January 8, 2003
Hampi New Year! I say that because I'm in Hampi, India, home of some really famous and amazing ruins in the heartland of India. Today was a jaunt through temples and ruins and more temples and aqueducts and even one of the coolest temples I've ever seen. The Vittala Temple has 56 pillars and they're all carved up with dancing ladies and horses and Budda-dudes and best of all, Musical Columns. This is something I've never seen before, inside the huge column are these 8-sided faceted columns. Give em a knock and they sing with a cute little ding. There are 4-8 of them per column so you can make a little tune, ding-dong-dinnga-ding. Or something like that. Until the guards pull out their police whistles and TOOT-TOOT at ya to make you stop. I didn't get busted, sly that I am, but saw plenty of Indians get scolded. Perhaps it was their method, as they would slap at the columns, much like you'd play a congo-drum, which they are more used to. We knock : knock-knock-jokes, knock-on-wood, knocking-knocking-on-heavens-door, etc, but I guess knocking is foreign to their foreign culture. Anyway, knocking got the better noise, if I may say so myself, although I couldn't 'carry' a tune on the huge xyzlephone.
Hampi is known as The Forgotten Empire or something, I dunno why. Its the "buzzword" here that is obviously so obvious as to not merit any explanation. This is typical Indian. If they see something catchy somewhere, anywhere, they assume everyone in the West must know it, and furthermore, it must be the best way to describe it to generate interest, so everything is The Forgotten this, or The Now-Unforgotten that, or the Unforgotten, or WhatWasOnceForgottenButHasBeenUnForgotten or any sort of possiblity of mangling the cliche, well, they've beat ya to it.
So there are tons of little temples here and there and along the river and on top of the rocky hills that surround the town and a great place to rent a bike and just temple-hop all day. Today was more structured or a jaunt, but over the next day or two, just have a leisurely Tomb Raider Indiana Jones type of experience.
New Years / Xmas was pretty nice. Ok, it was nicer than pretty nice, it was nearly paradisesque. Spent it on the beach in Goa, the ex-Portugese colony on the west coast of India. Ex-portugese meant that it reminded me a lot of Latin America, kinda that Iberian Pennisula thing Goa'ing (as they say here) on, with tons of catholic churches and palm trees and christmas tree lights and it was quite quaint, although no Xmas music anywhere. Right before New Year's I moved to a quaint little beach called Arambol, and for some reason, likely strict local noise rules, it didn't have anything going on for New Year's Eve. Just 20km down the road was the 48-Hour Super Goa Rave going on, so after a docile and anti-climatic New Year's Eve Midnight, about 10 of us went to sleep and woke up at 6am to head to the Super Rave at 7 in the morning and sure enough, the party was going with dancing under palm trees in the sand, in broad daylight, with people in costumes and the general New Year's Mayhem. Pretty good time, as Goa is famous for their New Year's Party. One night isn't enough I guess....and why should it be?
So did a lot of lying on the beach and swimming in the warm water and eating tasty pizza at the really really good Italian restaurant in Arambol and being really really lazy sitting on my porch that looked over the rocky coast with palm trees and the ocean. The best view I've ever had from a hotel room, ever, right there in Arambol. Sunset with a cold Kingfisher beer at 6pm was the ritual. And had one of the greatest steaks ever, somehow finding Beef in India (Ya know, holy cow and all...) with garlic mashed potatoes and at home this meal would have cost a good bit more than the $3 it cost me, youch! It was One Of Those Memorable Meals. One where you take thirty seconds to chew every bite, savoring it, before taking thirty seconds to remember how great the bite was, and then another thirty seconds to think how great the next bite is before you actually eat it.
So after lazing away on the beach I needed to do something, so lets go to Hampi and see some culture is what I thought. Which is exactly the idea everyone else had I think and so all the posh direct tourist buses were full and I end up taking local buses with weird connections to make my way to Hampi, in actually the same amount of time, at half the cost of taking the posh-direct-tourist bus. Way to go!
Hampi is a funny little town. It has a reputation of a place hippies go and hang out for months and I guess I can see why, although I don't much care for the food here and its tough to enjoy yourself when the food isn't that great, but I'm still lookin'. Speaking of food, my time in Goa was amazingly sick-free, as in I didn't get sick from Indian food, which was a problem my first two weeks in India (sick twice).
So I'm here in Hampi for a few more days. Tomorrow I"m moving across the river to a little wicker hut that is right on the river, with great rocks for climbing behind the place, and a tandoori oven in the restaurant and cheap bike rentals. Then I'm off to catch a little civilization in Bangalore, India's Technology Capital, then to Mysore (where I'll think of some bad jokes about the name too) and then down the west coast for some boat cruises along the backwaters of Kerala. The farther south ya go, the hotter the weather, the hotter the food, and that sounds exciting to me!
Ah, and you might know Ohio State won the football National Championship, and no, I didn't get to watch it, because it wasn't on ESPN here. All manner of cricket and soccer and even the women's NCAA volleyball semifinals, but American Football doesn't cut the mustard. But wow, can't believe OSU pulled it off. I should be out of the country for these things more often!
Wish you all a Hampi (Happy) New Year!
- Ryan
Hampi New Year! I say that because I'm in Hampi, India, home of some really famous and amazing ruins in the heartland of India. Today was a jaunt through temples and ruins and more temples and aqueducts and even one of the coolest temples I've ever seen. The Vittala Temple has 56 pillars and they're all carved up with dancing ladies and horses and Budda-dudes and best of all, Musical Columns. This is something I've never seen before, inside the huge column are these 8-sided faceted columns. Give em a knock and they sing with a cute little ding. There are 4-8 of them per column so you can make a little tune, ding-dong-dinnga-ding. Or something like that. Until the guards pull out their police whistles and TOOT-TOOT at ya to make you stop. I didn't get busted, sly that I am, but saw plenty of Indians get scolded. Perhaps it was their method, as they would slap at the columns, much like you'd play a congo-drum, which they are more used to. We knock : knock-knock-jokes, knock-on-wood, knocking-knocking-on-heavens-door, etc, but I guess knocking is foreign to their foreign culture. Anyway, knocking got the better noise, if I may say so myself, although I couldn't 'carry' a tune on the huge xyzlephone.
Hampi is known as The Forgotten Empire or something, I dunno why. Its the "buzzword" here that is obviously so obvious as to not merit any explanation. This is typical Indian. If they see something catchy somewhere, anywhere, they assume everyone in the West must know it, and furthermore, it must be the best way to describe it to generate interest, so everything is The Forgotten this, or The Now-Unforgotten that, or the Unforgotten, or WhatWasOnceForgottenButHasBeenUnForgotten or any sort of possiblity of mangling the cliche, well, they've beat ya to it.
So there are tons of little temples here and there and along the river and on top of the rocky hills that surround the town and a great place to rent a bike and just temple-hop all day. Today was more structured or a jaunt, but over the next day or two, just have a leisurely Tomb Raider Indiana Jones type of experience.
New Years / Xmas was pretty nice. Ok, it was nicer than pretty nice, it was nearly paradisesque. Spent it on the beach in Goa, the ex-Portugese colony on the west coast of India. Ex-portugese meant that it reminded me a lot of Latin America, kinda that Iberian Pennisula thing Goa'ing (as they say here) on, with tons of catholic churches and palm trees and christmas tree lights and it was quite quaint, although no Xmas music anywhere. Right before New Year's I moved to a quaint little beach called Arambol, and for some reason, likely strict local noise rules, it didn't have anything going on for New Year's Eve. Just 20km down the road was the 48-Hour Super Goa Rave going on, so after a docile and anti-climatic New Year's Eve Midnight, about 10 of us went to sleep and woke up at 6am to head to the Super Rave at 7 in the morning and sure enough, the party was going with dancing under palm trees in the sand, in broad daylight, with people in costumes and the general New Year's Mayhem. Pretty good time, as Goa is famous for their New Year's Party. One night isn't enough I guess....and why should it be?
So did a lot of lying on the beach and swimming in the warm water and eating tasty pizza at the really really good Italian restaurant in Arambol and being really really lazy sitting on my porch that looked over the rocky coast with palm trees and the ocean. The best view I've ever had from a hotel room, ever, right there in Arambol. Sunset with a cold Kingfisher beer at 6pm was the ritual. And had one of the greatest steaks ever, somehow finding Beef in India (Ya know, holy cow and all...) with garlic mashed potatoes and at home this meal would have cost a good bit more than the $3 it cost me, youch! It was One Of Those Memorable Meals. One where you take thirty seconds to chew every bite, savoring it, before taking thirty seconds to remember how great the bite was, and then another thirty seconds to think how great the next bite is before you actually eat it.
So after lazing away on the beach I needed to do something, so lets go to Hampi and see some culture is what I thought. Which is exactly the idea everyone else had I think and so all the posh direct tourist buses were full and I end up taking local buses with weird connections to make my way to Hampi, in actually the same amount of time, at half the cost of taking the posh-direct-tourist bus. Way to go!
Hampi is a funny little town. It has a reputation of a place hippies go and hang out for months and I guess I can see why, although I don't much care for the food here and its tough to enjoy yourself when the food isn't that great, but I'm still lookin'. Speaking of food, my time in Goa was amazingly sick-free, as in I didn't get sick from Indian food, which was a problem my first two weeks in India (sick twice).
So I'm here in Hampi for a few more days. Tomorrow I"m moving across the river to a little wicker hut that is right on the river, with great rocks for climbing behind the place, and a tandoori oven in the restaurant and cheap bike rentals. Then I'm off to catch a little civilization in Bangalore, India's Technology Capital, then to Mysore (where I'll think of some bad jokes about the name too) and then down the west coast for some boat cruises along the backwaters of Kerala. The farther south ya go, the hotter the weather, the hotter the food, and that sounds exciting to me!
Ah, and you might know Ohio State won the football National Championship, and no, I didn't get to watch it, because it wasn't on ESPN here. All manner of cricket and soccer and even the women's NCAA volleyball semifinals, but American Football doesn't cut the mustard. But wow, can't believe OSU pulled it off. I should be out of the country for these things more often!
Wish you all a Hampi (Happy) New Year!
- Ryan
posted by SpicyBBQ at
3:47 AM
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