Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Hampi

Hampi is a strange and wondrous place. It was the seat of the Vijayanagara Empire, a collaboration of Hindu communities propelled into partnership by the threat of the advancing Muslim Sultanates. Although the empire eventually fell to the aggressors, the legacy of Vijayanagara shines bright today in the thousands of temples, statues and palaces that remain scattered throughout the region.

Even more intriguing than the ruins is the landscape that contains them. Millions of giant granite boulders of every imaginable shape and size sit in the baking sun, watching in silence as tourists roll by on rusting bicycles or puttering motorbikes. Although the boulders are the result of thousands of years of erosion, it looks more as if they simply dropped out of the sky.

A cool blue river lazily snakes through the valley, fringed by lush green palm trees that provide shade for the Hindus who come to this holy place of pilgrimage. Rather than using much more practical rowboats or canoes, pilgrims and tourists alike barrel across the river in large bowls made of bamboo. It seemed as if we’d just arrived at Disney World to find that the tea cup ride had been upgraded to accommodate an ever expanding clientele.

The town of Hampi Bazaar is a sleepy one, with most of the activity centered on the intricately carved Virupaksha Temple. The temple is home to a sweet elephant named Laxmi, who leads daily parades of the devoted through the main street, which, as the town’s name suggests, was a bustling marketplace in centuries past. School children from around the state, and perhaps the country, pile off of buses and line up to exchange a rupee for a kiss from Laxmi. Gil and I also received a kiss, which was more of a blessing of sorts, with the elephant gently lowering her trunk onto our foreheads after we placed rupees in her slimy snout.

We opted for a motorbike to explore the surrounding countryside. It was fascinating to see how the Vijayanagara transformed the amorphous boulders into objects and places of worship. Just beyond Hampi Bazaar, huge carved monoliths of the Hindu animal gods Ganesha and Narasimha stared out at us from inside of decaying structures. Driving a bit further we came across the Royal Grounds, which is full of curious structures like the brilliant stepped tank and the elephant corral. The dome of each elephant stable was carved in different fashion to keep their revered occupants protected from the elements, giving us and the Indian tourist groups who drank coconuts in the shade a glimpse at the brilliant whimsy from which their country was eventually born.

But Hampi’s most impressive remains can be found near the river within the walls of the Vittala Temple. Thin, delicately carved colonnades that resonate with sound when you tap them battle against gravity to hold up heavy stone roofs. Carved images of gods performing various acts of song, dance or acrobatics adorn the walls and the center of the courtyard showcases a chariot carved out of a single piece of stone.

While we relished exploring the ruins and boulders up close, the magic of the area is really best experienced from above at sunset. We climbed up the tallest hill near town to discover yet another temple and join a family of monkeys and a few yoga-loving hippies watch the sun dip below the horizon. Definitely a must-see for anyone visiting India.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Bijapur

From Mumbai we headed south to the state of Karnataka. Our first stop was Bijapur, a small town with very few foreigners, but lots of interesting remains of from the sultan dynasties that once ruled here.

Like Agra, there are several beautiful mausoleums in Bijapur (the Muslims certainly take the cake for glorifying their dearly departed). The Golgumbaz is an imposing monument, with the second largest dome in the world (after St. Peters in Rome) and perhaps the loudest acoustics of any place on the planet. You climb up into the dome to enter the so-called "whispering gallery", where you can supposedly here the whisper of someone sitting on the opposite side. However, we happened to be there when hundreds of students were visiting on school trips, which meant that the whispers were replaced by amplified screams and our ears were ringing when we left. It also meant we had to shake scores of hands, pose for several pictures and answer countless questions about our names and "native place".

Other mausoleums we visited were the Ibrahum Rouza, a delicately decorated pair of dome-topped structures set in a beautifully manicured garden, and the Bara Kaman, a structure that originally mirrored the Golgumbaz in design, but is now little more than a series of interlocking arches. Other fascinating sites around town were the Malik-e-Maidan, a 3 ton cannon shaped like a lion with an elephant in its mouth (representing Islam conquering Hinduism), and the sprawling ruins of the citadel complex.

The town also has a very colorful flower and vegetable market (we have never seen so many chili peppers in one place before!) and really friendly people. It was great to be off the foreign tourist trail for a while, although the limited English spoken here did pose a few challenges for us in trying to figure out how to get to our next planned destination - the Badami caves. In the end, we opted to get on a bus headed straight to Hampi instead to save us from some logistical headaches....