Hampi ruins
Trip Start
Apr 22, 2011
1
17
60
Trip End
Jul 08, 2011
Hampi, Karnataka, India
Friday, May 20, 2011
Day 27
I woke up and had a weird feeling that something was wrong and I was right. The train arrived 15 minutes late. This may have been the first time in history of India that a train was even close to being on time. I kind of joked saying that they should get a train that goes 1 mile and then they can say they actually had a train that arrived on time. I finally arrived Hospet, which is the gateway to Hampi. Hampi is a world heritage site. It turned out to be a really great day. To start off with, the cheapest guest houses are across a river. It was supposed to cost 10 rupees to cross it, but for some reason they charged me 20 since I'm a foreigner. I paid 200 rupees for the room, which is roughly $4.50 and I could have got the same price on the good side of the river with all the ruins if I would have only checked first. Before I cross the river, my tuk tuk driver tells me he will let me rent his tuk tuk for 400 rupees for the whole day. My guest house tell me I can rent a scooter for 150 rupees. Then after that, they tell me I have to buy gas for an additional 160 rupees. I tell him I don't want if I have to pay to cross the river with the scooter. He says no no, its same price. You just tell them you know me at Funky Monkey Hotel and it will be free. Sure enough after I cross, they want 40 rupees. I'm really pissed. I tell him to fuck off and I give him 20 rupees as everyone else give him 5 rupees. I ride the bike away. I could have rented a tuk tuk for the whole day for less than renting the bike and I wouldn't have been responsible for any damage or anything. I stop by the little town. It's not a city and before heading to the ruins, I stop by a cafe for breakfast/lunch. I ordered a sprite and it tasted flat, so I looked at the bottle and it was used and dirty, so I asked for my money back and they said the outside of the bottle got dirty but the inside was clean. This bottle waas filthy. It had dirt everywhere and even stains. I couldn't believe it. I met a German girl in there who was traveling alone. I ask her if she wants to join me today and ride through the ruins. She agrees and we go off for about 5 hours. It was a great day. There were a lot of ruins and can compare with a lot of the places I've been before. This stuff is getting a little repetitive. I kind of feel like I've seen it all. I saw the horse chariots, the elephant stables, the temples, the queens bath and the queens house. People were very nice throughout the day. Many Indians wanted to say hi and take pictures with us. That was fine with me. I shook their hands and said nice to meet you. Many of them were nice and smiled and laughed. This happened at least five times. Maybe 10. It's definitely hard to tell which people that approach you want money and which ones just want to meet you. We had to rest under a tree half way through the day and a man walked up to me and gave me his sob story about his dad dieing and all that. He wanted my advise on how to leave the country and I think he wanted my help, but I was really blunt with him and basically said you need to find someone in another country from India because no one will let you work without a visa. He wanted to hug me at the end of it and I told him that I don't do hugs. Another thing that pissed me off about the day is I paid to get into Hampi, then I had to pay additional money to go to certain parts. It was 250 rupees to go to one part when Indians paid 10 rupees. I got into it with them a bit and asked them if they thought they were better than us. They complained about being poor and I asked if the way to solve them being poor was to screw over tourist. They really had no answers and I still got charged the full amount. I came back and bought some bananas to feed to the monkeys and they were so cute! I love these animals. I saw them grooming each other, fighting, hugging, holding. It is cool to see animals like that. Finally I decide I'm going to park my scooter on the other side of the river and leave it there while I walk across the river. It was only waist deep, but I wasn't going to pay to take the scooter across while I was told I wouldn't have to pay. So I show up at the guest house without the scooter and I actually haven't paid for this yet because I didn't have change. I only had a 500 rupee and they didn't have change, so at this point, I haven't paid for it. The man who sold me my room and scooter asks where it is and I say that he can go get it and pay for the ferry, but I'm not. He said he never told me that and I told him not to insult my intelligence. I heard it clear what he said. He told me that if I told him the guy at Funky Monkey hotel told you it was free, then they will let me take it free. He tells me he is going crazy and i throw down my hat and take off my shirt. I asked him what he wanted to do about it and he said he would kill me. I invited him to try. We are definitely yelling. The hotel staff are pulling him away. I tell the hotel staff to just let me grab my bags and give me the refund for the hotel and I'll pay the scooter and I'll leave or their other option is I go get the police and they can solve this matter. They don't think I'm serious, so I leave and wait by the dock. They come running down begging me not to go to the police and asked me to stay. I tell them that one of their staff members just threatened to kill me and I'm supposed to want to feel safe in the hotel. It's a joke. I would have been happier just leaving, but they wouldn't allow it. We end up settling and the guy asks me for a hug and calls me his brother and these guys are far from my brother or family or anything. This whole situation was over a few dollars, but to me it wasn't about money, it was about honestly and just being tired of being fucked over by every Indian there was. I'm not a fighter, but I was sure ready to fuck up any Indian that was going to step in my way. They can't fight worth a shit. They can't wrestle or anything. They are just skinny little punks. This was pretty much my day. The hot sun wore me out and I drank at least a gallon of water. I was off to bed.
5/20/11
Day 28
I had a great night sleep and slept 11 hours. I tried to get ready and shower and all that, but there was no water at all. I had to wait for hours to get water, then I crossed the river again I paid 20 rupees and everyone else paid 5 or 10 rupees. I had my breakfast/lunch and used the internet for a couple hours, then I was off to the train station three hours early. I decided to grab a bite to eat while waiting, so went to the only five star hotel in the city and it was still pretty cheap plus air conditioned, so it may have been worth it. The train arrived an hour late. Most of the day went OK. Many people came up to me and wanted to take pictures and say hi, some just wanted to touch my arm or shake my hand. They are really nice, but a lot of people want to rip you off. Some kids that were too young to talk, would stare at me because obviously their parents haven't told them yet that staring isn't nice. I'd just wave to them and they would have either a smiling reaction or the reaction to hide. Other kids that were like eight years old or so would come and just stand two feet away from me and watch me read my book. I kind of felt like when you see someone in America that is 8 feet tall or 800 pounds that everyone stares at because everyone wanted a peak at me. I barely spent any money today, which was good. Maybe $10. At the train station, I was back to the horrible reality of India. This place just sucks. I realized that at the end of this trip, I'll have to throw away anything that touched the ground here. This little kid shit his pants on the platform to the train and the mom just took off his pants and let him finish, then put the dirty tap water in his pants and squeezed out the shit of the pants, then she wiped his ass with her hand and used the dirty tap water to wash her hand and kind of made a half hearted effort to wash it away with water, but still this was not sanitized. When the trains stop at each station, they empty all of the bathrooms on the train tracks. There is a steady stream of piss and shit running down the tracks and it stinks. Some Indians have approached me and asked me about moving to another country... Well 75% of them would not make it one day. You can be a sex offender for public urination. They act more like animals here than human beings. The cows shit in the streets, well so do most of the humans.
