7.26.10 Hampi, Part 2

7.26.10 - Hampi

Hampi, I've decided, was just what I needed. And somehow I can't believe it's taken me this long to get here and why I've stayed in Bangalore as long as I have. Part of me wants to just go straight to Goa from here and continue this relaxed, vacation-travel vibe I have going here. But I've already bought my return ticket (I knew I shouldn't have done that) and I have also bought yoga classes for this week and I am too practical to just throw away money like that. So I'm going to go back to Bangalore, have a few more yoga classes and save my money, visit the hospital and the clinic once more, and just generally be a responsible person. Ugh, the whole point of traveling was to get away from responsibilities and be able to fly by the seat of my pants. But I guess no mater how far you go, you can't get away from your own type-A personality.
I'm spending my last few hours in Hampi sitting on my rooftop terrace, looking out over ruins that span from the 7th to the 16th century in origin. There are monkeys playing on the balcony, eyeing me with what could be either suspiscion, animosity or curiosity, i'm not sure which. One of them had his hair parted down the middle and looked strikingly like one of the Three Stooges. The sun is about to set in front on me, sinking behind a landscape strewn with temples and boulders that look as if they have been tossed there carelessly by some giant god, and a strong wind could at any moment begin an avalanche. Given that the landscape has looked like this for centuries however, I have determined that it is not as unstable as it looks.
Today I slept in, having stayed up later that I should have reading an Agatha Christie novel (my newest guilty pleasure), had some breakfast, and headed out to see some more ruins. I walked down the path that I had started on yesterday, in search of the Vitalla temple (the one with the resounding columns). Now, either I am really horrible at directions and I never found it, or it is not nearly as impressive as Lonely Planet made it sound! I walked down the path that pointed me towards the Vitalla temple. And I kept walking past the ruins that I thought for sure couldn't be them because they weren't cool enough. And I kept walking and walked around the boulders, and over some temples that were obviously off the beaten path and were no longer used for religious or tourist purposes, some random rocks with ancient carvings in them that were just lying there amid the boulders by the river. Strange, I thought for sure I would have found it by now. So then I wondered if it was indeed the temple I had seen earlier, and I was getting hungry from all my rock jumping so I decided to head back. On my way I passed by a family selling peanuts and asked them. He told me that it was right up the path from which I had come, just go straight and you can't miss it. Now I don't know if this is one of those instances where they either didn't know what I was asking, or they didn't know the answer to my question and so they just told me something that wouldn't be too discouraging. For example, the other day I got in an auto at 5:20 pm, and when we got to our destination I asked for the time. The auto driver didn't have a watch either, but instead of saying he didn't have the time, he looked around him and then said, "It's 5;o clock madam." I knew it wasn't 5 so I just payed my fare and got out. So, with that in mind I speculated what the possibilities were of the directions being that, well, direct. They both seemed very certain, and their English was good so I was fairly sure we both knew what the other was saying so I guessed that maybe I had seen it and not realized. I also have no sense of what a kilometer is like (as in I know I can walk a mile in 20 min on flat terrain, but I have no idea how long it takes me to walk a kilometer, and for that matter I have no watch so it wouldn't do me any good anyways). As I'm sitting here a few hours from leaving Hampi, I'm wondering if somehow I missed it, the trail being obscured by lots of expanses of rock, and should I go back and try again? But as I mentioned before, the sun is setting and I don't have time before dark to get there and back, especially if it involves more of the jumping from boulder to boulder that I did earlier today.
After my (possibly unsuccessful) journey to the Vitalla temple today, I went to see the sacred center, which is a conglomeration of temples spread out across the top of a hill. Some of these date back to as early as the 7th century A.D. There are is one temple that dates from the 15th century that enshrines a huge sculpture of Ganesha, the Hindu diety that takes the form of an elephant with multiple sets of arms, carved entirely out of a single stone, measuring 4.5 meters high - that's about 14 or so feet for those of my American readers like for whom the metric system holds no meaning without translation. You can see where all the landscape has a played a big part in the art and architecture of Hampi - there is so much stone and rocks here that they probably had to build temples just to clear out a place to put a house up. Anyways, so you walk into the beginning of the temple, and in the back room where there are no windows, there sits Ganesha. The enclosure probably accounts for the amazing condition the sculpture is still in, but still I couldn't help but feel a little creeped out by the way this giant figure loomed out of the darkness of the back room, with a creepy little smile on his face and something different held in each of his four hands. It got me thinking about the strangeness of religious icons and symbols. I feel like I could no sooner worship an image of an elephant with 4 arms and human character traits than I could worship a photo of my first dog Tweed. But then, from another perspective, how much more believable is it to worship a death-defying man who was born to a virgin impregnated by the Holy Ghost? And yet, for centuries people have not only believed these things, but devoted their lifes to them; built magnificent temples and churches and mosques and shrines to worship their respective dieties in; sacrificed animals and children, food, money, time and logic at the feet of these gods. It's interesting to imagine how the religions of the world developed, why they confined themselves to particular regions of the world, and what would have happened if Christopher Columbus, Magellen, Alexander the Great, Attilla the Hun, and all of those such men had left well enough alone and everyone else followed suit. Think of the wars that would have been avoided if everyone had just kept to themselves and minded their own business, not tried to convince others that their way was the right way. But then I guess that if that were the case, I wouldn't be sitting here halfway across the world, looking out over the remains of ancient Hindu temples, marvelling at the sculptural beauty and the sheer manpower it took to build these shrines. I also wouldn't have eaten badam paneer pasanda (an almond-cheese-yogurt-curry with cashews and raisins) and cumin-rice with chapati for lunch, which I think was life-changing. And I wouldn't be listening to the breeze rustle through the palm trees, and the cows mooing in the background and the autorickshaw put-putting up the nearby hill. I wouldn't be watching white and black-faced monkeys jumping from bush to tree to my balcony and back. I also would not have spend $80 on hand crafted Rajastanian silver jewelry today, but that's a cross I'm just going to have to bear. Well, I guess I could do without hearing the auto, but you can't really have all this without that, so I suppose I'll just have to take it.
Well, that's probably enough speculation for you all my readers, and even if it's not that's enough speculation for me; my brain hurts from the use of it. And the leftovers from lunch are calling to me and I wouldn't want to keep them waiting. I had better do some serious yoga before my 10 hour bus ride as well, otherwise I won't be able to walk when I get back to bangalore. Ahh, and I need to buy postcards!!! I didn't realize I had so much to do, so little time. More later...ciao.