Don't Worry, Be Hampi

Hampi.. Its a dream destination for the backpackers, history buffs, shutterbugs.. But let me tell about something which pulls travellers back to Hampi!! Its the people of Hampi. Their courtesy and the way they welcome people. Go anywhere, if you are in trouble there will be a helping hand for sure. Most of the people who travels to Hampi, will be along with friends or to make friends. It is also a perfect destination for the solo travellers.

So let me introduce the people whom we met and made little friendship and left us with beautiful memories to ponder about Hampi.

On our first day, we planned to explore the other side of Hampi, the Hippie Island.

We rented mopeds from a shop and the "Bhaiya" there in a western accent started telling us about the main attractions of the Hippie island. In his words

"From the next junction, if you take right, you will reach The Monkey temple, or you can go left, and after reaching the next junction, if you take right from there, you will reach the Sanapur lake or left you will reach the waterfall.."

A waterfall, really!!!!

I have done enough research on Hampi, but didn't came across anywhere mentioned about the Waterfall..

So we decided to explore, How this not so famous waterfall looks like. We started off through the empty roads and the weather was just perfect. Not sunny, Not rainy..

We rode through the villages and took left from the next junction as our bhaiya told.. It was a very small road, with houses on both sides and children playing around, waving their hands to you with a wide smile on their face..

A perfect filmy setup..

We drove past them and saw a muddy coloured river flowing through. We thought of riding further, so as to see, where the water originates from.. But some village people stopped us and warned us not to go further to see the waterfall, as if you step down, it will be very deep and may never come back. We took their advice. We stopped going further and rode back. It was almost a deserted place.

At some place, we heard chattering of people near the waters. We stopped our moped and thought to get down there. We were a bit afraid about people boozing in such places. 

We walked through the surrounding bushes and reached the banks. Those people were jumping from the small cliff into the water.

Wow.. We thought we will also jump like them. They came to Hampi, from a nearby village named Kampli. They know only Kannada. So with some english words and actions, we told our desire to jump like they do. But as we don't know swimming, they stopped us from jumping from the big cliff, and told us to jump from the small cliff, that was nearby..

So these are our friends from Kampli village. You can see the entire gang on the beginning of this post (Do I look like a rowdy??😋).

There were many times we couldn't start our moped while riding through the villages of Hampi. People came to help and these were the boys who helped us to start it where it happened once in the middle of nowhere.

So don't worry, if your bike doesn't start or lost your way back, people are there to help you out.

We were tired after the long day in Hippie island. As we didn't wanted to go back to room, we headed off to the Virupaksha temple. After having a glimpse of the temple we sat there exhausted. A boy came asking whether we want some tea. He himself introduced as Puttaraja. We conversed with him and came to know that he sells tea after the school hours in the temple premises. Even the kids in Hampi, knows English and Hindi in addition to their mother tongue Kannada. So there was no problem with language in Hampi. In the meantime, he started showing the acrobatics he knows and I clicked this one.

Whomever we met along the journey they never said a No, when we asked permission for a photo.

Hampi for me was about meeting a lot of people.. There were people who were travelling from Bangalore, Hyderabad and from nearby villages. There is a saying whichever corner of the Earth you go you will spot a Malayali. That saying didn't go wrong here also. Not one, we spotted many 😉. (Am I boasting!!😕).

Could you spot where the above picture is from?? It's from the top of Matanga Hills. We were not alone watching sunrise from the top of this hill. There were many groups of people. We came across people who came from the same place like us, Hyderabad. And I got amused when one of the guy in the group told they were doing their Hampi trip at an expense of Rs.2900. When we chit-chatted more, they told about an app called Meetup. Whether you have interests to Travel, or Photography or Cooking or learning a language or whatever, you will find the like minded people.

I curse myself for not asking their names and forgetting the names I asked..

And it was when Lakshmi was taking bath. Being a sunday, many photographic groups came to capture the beauty of Tungabhadra and to freeze some beautiful frames of Lakshmi.

And lastly let me introduce Rana whom we met at a cafe in the Hippie island.

Hampi for me was all about meeting people.

It was one of the best trip I had in recent times. Don't go cold-hearted. Everyone is so welcoming and talking with each other, be the villagers or travellers.

Have you been to Hampi?? What was Hampi for you?? 

I will be happy to hear experiences, suggestions or queries from you..

Or if you have not been to Hampi yet, when are you planning to this place of happiness and freedom??

Read other posts on Hampi here..




Happy Travelling until we meet again..