a billards table! we had a cup of tea there and hit the boat to come towards hampi side. Then we met pradeep, he had been to see sunset from a nearby mountain. Then all of us went to mayura hotel (3 kms from hampi) of karnataka tourism, had dinner there, mouli decided to get blown there and he had n number of beers and he was totally blown when we left the hotel. On our way back the roads werepitch dark and we were playing around while riding bikes by switching off bike's headlights and driving in the darkness, that was one scary experience i will never forget! mouli used to get jolted back to his senses whenever i used to switch off the head set and drive. Then we stopped in the middle of the road and parked our bikes by side, in the darkness had a fag, then we pushed off to the room. We assured pradeep that the next day we would start early by 7 am to explore all the places we saw that day in guided tour. It was 1 Am when we reached room and we were too tired for any thing and we had a sound sleep.


Day 3: 1st April 2006 Saturday.
Woke up real late at 10 Am, inspite of pradeep showing up at our room early morning. So we lost lot of morning time, pradeep had setout alone to explore hampi. Then by 11 am we were on our way to hotel to have breakfast, solomon (from hyderabad group) called up and he said that they have reached hampi and are in hampi bazaar. Found 4 guys in 4 bikes looking for me in the bazaar. (solomon was on his black zma, navneet on his legendary splendor, Praveen on his red 180 dtsi pulsar and vinay on his black classic 180 pulsar) Then we proceeded towards our room and got them 2 rooms in same hotel. Once they had dropped off their luggage, pradeep met them and he again went with solomon to get a guide. Once the guide was found, all 4 hyd nomads were put on to guided tour, pradeep retired to his room due to after noon heat after he had finished exploring hampi in the morning, after finishing breakfast, me and mouli set out to explore hampi by 12.30 in the afternoon. Just as we started, we found a familiar looking black fiero with cramster bags and a nervous guy searching for someone. Found the bikenomads.com sticker on the bike and i knew it was Mr gokarna arun on his fiero. Got introduced to him and led him to pradeep's room. After wards me and mouli set out to explore hampi by 1pm, the heat was unbearable and unforgiving just like the previous day but we didn't have much choice so we started off with krishna temple.Took lot of pics there. Then hazararamatemple, more pics, then the ruins. We hit mayura hotel for lunch by 2.30 pm.Then we started towards vittala temple for group pic, i started recording the video of group ride. Then they found a granite quary, we took our bikes there for group pics.After few pics, we proceeded to vittala temple and the hyd guys proceeded to their guided tour there. Praveen and arun left for watching sunset in matanga hills. Me and mouli went towards the river side near the half finished bridge. It was like even the new bridge was jinxed and was in ruins before it could be completed becoz of unesco's objection. We spent quite time there watching people transporting their bikes across the river in the round boats, people crossing over to the other side of the bank. Had a fag, then took lot of pics from atop the bridge. Then we decided to go to vittala temple to see the weekend lighting display. Only on saturdays and sundays vittala temple in illuminated by lights between 7 to 8 pm. Half way through we met the guys on their way back. They told us that the show was not on as the contract was not renew by our great govt for continuing the light show. So disappointed we went back to hampi and had dinner in mayura hotel. Then we parted ways and on our way back we again started switching off our headlights and playing fool with darkness. Started packing our stuff for our ride back to bangalore the next day. Pradeep told us that he would meet us by 7.30 am the next day at our room and we could start off early. The hyderabad guys were planning to leave by 5.30 Am in the morning. The day came to an end after i caught few winks of sleep after tedious process of packing our stuff.

Day 4: 2nd April 2006 Sunday
Thankfully i woke up early and me and mouli were ready by 7.30 am. Pradeep showed up exactly at the said time. We proceeded towards hospet after checking out of the hotel. On our way out of hampi, i was feeling nostalgic, i didn't want to leave this place as i seemed to have grown fond of the ruins. On the other hand mouli wanted to get back to bangalore asap as he had enough of the heat and sun. So i left hampi with a heavy heart, but promised myself that i will return to hampi again as i couldn't explore the place properly. We had breakfast in hospet by 8.30 Am. Pradeep told us that he's having some problem with bike if he hits 80 or 90, so he told us that he would leave early, we were having a fag, so we told him to go ahead and he left and we left after 10 mins. The next 15 kms was horrible ride, there were simply too many trucks and after we hit relatively peaceful stretch we took a break to take some snaps and light up a cig. Then on it was again straight road and we were cruising in 90 and 100. Even after covering 35 kms we couldn't find pradeep, i thought he might have ripped on his way back to bangalore. So we took our own butt breaks and fag breaks all along the way and when we were nearing chitradurga, we found pradeep doing comfortably 100. We bidded goodbye to NH 13 and joined NH 4 in chitradurga. Again took a butt break in Chitradurga by 1.30 Pm. Pradeep passed by us at this point of time. Then we started again towards bangalore. It was again a rip fest on our way back, we were crusing in 100 and 115 comfortably along the 4 laned straight NH 4. We found a benz and octavia comfortably ripping in 140 or 130, we took few more stops for cigs and pics and we had our lunch in kamat hotel near sira at 2.30 Pm. Then we hit bangalore by 4.30 Pm after ripping the last stretch of 4 laned NH4 after tumkur. I dropped mouli home and reached my home by 5 Pm. The trip meter reading was 765 kms at my home. Thus my long awaited hampi ride came to an end .