A Trip to Gujurat

November, December, January and February seem to be the best times to visit most of India because the temperatures are more reasonable than most of the rest of the year.- though a couple people we asked were not sure what it signifies- and lots of people were working that day too! There are also a few holidays in Dec- Feb. period that make it a little more advantageous to tour while using fewer vacation days. Our visit to Hampi ended on the 14th- a Holiday. We just returned from a visit to Gujurat- the home state of M. Gandhi- bordering on southern Pakistan. This trip covered Jan. 26 which was "Republic Day".
One of the things Gujurat is known for is its textiles. We flew from Bangalore to Mumbai and then on to Bhuj in the western part of Gujurat. That part of the state us known as "Kutch"- which we see spelled different ways. People we met speak of the region as if it were a separate state or even separate country from Gujurat, India and Pakistan. We arrived in Bhuj a bit later than planned because the flight from Mumbai was delayed. Our friend Linn also made the trip and made most of the arrangements. Our Friend Anita also made the trip, but had different flights from ours.
Our plan was tot try to travel "light" and only carry on our bags, but this went awry for both Janet and Anita when tiny scissors they had di not pass through the security screening and rather than give them up they checked the bags. Fortunately, the bags arrived safely.
The temperature in Bhuj was warm, but not bad. A driver met us at the airport and took us to the only hotel in the city that seemed to be recommended. We checked in and decided to go to a folk art museum, but Linn and Janet had a bit of an argument with the guy at the desk who claimed we had to pay 500 Rs (about $11 these days) to go there, but he said it was closed anyway. The guy was a lower level person, so later Linn dealt with the manager and our car for the next 2 days and to drive away from Bhuj on the 26th was arranged for the fees she had been quoted earlier. We got two auto rickshaws and found the museum to be open and quite happy to have visitors. Anita is from New Delhi and spoke Hindi to the drivers, which helped.
The folk art museum is small, but has a nice collection of old textiles among other things. They also have several small buildings one can see decorative styles from the area.
We left the museum near dusk and went to the central bazaar where we found a couple interesting shops, but ran out of time before going back to the hotel by auto rickshaw. The rickshaw drivers here did not seem as earger to take all our money as they seem in other cities. Perhaps it was because Anita was with us. We had dinner at the hotel and then went to sleep.
On Sunday Jan. 24 we got in our nice hired minivan with pleasant driver and went to one of the old palaces in the city to try to find a good map of the area. We stooped there only briefly and took a few pictures- earthquake damage seemed evident, though we read that the places have not be kept up over the many years either. We road off to a textile maker's business to the south east of the city. They do a special kind of processing at the place that starts with blank cotton fabric and after about 10 to 14 steps of block printing, dyeing and washing steps, end sup having beautiful patterns in 3 or more colors. They use carved wooden blocks to make a repeating pattern on the fabric. It was quite remarkable to see and impressive to see how such a complex process was developed. The owner said that he is the 9th generation to be doing this and his sons now run most of the operations- so 10 generations! Of course, we bought a few sample fabrics.
We then visited a couple of other villages and shops where local women make hand embroidered textiles that range in quality from mediocre to spectacular. Though hand embroidered anything is rather expensive in much of the world because of labor costs, they are not so expensive here. We learned that the quality is starting to decline over the past 10 or 20 years. We ended the evening with a stop at a sort of handicrafts village that is obviously newly built for the purpose. Different artisans show their wares in nice brick buildings and they rotate new people in each month. There were some good items, but not a lot. We think the buildings were built in the past few years with funds from the central government to help out after the awful earthquake that struck this area only a few years ago. (official death toll was around 18,000, but people here said it was more like 45,000). We then went back into Bhuj and called a textile dealer who is very well known and listed in some of the guidebooks. We were welcomed at their home and shown many very nice old textiles. We bought a few and then were invited to return the next night for dinner and to see some very special items from his personal collection.
On Monday the 25th we went to the police station to get permits to visit some villages north of the city. When you go close to the border with Pakistan you need a permit. We had to list the villages we wanted to visit, so we made a short list the night before. We knew we would not have time to see them all, but listed 5 places. We made it to 3.
There are a few cooperatives who sell items made by many groups of women and they give the women a fair share of what the items sell for. Our first stop was at such a place where they have a small research facility and are putting pictures and information into an on-line database for people to see around the world. They had a nice shop too.
We made stops in a couple villages and also went to the "Great Rann". This is a huge salt flat tha borders on Pakistan. It was hot in the sun and extremely bright due to light reflected from the salt. Later we were told that this was formed about 1890 after an earthquake. We have not studied the subject but someone told us that a river once flowed here, but its course was changed in 1890 and sea water was trapped to lead to the salt beds. In any case it was interesting to see white salt as far as you could see. Except for the Bromine factory.
We made our way back to Bhuj to change clothes at our hotel and then go for dinner and to see the special textiles. The dinner was very good vegetarian cuisine. The textiles were amazing. Two were hand embroidered pieces 100 to 200 years old while another was a block printed and hand painted wall hanging with great patterns and colors. Remarkable stuff of museum quality.
On Tuesday, Jan. 26 we left Anita in Bhuj and she flew back to Bangalore later in the day. Linn, Janet and Jim road to Ahmedabad with the hotel driver. We wanted to see the contry side between these two cities and took the 6.5 hour ride.
The country side is very flat. We saw a huge area where salt is gathered. We were impressed by the quality of the roads- on the average, much better than around Bangalore. We had planned to stop at Lothal- site of a city of 2500 BC(!), which was on the rive rback then and now is quite a distance from the river. However, our driver said that since it was a government holiday, the site would be closed. He might have been right, but we don't know. He proposed to take us by a different route to go through a part of the "Little Rann" where we might see some wild jackasses roaming around. So, we decided to follow his suggestion. We did see some wild asses. They are tan and white in color and were not as shy as we were told.
We arrived at our hotel in Ahmedabad about 5:30 PM. We checked in and a friend of a friend came to meet us at the hotel. A few months back we mentioned that Janet bought Jim a painting from a relative of the Maharaj of Mysore. This was the artist. He lives in gujurat about half time and he came to show us around the city.
The night we arrived he took us to the "Utensil Museum", which was actually a fairly interesting collection of over 3500 implements. Most were metal, but many wee pottery. We then had a Gujurati Thali for dinner. We returned to the hotel.
On Wed. the 27th, Linn returned to Bangalore as she had to work. We stayed at the hotel until "Choata" (this is spelled approximately as it is written, but not how he spells it.) arrived and he then took us on a walking tour of old Ahmedabad. This was an interesting walk and we saw many old wooden buildings where the facades were intricately carved out of Burma teak. Most were in poor repair, but still intersting. A few places have been restored.
We had lunch and then road off to visit a couple of nice textile shops plus an art book shop that had many very nice volumes. We ended the evning with a simple dinner at our hotel.
On Thursday the 28th, we were joined by Choata again and we had arranged for a car and driver to take us to the Calico Museum. We were not sure we'd get in so we arrive dearly to get in line to see the museum. They only allow 25 or 30 people a day to visit. We were the first ones there and we waited. It turned out not to be a problem as most people arrived AFTER the tour started. The museum collection seemed to be spectacular, but we were a bit rushed through and the place is dimly lit to help preserve the fabrics. The guide has a well deserved reputation for being rather stern.
We had a little lunch and visited a couple other textile shops before we parted from Choata and went to the airport. It was big help having him along- partly because he speaks the local language and partly because of his family history. He was also very pleasant and helpful to us. Our flight back to Bangalore was largely uneventful, but we did note that the announcements at the airport were difficult to understand and the text messages on the tv monitors were not up to date.
At Bangalore we were met by our driver Joseph and came home to find Ziggy and Zoe seeming happy to see us! Unfortunately Jim caught a cold or maybe it is allergy on the 27th and has been a bit under the weather ever since.
It was a very interesting visit, but much too short. We needed at least another day in Bhuj and more days to see other parts of Kutch. Then we needed a couple more days to see other areas around Ahmedabad too.

A Trip to Hampi - part 5 - a note on traffic

On the drive to Hospet and Hampi on Jan. 9 we saw the remains of 9 serious accidents along the road. All but one of these clear involved trucks or lorrys of various sizes. The other one was a case where some one may have been struck by a vehicle or thrown from a vehicle and he was apparently killed. (The police were there and no one was tending to the guy, so we presume he was deceased.) Among the other 8 serious accidents it is possible that some people were killed or seriously injured, but we don't know. Several were overturned vehicles- on their side or on the roof. Some were loaded with goods and some appeared to be empty. We assume that most of these occured during the previous night and offer good evidence why people recommend NOT driving at night!
The roads leading out of Bangalore are generally a mess. There is a lot of construction underway to improve them, but for now, they are a mess and traffic delays are common. It took us about 1 hour and 10 minutes to get all the way out of the city when we left on the 9th. (We stopped for coffee at that point.) The highway to Chitradurga was generally very good, but we were surprised to see new "records" for how wide a load could be put on the highways here! The picture clearly shows something that just isn't possible. Yet, somehow, everyone manages to deal with these situations and move on.
National Highway 13 (NH13) which we took from Chitradurga to Hospet is not in such good condition. It have many very rough patches that are difficult in the day time, but would be dangerous at night. In addition the road is full of trucks. This is a mining area and those trucks account for much of the traffic, but also it is used to haul goods between the south and north of India. We passed a lot of trucks! Each one is a little risky as people may very well choose to try to pass you while you are passing the truck! People from the other direction may try to pass as well!
On the return trip from Hospet to Bangalore on the 14th (a Holiday) Jim counter 150 trucks going the other direction in just the first 30 minutes on the road! The density reduced some after that, but it was a big number of trucks overall- and those were only the ones going the opposite direction!
When we got close to Bangalore were were fortunate to have an ambulance pass us. Joseph then followed the ambulance for the next 30 min. or so as we made our way toward home. This saved a lot of time before some other people pulled in front of us and we fell behind. The other driver generally move out of the way of ambulances as best they can, but they are not very quick or diligent about it. It probably takes about 30% longer for an ambulance to get through here compared to in the US. This mostly because of the heavy traffic, but also because people do not move out of the way very quickly.
One picture shows something which we often saw on the smaller roads. There are a lot of people by the road who put bundles of grain on the roads and allow the trucks and buses and cars to drive over it! The purpose seems to be to get to grain from the stalks, but there may be more to it than that. They go out and sweep up what they want periodically and then add more to the piles. Of course, we saw lots of trucks and buses and cars with stalks of stuff being dragged under their vehicles!
In Hospet we found the traffic to be worse than Bangalore. This is a small city, but the roads are narrow and congested. Earlier we mentioned the railroad crossing. At RR crossings people fill up BOTH sides of the road on BOTH sides of the RR tracks while waiting for the train to pass. Then, when the gates open everyone moves forward in a big mess to try to get ahead of the other people. It ends up being a delay for everyone else. The idea seems to be that those who go to the front do get there sooner and those who do it all the time, and aggressively, get ahead in the longer run. This may be true, but is is not a good example of cooperative behavior. Similar behavior is seen in queues- people will often step in front of others and not think twice about it. It is rare that anyone complains. We don't understand why few complain- except that maybe they wish they had done it.
On the night of the 13th after left Hampi we were very pleased that there was no train causing the usual jam at the tracks, so we thought we'd get to the hotel, rela and have dinner and then rest. However, that was not to be. As we got into Hospet the traffic suddenly stopped. As we waited only briefly, suddening the other side of the road filled up with cars and truck and motorcycles and auto rickshaws all trying to move ahead of the normal traffic that had stopped. It seemed obvious that this was a stupid thing to do, but they did it! After waiting about 10 minutes we saw a little movement of a large bus from the other side- a few men were helping to shepherd it through the mess, but then nothing more came through. Janet decided to walk to the hotel while Jim waited a little longer in the car, but then got out to walk too. That left Joseph to stay with the car. He got some information on another route to his hotel. The walk was bad because there were cars every which way and any opening was quickly filled with motorcycles trying to squeeze through. This made it difficult to even walk! It was also dark, so we stepped in some mud too. Eventually, we could see that there was really no big accident or anything that stopped the traffic. It probably started with two buses that had trouble passing eachother and then everyone else just tried to move ahead and ended up blocking both sides of the road. We saw some police trying to restore a little order by clearing a path through, but meanwhile we saw vehicle after vehicle speeding forward on the wrong side of the road and blocking it again. However, about the time we reached our hotel we called Joseph and he said that the cops had managed to clear it well enough that he was moving to his hotel. Adventures in traffic!
The return trip to Bangalore took a bit more than 6 hours with one stop for a quick lunch in Chitradurga and another for coffee just outside Bangalore. We were helped by the ambulance in Bangalore itself. We got coffee at the same place as when we left Bangalore and we also brought back two bottles of water we bought there. We discovered that the bottles had been previously opened, so the assumption has to be that they refilled them with tap water and resold them. They did take them back and gave us 2 new ones which were sealed. This was a "reputable" chain coffee shop, so we assume they would have had problems if we complained to the head office. It is quite possible that the seals were just broken by accident, but we assume not.

A Trip to Hampi - part 4

For our 3rd full day we met Viru in Hampi again and spent much of the day in the "royal center"- Vijayanagar. Here there are ruins all around- many of them were buried for centuries and many more are likely to be found as other parts are investigated. We first walked past a huge stone platform which Viru said once had a large wooden structure on top from which the kings would oversee the events going on below. We came back to this later.
We walked to see a "stepwell". These are common in northern India but were uncommon in this area in the 1600th and earlier centuries. Viru pointed out two things about it. One is that the stone is a different color than the usual granite and the second is that every stone in it has a number engraved in the surface. He said the belief is that this was actually built somewhere else (further north) and then taken apart and re- assembled here. Viru showed us some stone troughs that have been partially reassembled as well. The handling of water here was fairly sophisticated as they brought water from far away to fill the stepwell and lots of other features in this area. We later bought a book that was published some years ago on the water systems.
We next walked to a huge "swimming pool". We don't know how else to describe it. Viru said that one of the earlier overseers of the digging in Hampi had many areas covered with stucco to minimize the digging of people who just wandered on to the place. This pool bottom was covered like that so there may be much more interesting stuff to be uncovered.
We went to see some pre-historic paintings on a huge boulder and then had lunch before going off on another coracle across the river to visit the village of Anegondi. This was the capitol before Hampi was built up, but Viru said that it was never really occupied by royalty. The Hampi area is huge and there are many areas we did not visit. This village was a little disappointing. When we arrived on the river bank we saw the remains on a modern bridge that had collapsed about a year earlier- killing 8 workers. The bridge was started many years back and was always controversial because many said that it should not be built so close to Hampi. Apparently, many people also thought it was not well designed and when they began more work to finish it they added more supports, but apparently, not enough and the bridge collapsed in Jan. 2009. We read about it in Bangalore, but did not know much about it then.
When we arrived on the other side of the river we noticed a couple things. One was that a lot of people were accumulating to cross the river to Hampi and we also watched some men making new coracles. These are made of sticks and rope with fiberglass sheeting over it and then the bottoms are covered in tar to keep water from coming in too easily. This was Jan.13. The 14th was a holiday and Viru said that thousands of people would be crossing to Hampi the next day, so we presume the boats were being made for that.
After our walk around Anegondi we went back to cross the river again and many people had accumulated and only 2-3 boats were running. Viru moved us ahead to get in a boat with 2 motorcycles, at least one bicycle and 8 people. We did not count the bicycles and people, but those numbers are about right. Viru complaine dthat they were being greedy by trying to take more people. As we crossed the river we came to a sudden stop when the boat hit an underwater rock! It would not move until a young kid climbed overboard and worked to push it off the rock. Finally we go to shore but with about 4 inches of water in the bottom of the boat. We were not too worried, but our cameras and clothes would have been ruined if we'd had to get out and swim! The motorcycles would have been wrecked and we worried more about those guys. This is pretty typical stuff for India. A boat made reasonably well for one use, then over loaded or put to another use and the risks go up. However, most of the time all works out without a major problem- like people drowning of getting crushed by a bridge- but those things do happen more often than we are used to hearing about at home. People have more personal responsibility here and less reliance on government and lawyers. This is good in many ways- many things are much less expensive because of the lack of lawsuits or extra safety gear, but the balance seems not quite right yet. Perhaps, in another generation, there will be more safety taken into account. Viru said he would not take people across in the coracles in the future when there are so many people and so few boats. He will probably arrange for one of the smaller ones like we had used a couple days earlier.
We ended our visit to Hampi by driving up a hill to a temple where we could overlook the area near sunset. The views were spectacular and we enjoyed walking around on the rocks and taking pictures. There were lots of monkeys too. While there we saw an extended family from Rajasthan walk around. Viru and Joseph spoke to them in Hindi and they said they were on a 60 day tour of India and had finished 45 days to this point. We dropped Viru off in Hampi and visited a few of the shops there before going back to our hotel. We drove back to Bangalore starting the next morning.
Overall, we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed Hampi and the other sites. We had hopes of visiting Bijapur too, but decided that it was too far to go and come back in one day and there are not many good hotels in this area of India. It was also quite hot in the sun during the day- this being the middle of "winter"- so, we could easily understand why the place is largely empty for 8 months of the year.

A Trip to Hampi- Part 3 - Badami, Aihole, Patadakal

We spent a couple hours early in the morning driving away from Hampi to Aihole where we were met by a different guide arranged by Viru. The 3 sites we visited this day are much older than Hampi. The temples at Aihole date from about 250 AD to about 780AD. These towns were part of the Chalukya Empire. Our guide explained that Aihole was a sort of learning center for temple building and many unusual temples were built here that were never really copied elsewhere. One picture shows a sort of oval shaped temple that is very unusual. Our guide showed us each of the temples (in a few too many words), but we liked seeing them. We started with the 780AD temple and ended with one built around 250AD. The older ones show a great deal of wear from the centuries of rain and sun and human abuse.
We left Aihole for Patadakal. This is a World Heritage Site. Our guide explained that there were many coronation ceremonies performed here and the temples have been keept in reasonable condition. These temples were built between about 720 and 780AD and he said that the builders learned from the earlier ones to the later ones as they built. The style of them appears more typical of northern Indian temples, so we presume there was some communication with the north in the 8th century.
We next drove to Badami to see 4 cave temples here. Our guide said they were carved out of the sandstone mountain in the 7th century. There are 2 Vishnu temples, one Shiva Temple and one Jain temple. We know little about Jainism, but we know that they are very strictly vegetarians. The more rigorous believers wear masks to avoid even accidentally swallowing an insect. At the Chariot temple the previous day we saw 4 or 5 Jain women all dressed in white with masks. They asked Viru some questions which he answered. He asked them about some long handled white brooms they were carrying and they said that they were for sweeping insect out of their path if necessary to avoid stepping on them. They asked where they could get a book about the temples to read more and Viru told them of a shop, but they said they had no money, so he just shrugged his shoulders.
There is much more to Badami than just the cave temples, but it was late in the day so we only had time to see them before heading back to our hotel in Hospet. The guide gave directions to Joseph, but w ekept having the feeling we were going the wrong way, but we got back safely.
The cave temples were interesting because of all the work that went into carving them out so long ago. They each have some nice sculptures, but are rather dark and plain further inside. We saw some traces of paint and then our guide explained that there were once many colorful paintings inside but these are nearly all gone now. He showed us one spot where we could see parts of some figures painted.

A Trip to Hampi Part 2

Our second day at Hampi started from Hampi Bazaar. Viru explained that each major temple had a bazaar where people would come to sell or trade their goods. He said that the Hampi Bazaar was the largest in the world (or nearly so). Much of what is seen today has been reconstructed, but only to give an idea how long it is. Some of the original bazaar is being used as housing- some probably for many generations, but the remainder is just granite posts and beams with no roof. All of the stone at Hampi is white granite- very hard and heavy and difficult to work, yet they carved lots of figures from it.
We walked all along the bazaar and past an unfinished Nandi Bull sculpture at the end. A number of things were unfinished at Hampi at the time it was sacked. At the end of the bazaar we walked up a hill and went down the other side to find another huge temple complex with its own bazaar which was quite long. There were practically no people here- except for a guy talking on his mobile phone and getting in the way of our pictures. Viru said that most Indians don't take the time to see many of the places away from the areas where they arrive and park their vehicles. He said it is mostly foreign tourists who make the trip. We figure that 500 year old ruins are not so rare in India and people figure they can always come back, but probably don't.
After walking around this temple complex we walked the length of the bazaar which took us to the river where we stopped for a bottle of water. Viru arrange for a ride on the river in a "coracle"- a circular boat- which is very popular here. The 3 of us got in with the pilot/paddler and we headed off down stream for awhile. This was very nice except that Janet got tar from the boat on her arms and Jim lost his camera lens cap. However, those problems were later rectified. The tar was handled after a stop at a petrol station to get some gasoline to remove the tar and Viru called the pilot to see if he could find the lens cap- and he did! In any case, the trip down the river was very relaxing. We floated past the ruins of many temples on the way. At the end we saw the stone columns that supported a bridge in the 1500's. The bridge is long gone, but the columns remain.
Earlier in 2009- late August there were huge rain storms in this area and the river level rose to very high levels. We asked how high the water was and it was rather scary to see where they said it went. In the pictures you can see color differences in the stone- apparently the water was above the gray colored stones.
Joseph, our driver, met us with the car at the end of the boat ride and we went off to lunch at a well known restaurant along the river. Afterword, we went to see more ruins around the "sacred center"- including a huge monolithic sculpture of "Ganesha".
On our 3rd day and second full day we started off at another huge temple complex for which we had to pay a fee. We have been told that as legal residents of India we can pay the Indian rates to enter sites instead of the foreigner rates which are often 10 to 20 times higher than the Indian rates. The fees are not huge even at the foreign rate, but since we pay Indian taxes, it makes sense that we should pay the Indian rate. However, the people collecting money see it differently. From the color of one's skin they determine that you are or are not an Indian and charge accordingly. We argued with them for awhile, but since they do not speak or understand English very well in most cases and since we don't speak any of the other Indian languages (Hindi and English are the most widely understood), our arguments are not taken seriously. Viru attempted to argue in our favor, but the guy told him that anyone can get an Indian tax ID card and there are many fakes around. In any case, we paid the full rate. The entry to this temple site also got us into another site later.
This temple has a famous stone "chariot" sitting outside the temple and the temple is sometimes called the musical temple. Viru explained that we can no longer demonstrate the musical nature of the temple, but he said that because of the way the columns are carved one can strike different columns and get different sounds. So many thousands of people have done this that some are worn and they decided it was time to stop this.
Later we went to see the elephant stables. This is also a famous structure near a palace. The architecture looks Mughal or Islamic, but Viru said that the builders here were Hindu and simply copied from other places.
We more- or- less ended the day with a stop at the "underground temple". This is a site where the temples appear to have been placed below ground level, but Viru explained that when they were built they were at ground level, but from flooding of the river and deposition of silt they were buried over the centuries. The site was excavated around 30 years ago to uncover a very nice, though somewhat plain, temple. However, because of agriculture nearby the ground water level is high enough now that the floor of the temple is always under several inches of water, so we did not go in.

A Trip to Hampi- part 1

We are a bit behind in recording some of our doings here in India. Ziggy and Zoe have not felt much like writing lately either. We just returned from a few days in the State of Gujurat and will write about that later. Presently, we will describe our trip of a couple weeks back when we drove to Hampi, Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal in the northern part of Karnataka.
We first learned of these places about a year ago when we happened to be at Chitrakala Parishanth here in Bangalore. This is a place that is set up to encourage artists and the pursuit of arts and crafts as a profession or hobby and we have have found it to be a great asset of the city. We were there to see an exhibit of old photographs of Hampi (we like photographs) and found that they were setting up for a lecture by a couple people- John Fritz and George Michell. We stayed to hear their talks. It was quite interesting and we bought a copy of the book that had just come out on the old photos that were taken in the 1850's but were only found again about 1980 in England. The photos were taken by a British Officer and it was actually his negatives that were found. The photos have been widely studied because they can be compared to the same sites today and one can see what additional damage or "well -intentioned" renovations have been done to some of the structures. In any case it was very interesting and we spoke to John Fritz who gave us the name of a very good guide for Hampi. We had hoped to visit there last March, but could not arrange it, so we finally managed to arrange the visit and get the guide- "Viru" scheduled as well.
It was a very busy end of the year of 2009 and first week of Jan. here, so we left on Sat. Jan. 9 looking forward to a few days away from work. We returned on Jan. 14, which was a holiday here. We will add a separate note on the drive to Hampi and back after describing some of what we saw.
On the 9th we stopped in Chitradurga on the way to Hospet- Hospet being the larger city near Hampi and we stayed at the best hotel in Hospet. In Chitradurga, we stopped at the fort to see the ruins. This city is not a big tourist destination and is not really set up for handling many foreign guests, but the old fort is huge and quite interesting to see. Of course, it is in ruins, but we like to see ruins and imagine what it might have been like in the past. We were accosted by the usual array of beggars, children asking for "school pens" or money, and guides who wanted to show us around for a large fee. We have mentioned before that many of thee guides are quite good and worth much of the fee they request, but the problem is that they usually ask for too much and sometimes they are not so good- full of mis- information. Many places have "official guides". We do not know what makes them official as opposed to unofficial, but n some sites they have some sort of badge- thought it could be one they had made for themselves. However, we just wanted to roam around some and take some pictures and then head off to Hampi. We walked around for about 45 minutes. It involved some walking up hills. We saw only a small part of the place but enjoyed it. We went to the "jail" and areas around it. One of the guides tried to discourage us from going there because it was "undergoing work". He implied it was closed, but we went anyway and no one stopped us. We said that if it was closed then there should be a sign or barrier of some sort saying that. It may have actually been closed to tourists, but we have no idea. He may also have just wanted to take us to a better known area. We saw about 15 people doing manual labor in the area we went through- crushing bricks, hauling bricks, hauling crushed bricks- presumably they were using for some kind of "fill". We hoped that the bricks were not old ones that were part of the fort at one time.
We went back on the road and arrived in Hospet about 2:15PM, but had trouble finding the hotel, then we had lunch at the hotel and contacted Viru about what we might see in the 2 hours or so before dark. (It gets dark between 6 and 6:30PM in the dead of winter here.) Viru was actually already at our hotel waiting for us, but we did not know he would be there.
We drove off to Hampi which is about 11km (7 miles) from the hotel. The road was narrow and winding through tiny villages. It was not in the best of shape, but because some ministers were to visit in about 10 days they had removed many "speed bumps" and they were re-paving sections of the road. It is unfortunate, but true, that such improvements are determined by when some vip's are coming. However, it is good that some improvements are being made.
Hampi is a "World Heritage site". We do not know all the criteria that such places need to meet, but there are some about how much the site remains as it was in the past and how much or how badly restorations have been done in the past. In the case of Hampi, the city was destroyed in 1565 and was never really used or rebuilt after that. Much of it lay buried under the intervening centuries of dirt and growth until after 1950- roughly 400 years. There are still huge areas that have not been excavated and studied. We learned that this areas was the capitol of the Vijayanagar Empire from the mid- 1300's until it was destroyed in 1565- about 200 years. The fort in Chitradurga was a Vijayanagar fort and the Gingee fort near Pondicherry was also built up by them, so the "empire" covered a large area of southern India. There are many other forts around- remnants of them, at least.
On the 9th we visited the area closest to Hampi Bazaar- the village of Hampi is quite active with many people living there and selling things to tourists. We first visited a nice sculpture of Ganesha- the elephant headed God. Then we walked up the hill to see a lot of Temples to Shiva (or Siva)- the "destroyer". Essentially all of these temples are inactive today. When the city was sacked in 1565 (and probably later too) all of the idols or sculptures of the gods were damaged or destroyed or stolen. We were told that once a sculpture is damaged it is no longer "holy" (or the equivalent of that term in hinduism), so the temple is no longer used. The violators knew this and in many cases did not destroy them completely, but just damaged them. The landscape around Hampi is all stone and boulders and quite remarkable and very photogenic. We walked and looked an took photos. From the top of the hill we over looked the village of Hampi and the large "Virupaksha Temple" adjacent to the village. Parts of this temple were built in the 1700's and 1800's, but the original parts were from the Vijayanagar period. We went inside the temple complex and visited the temple elephant and saw a ceremony taking place. Viru was born here and knows everyone, so he paid a visit to the ceremony and made a donation to the person who was about to leave the village on a long trip. It was after dark when we left the village and road back to Hospet for dinner and sleep. The road back was annoyingly congested and the railroad tracks were a fiasco as they often are in India. The road was especially bad there and when a train passes vehicles all line up on both sides of the road on both side of the track in the effort to try to get ahead of everyone else. Of course, this means that, on the average, people end up waiting longer as the mess clears, but for those who managed to get ahead, they got through a little earlier. This is not a good example of cooperative behavior, but we have seen it in all parts of India. We had a good dinner at the Milligi Hotel- the best one in the area and slept fairly well.

A Wedding

We have been very busy since New Year's Eve with work and recently with a little travel. We will describe the travel in some upcoming entries, but last night we attended a wedding. We know the mother of the bride from a group to which Janet belongs and the ceremonies were held at a very nice hotel here in Bangalore. Of course, it started late- as most things do here in India- except when you make the assumption they will start late and arrive late. The ceremony was held outside on a nice lawn with trees and bushes all around which were beautifully decorated with small lights- like Chistmas decorations. The bride and groom are Indian by birth, but they met while working in New York. We did not realize that there were actually to be two ceremonies- one Hindu, which we expected, while the other was Parsi. The groom is Parsi. The Hindu ceremony was short- perhaps less than 10 minutes. Someone said that it was a version from the state of Kerala from whence the bride's mother comes. There was a long break while the couple changed clothes and the Parsi priest or whatever he is called, prepared for the other ceremony. The Parsi ceremony was quite a bit longer, but interesting to see, because we will probably not see another. Parsi religion originated in Persia a long time ago and spread over the centuries, but there are not that many followers. They apparently are derived from the Zaroastrian (please forgive the spelling if not correct) faith, which is quite old. Our impression is that Parsis are fairly liberal in their views about education and equality of people. The few we have met seem to be well educated and well traveled.
After the ceremonies, we all retired to the indoor ballroom for dinner. The food was excellent and the company of our friend Mini and her son Neil was very nice.
We have been in India for more than 14 months now and it is hard to believe that the time has past so fast. We have been invited to at least 10 weddings in that period- several invitations have been from people we barely know. In fact, we received one just yesterday in the mail and we are not sure where or when we met the people! We have been told that it is "auspicious" to have foreigners attend your wedding, so that is probably the reason for some of the invitations.
People do attend in large numbers, but they are generally very casual about the whole event. Many people were quite casually dressed compared to what we would typically see at an American wedding. They talk to each other during the ceremony and speak on their mobile phones during the ceremony too! Snack foods and juice drinks were served to the people attending during the ceremonies as well as before and after.