Hampi

From the moment we got off the night bus and look around us we new we had made the right decision to come to Hampi. The people we had talked to about Hampi had compared to the set of the Flintstones; They couldn’t have been more right. Everywhere you looked there were strange rock formations and strange buildings jutting out of the lush landscape. As we walked from the bus stop we walked towards the river where watched the sun come up over the landscape as we waiting for the mornings first river boat service.

We caught the first boat across the small river – a journey of no more than 10 meters – towards the main Baazar where our guide book recommended we stay.



After finding a place to stay we had an hours rest (a night bus isn’t a great place to catch up on sleep) before heading out to rent some scooters to explore the temples and the surrounding area.


We spent a couple of hours climbing rocks and exploring the exquisitely carved temples before deciding to head to a Sloth Bear sanctuary that was about 30km away.


The best part of our trip to the Sloth Bear sanctuary was definitely the drive itself. Driving through tiny villages we would often be ambushed by children shouting “HELLLO!!” and dropping whatever they were doing to make sure our ride on the scooters was as fraught with danger as possible. When we got to the park we were able to go around the park on our bikes. We spent an hour two trying to work out where we were meant to look for Sloth Bears and fell asleep on a rock for a bit. We eventually found an organised view point from where we could see 4 bears, we watched then sleep for a bit and then realised we should probably head back to Hampi before it went dark!


The next day we crossed back across the river to have a look around. There was a lot more agriculture with paddy fields everywhere. We then crossed back had a look around some more temples before heading to the nearby town of Hospet to catch our night bus back.