(John) Our final day in Hampi did not quite go off without a hitch. We caught the ferry across the river to what we referred to as the bad side. So called because our rickshaw driver on the first day had self-interestedly told us that on his side of the river it was nice and peaceful- good for families - and on the other side of the river it was full of Russians and Israelis doing drugs. I don't know about that, we looked for Moscovites shooting up in the alleyways and Jews on acid but they were nowhere to be seen. It all seemed pretty nice to me.
We decided to rent bicycles and did so from a couple of friendly lads. The bikes were terrible. I pointed this out to them as we bartered them down to 150 IR for 4 of them. That's $3.75 in Canadian coins. They insisted that they were very good bikes -the best in Hampi – I know I have a bit of a high standard when it comes to bicycles, but the bike I had only had one working pedal. Still, what do I know? Maybe they were right. They wanted the money up front so I paid them and off we went. It was brutally hot but we managed to cover about 14 kms in 5 hours including lunch in the village of Anegundi and a hike to the Hanuman Temple. Hanuman is the monkey God, so monkeys get a really good deal as tourists and pilgrims all buy bananas to feed them. The monkeys line the steps all the way to the top and demand to be fed. Entertaining but a little unnerving.
Our route took us through banana plantations and paddy fields all fed by a reservoir that we tried and failed to get to. When we returned our bikes unfortunately our friendly lads were less friendly and tried to tell us that we hadn't yet paid. They concocted a scenario whereby I had tried to pay them but had no change so I agreed to pay later. It was all a scam and I told them so. But they were caught in the bluff in front of a number on onlookers and got irate. I got just as irate and stormed off telling them I was going to see the police about them. I was saying something along the lines of “those lying b------s” as we passed a British bloke who was enjoying the moment and lent me his support yelling something that would be entirely inappropriate to put in this blog. It wasn`t quite my sentiment, but at the time it was nice to have the unconditional support of a fellow countryman. The lad renting the bikes told Lesley that God would know if I had paid and would be angry with me. Lesley, who witnessed me pay, assured him that God was very happy with me because I had paid. As far as I'm concerned that makes it official. Needless to say, there were no further repercussions. We got back across the river in the ferry three hours before we were due to get a rickshaw into Hospet to board the sleeper bus. Lesley and Sam inexplicably went shopping and Mhari and I, reasonably, went to a breezy, cool, shady, river side restaurant to drink pop and read books. I had sensibly prebooked a nice big rickshaw for a reasonable price that then failed to turn up at the allotted time. 12 other drivers became aware of the situation and I had way more attention than I wanted. I had hoped to be able to leave town quietly. No such luck. We chose to go with Shiva, the same guy that had originally driven us in to Hampi. The drive in had been a white knuckle experience. Shiva is a mechanical engineering student and his rickshaw is a hot rod in disguise. For the return trip I asked him to drive slowly, and maybe to prove a point or maybe out of respect, he took me seriously and I all but nodded off on the way to Hospet.
On our way in a few days prior we had needed to wait at a level crossing, on the way back we waited again. Traffic lines at the gate on both sides of the road. Smaller vehicles scurry forward to fill tiny gaps and when the barrier is lifted the scene resembles a medieval battle as two armies stand facing each other and charge forward. It is total chaos! The motorbikes get through first, then the auto-rickshaws, until finally, I suppose, the trucks and buses get through.
The sleeper bus was waiting for us in Hospet. Us and a crowd of other white people. Clearly travellers, distinguishable by their dress – baggy thin cotton pants and colourful cotton shirts, bleached hair, deep tans and smoking. I'm not a critic, I'm fast acquiring the uniform myself; I'll probably pass on taking up smoking, although given the air pollution in towns and cities I don't see how cigarette smoking would make much difference to my lungs.
The bus was, as advertised, arranged in bunks. The concept is simple - like in a nice first class air plane seat you can lie down and sleep all the way to your destination. The similarity ends there. The bus had no air conditioning, but we were travelling at night and the windows opened wide so keeping cool was never an issue. There was no friendly attendant meeting your every whim. Instead an hour into the journey a young man had us describe our baggage that had been stowed in the back of the bus, on a form, then told us to give him 20 IR per bag. I just said no and he went away. Some of the women on board had more trouble rejecting his request. One welsh lady told him that she had no money on her as it was all in her bag underneath at the back of the bus. He made her promise to pay him when the bus arrive; she did not, I noticed. There was no toilet on the sleeper bus, but it did stop to allow the passengers to pee on the side of the road. We also had a meal stop at around 11pm just as many people had got to sleep. The upside of that was that the food at the bus depot we pulled into was cheap and the best I have tasted in India since the restaurant Lesley and Sam took us to in Trivandrum. Mhari does not concur as the food she ordered was really spicy-hot and her mouth was burning. I had lots to eat that night.
Mhari fell asleep at 11.10 pm, I got to sleep finally at around 1.30 am. Half an hour later the bus came to a halt and all the passengers for Gokarna were told to leave the bus and wait for a new one. Other passengers were going on to Goa. This was news to us. The travel agent who sold us the tickets at twice the price of the government bus, told us the bus went straight through to Gokarna. It was all pretty surreal as 18 travellers got off the bus and sat by the side of the road in the middle of a town I had never heard of, supposedly to wait for a new bus. After half an hour of watching cows and stray dogs walk past a beat up heap of junk pulled over and Mhari said “This'll be it”. Sure enough, it was and we all crammed inside a tiny bus at 2.30am. An hour later we pulled into Gokarna. Everyone else on the bus wanted to be taken further to a beach called Om. We decided to stay with them rather than get put out on the street at 3.30am, alone, with two children. The occupants of the mini bus were informed that the detour to Om would cost everybody an extra 50 IR. When we got to Om, Lesley explained to the driver that we were not prepared to get off at Gokarna alone and would stay with the group waiting on the beach until we could get a rickshaw back into town and we would need our 200 IR fee for that purpose. It was a bit of a hike down to the beach and when we got to a suitable spot to sit and wait for the dawn, one of the people from the bus approached and asked why we hadn't paid and told us that the driver was waiting to take us back to Gokarna. I suppose we are not quite as nice as we used to be as we told her that was too bad and he would eventually figure out that we were not leaving. She chastised us and told us that we should have paid him, as the 200 IR was nothing for us. Maybe so, but after getting conned out of money so often, no matter how small the amount, it gets a little wearing and we were out of patience. The driver was part of the organization that arranged the “sleeper bus” so we weren’t impressed with them.
What followed was quite special as a group of stray dogs joined us and settled down and we, as a group, fell asleep on the beach. We were woken on two occasions by barking as our stray dogs chased off other dogs. We were made to feel quite safe by them. At 6 am the sun rose over the betel nut trees behind us and the bay came into view. The rest of the bus passengers started to drift away in various directions and at around 7:00 am the four of us picked up our packs and after a couple of wrong turns found our way up the path to Kudle Beach where we found breakfast and the two beach huts for 150 IR each, the cheapest digs of our journey so far. Our little beach hut compound serves nice food and has a great shaded eating-homework doing-reading-veg out area.
In many ways the sleeper bus was a great way to travel. Mhari and I shared a space that was six feet by three and a half feet. The bed was firm but soft enough to be comfortable; there was a curtain to pull across for privacy and we only saw one really small cockroach - Lesley and Sam chased off a much bigger one. I wish it was possible in Canada, between say – Winnipeg and Calgary it would be perfect. I just can’t see such a system passing safety rules. Here in India we just have to wise up and ask more questions before we fork out the rupees.
We decided to rent bicycles and did so from a couple of friendly lads. The bikes were terrible. I pointed this out to them as we bartered them down to 150 IR for 4 of them. That's $3.75 in Canadian coins. They insisted that they were very good bikes -the best in Hampi – I know I have a bit of a high standard when it comes to bicycles, but the bike I had only had one working pedal. Still, what do I know? Maybe they were right. They wanted the money up front so I paid them and off we went. It was brutally hot but we managed to cover about 14 kms in 5 hours including lunch in the village of Anegundi and a hike to the Hanuman Temple. Hanuman is the monkey God, so monkeys get a really good deal as tourists and pilgrims all buy bananas to feed them. The monkeys line the steps all the way to the top and demand to be fed. Entertaining but a little unnerving.
Our route took us through banana plantations and paddy fields all fed by a reservoir that we tried and failed to get to. When we returned our bikes unfortunately our friendly lads were less friendly and tried to tell us that we hadn't yet paid. They concocted a scenario whereby I had tried to pay them but had no change so I agreed to pay later. It was all a scam and I told them so. But they were caught in the bluff in front of a number on onlookers and got irate. I got just as irate and stormed off telling them I was going to see the police about them. I was saying something along the lines of “those lying b------s” as we passed a British bloke who was enjoying the moment and lent me his support yelling something that would be entirely inappropriate to put in this blog. It wasn`t quite my sentiment, but at the time it was nice to have the unconditional support of a fellow countryman. The lad renting the bikes told Lesley that God would know if I had paid and would be angry with me. Lesley, who witnessed me pay, assured him that God was very happy with me because I had paid. As far as I'm concerned that makes it official. Needless to say, there were no further repercussions. We got back across the river in the ferry three hours before we were due to get a rickshaw into Hospet to board the sleeper bus. Lesley and Sam inexplicably went shopping and Mhari and I, reasonably, went to a breezy, cool, shady, river side restaurant to drink pop and read books. I had sensibly prebooked a nice big rickshaw for a reasonable price that then failed to turn up at the allotted time. 12 other drivers became aware of the situation and I had way more attention than I wanted. I had hoped to be able to leave town quietly. No such luck. We chose to go with Shiva, the same guy that had originally driven us in to Hampi. The drive in had been a white knuckle experience. Shiva is a mechanical engineering student and his rickshaw is a hot rod in disguise. For the return trip I asked him to drive slowly, and maybe to prove a point or maybe out of respect, he took me seriously and I all but nodded off on the way to Hospet.
On our way in a few days prior we had needed to wait at a level crossing, on the way back we waited again. Traffic lines at the gate on both sides of the road. Smaller vehicles scurry forward to fill tiny gaps and when the barrier is lifted the scene resembles a medieval battle as two armies stand facing each other and charge forward. It is total chaos! The motorbikes get through first, then the auto-rickshaws, until finally, I suppose, the trucks and buses get through.
The sleeper bus was waiting for us in Hospet. Us and a crowd of other white people. Clearly travellers, distinguishable by their dress – baggy thin cotton pants and colourful cotton shirts, bleached hair, deep tans and smoking. I'm not a critic, I'm fast acquiring the uniform myself; I'll probably pass on taking up smoking, although given the air pollution in towns and cities I don't see how cigarette smoking would make much difference to my lungs.
The bus was, as advertised, arranged in bunks. The concept is simple - like in a nice first class air plane seat you can lie down and sleep all the way to your destination. The similarity ends there. The bus had no air conditioning, but we were travelling at night and the windows opened wide so keeping cool was never an issue. There was no friendly attendant meeting your every whim. Instead an hour into the journey a young man had us describe our baggage that had been stowed in the back of the bus, on a form, then told us to give him 20 IR per bag. I just said no and he went away. Some of the women on board had more trouble rejecting his request. One welsh lady told him that she had no money on her as it was all in her bag underneath at the back of the bus. He made her promise to pay him when the bus arrive; she did not, I noticed. There was no toilet on the sleeper bus, but it did stop to allow the passengers to pee on the side of the road. We also had a meal stop at around 11pm just as many people had got to sleep. The upside of that was that the food at the bus depot we pulled into was cheap and the best I have tasted in India since the restaurant Lesley and Sam took us to in Trivandrum. Mhari does not concur as the food she ordered was really spicy-hot and her mouth was burning. I had lots to eat that night.
Mhari fell asleep at 11.10 pm, I got to sleep finally at around 1.30 am. Half an hour later the bus came to a halt and all the passengers for Gokarna were told to leave the bus and wait for a new one. Other passengers were going on to Goa. This was news to us. The travel agent who sold us the tickets at twice the price of the government bus, told us the bus went straight through to Gokarna. It was all pretty surreal as 18 travellers got off the bus and sat by the side of the road in the middle of a town I had never heard of, supposedly to wait for a new bus. After half an hour of watching cows and stray dogs walk past a beat up heap of junk pulled over and Mhari said “This'll be it”. Sure enough, it was and we all crammed inside a tiny bus at 2.30am. An hour later we pulled into Gokarna. Everyone else on the bus wanted to be taken further to a beach called Om. We decided to stay with them rather than get put out on the street at 3.30am, alone, with two children. The occupants of the mini bus were informed that the detour to Om would cost everybody an extra 50 IR. When we got to Om, Lesley explained to the driver that we were not prepared to get off at Gokarna alone and would stay with the group waiting on the beach until we could get a rickshaw back into town and we would need our 200 IR fee for that purpose. It was a bit of a hike down to the beach and when we got to a suitable spot to sit and wait for the dawn, one of the people from the bus approached and asked why we hadn't paid and told us that the driver was waiting to take us back to Gokarna. I suppose we are not quite as nice as we used to be as we told her that was too bad and he would eventually figure out that we were not leaving. She chastised us and told us that we should have paid him, as the 200 IR was nothing for us. Maybe so, but after getting conned out of money so often, no matter how small the amount, it gets a little wearing and we were out of patience. The driver was part of the organization that arranged the “sleeper bus” so we weren’t impressed with them.
What followed was quite special as a group of stray dogs joined us and settled down and we, as a group, fell asleep on the beach. We were woken on two occasions by barking as our stray dogs chased off other dogs. We were made to feel quite safe by them. At 6 am the sun rose over the betel nut trees behind us and the bay came into view. The rest of the bus passengers started to drift away in various directions and at around 7:00 am the four of us picked up our packs and after a couple of wrong turns found our way up the path to Kudle Beach where we found breakfast and the two beach huts for 150 IR each, the cheapest digs of our journey so far. Our little beach hut compound serves nice food and has a great shaded eating-homework doing-reading-veg out area.
In many ways the sleeper bus was a great way to travel. Mhari and I shared a space that was six feet by three and a half feet. The bed was firm but soft enough to be comfortable; there was a curtain to pull across for privacy and we only saw one really small cockroach - Lesley and Sam chased off a much bigger one. I wish it was possible in Canada, between say – Winnipeg and Calgary it would be perfect. I just can’t see such a system passing safety rules. Here in India we just have to wise up and ask more questions before we fork out the rupees.
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