Hampi, India (Karnataka) - Moped Diaries, Part II

Before heading north to see some of the classic sights of India, we decided to stop into a town called Hampi which we had heard good things about from a couple other travellers. It was a good move. It turned out to be an unbelievable place, which has received surprising little hype given how cool it is. The town is quite small and remains very rural given how great a tourist attraction it is. The town is set amongst ruins from the Vijayanagara empire which was apparently one of the largest empires in India's history, roughly 1300's to mid 1500's. The hole area is surround by jungle amongst massive boulders which were used for the huge temples. Below is the main street of Hampi....

T and I walked up to see a view over the town on our first day...
And like all south American villages where all the kids play soccer, everyone in India play cricket...

T and I got blessed by an elephant...so we got that goin for us, which is nice.

The monkeys hang out on the main tower, waiting for the ladies selling bananas to let their guard down so they can make off with bananas. I saved them the trouble..

In Hindu religion, cows are often considered to be sacred, and thus beef is not eaten anywhere in India. As well, cows cannot be killed for the same reason. We're not sure where they all came from then, but for some reason, every town place we've been to is full of stray cows, like you have stray dogs. Literally cows all over the place, eating garbage, lounging around, getting in the way of rickshaws. This fella here was just looking for some love....

And once again, we headed out on the open road on the mopeds. There really was no better way to see all the ruins which are littered throughout the surrounding area.

The some of the ruins were very impressive, and unlike a lot of other places you may see ruins, they were free to enter and we seldom saw another person inside.

It was nice buzzing around because the roads were all but empty. The traffic we encountered was the odd heard of goats.

After a siesta to pass the afternoon heat (it was really, really hot), we headed out to a waterfall we heard about. The trail there was a beautiful walk through palm trees and banana plantations.

As it turned out, the "waterfall" was more of a fast moving river, but it turned out to be really cool. The rock had been carved into really cool shapes over the years.

After that, we headed up to a temple on the highest peak in the area for an awesome sunset.

The monkeys in the area also like to enjoy the sunsets up there.

There was a snake charmer outside our hostel the next day which was pretty cool.

Now remember kids, don't try this at home...

Our rickshaw driver to the bus station was Mr. Paul. He had very professional business cards..

Us with the Irish boys...good fun lads...hopefully do it again in Thailand. Grape!

Pete (Aka "the body Maloney) decided to stay behind in Goa to be with a lady, and we actually never got a picture with him. All we had was this one from the bus to Goa. Apparently he sleeps with a bag over his head, hostage style, when he's on buses.