Bangalore has sucked me in! I have been planning to go to Hampi for two weeks now, and I finally just up and went. Well it's a little more complicated than that, involving lots of investigation and sleuthing to determine how to buy a ticket. I arrived today at 7:30 in the morning and thought I was only 9 hours outside of Bangalore, I felt I had entered another world. I stepped off the bus amid the throng of would-be-porters, trying to cajole me into coming to their guest house...we all have to make a living I guess, and these pushy young gentlemen make a commission from the number of tourists they bring to their respective employers, so I understand the urgency. But they are just so damn annoying!!! I spotted a hostel just across from the bus station that I had read about in my guide book, and bee-lined it there. Luckily she had a room, otherwise I would have been at the mercy of the porters who were waiting outside. The room wasn't ready yet, but I was able to drop off my bag and go exploring.
I walked through the town, past the 15th century temple, down to the river to sit and read my guide book to determine what I should do with my day. It was a cool, misty morning, raining intermittently, and people were bathing and doing laundry in the banks of the river. I had read in the guide book that Lakshmi, the temple elephant, was brought down to the banks of the river every morning for her ritual bath. But I don't have a watch, and I was absorbed in my book, while the kids around me were absorbed in taking my picture on their cell phone cameras while they giggled and pushed their friends towards me, so I was taken off guard by a jingling noise from behind me. I thought perhaps it was a cow feeding on the hill next to me (some of them have decorated horns with bells and other metal jewelry), but I turned around to look and there she was! I was face to face with an elephant! I've seen them in the zoos, but somehow this was entirely different...She was dark grey, almost black with beauiful pink mottled markings on her trunk. She had a bell hanging around her neck, and chains around one foot, which gave her depressing appearance of being a slave. I suppose, in essence, that is what she is, so I guess it was fitting. She had white and red painted markings down her trunk and such long and beautiful eyelashes she looked as if she were smiling.
She was lead down the steps to the banks of the river, and brought into the water. At this point she very unceremoniously pooped into the water, to the delight of the little boys standing behind her. The man lead her into the water while riding on her neck, brought her out into the deep portion of the river and gave her head a good scrub down. Then she turned around and came back. While all this was going on, the Hindu priest was performing ritual cleansing while his alter-boy was chanting. When he was done with his series of annointings and washings, he called some people who were standing on the side of the river into the water with him. They made their way out till they were waist deep in water, and then Lakshmi bathed them! She gathered water in her trunk and sprayed the priest and the others in the water with him, and repeated the procedure a few times. After she was done, she was lead back up the stairs and back to the temple. I went a little overboard with the picture taking, but it turns out that was a good thing because when I went to see the temple, there she was chained up in between the columns, with a big sign written in Hindi and English "No Photo of Elephant". She seemed content enough, munching on the coconuts given to her by visitors, looking calm and serene, very much unlike the uninvited guests that were present: monkeys. They were jumping around, eating her leftover coconuts, trying to steal things from people and just generally creating mischief. I've decided that monkeys here are the equivalent of seagulls on the beach back home; they wouldn't be so rude, bold and obnoxious if people didn't think it was cute to feed them. The only plus side of the monkeys is they can't fly over your head and shit on you while you are relaxing on the beach.
After visiting the temple in town, I hiked through the old ruins, the bazaar where shoping was done and the temples by the river. It stayed cloudy, raining on and off all day which made the rocky climbs really slippery, but otherwise was a very pleasant day. Most of temples that I saw today date from the 16th century. Tomorrow I will go to see the Vitalla temple, which according to my guide book was started but the construction never was completed and it was never consecrated. One of it's coolest features is reverberating columns that were designed to ring with different intonations, like a giant stone-carved xylophone. Unfortunately in the name of preservation, you are no longer allowed to play them.
At the very end of the night, as if to perpetuate the other-worldliness of Hampi, I was sitting drinking my chai and I heard from down the road a trumpet, then clarinet in succession, getting closer and closer to me. As I sat there watching, a ensemble from the temple was walking down the street carrying a covered wicker seat of sorts, filled with something I could not see. There were torch bearers, a drummer and the two instrumentalists, as well as someone who was at intervals breaking coconuts open on the road and spilling them out onto the road. I'm sure I could have asked someone what the signifigance of the ritual was, but I prefered to leave it a mystery, and as the music faded away back towards the temple regular night life in Hampi resumed and I finished my chai.
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