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.
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