It was hard to leave the camaraderie and relative ease of Palolem Beach, Goa, but boredom (The True Killer of Humanity) began to set in. After talking to locals, fellow travelers, and scouring abandoned guide books, I decided on the inland destination of Hampi. At that point, Hampi gave me the impression of being a travelers hub with a bevy of historical interest. The only problem was that I wasn’t excited about having to leave Goa, passing through India, to get to Hampi. What I mean by this is that Goa is not really like anywhere else in India. Goa’s Palolem beach was a tropical getaway in a Portuguese colony full of ex-pats and party people that housed amenities tantamount to a place providing hard-traveling respite and soft-bellied tourism. Nowhere is like India, either, and I realized I had developed a resistance to having to engage the trial of false starts, haggling, predation, and piecemeal solace of fleeting securities that I would endure once again. The quirky lotusland of Goa was nothing like the sensory barrage that was Mumbai and I had little to no assurances as to whether Hampi (or the journey there) would be more like one or the other. Luckily for me, I was at least afforded the company of some friends (a couple comprised of a gal from the UK and her Kiwi boyfriend) that I’d made in Palolem that were also traveling to Hampi. This is always a good thing because it helps to have someone to travel with that you can communicate the sheer absurdity and otherworldliness of your experiences to throughout the unfolding.
Means of travel would be an overnight sleeper bus. I booked my ticket and my friends and I secured tuk-tuk transport to the closest bus depot, which brought with it the continued affirmation that bus travel and their depots are rarely ever a welcome experience until said experience has passed without incident. The lepers and drug addicts that peppered the depot grounds were engaging, in so much as polite exchanges with the near-dead fringe is always odd, passing time with those that haven’t much left.
Coming onto the bus, the hallway was dim and littered with footwear. People were sardines in their bunks exhibiting various degrees of unrest, and I could make out forms and movements behind the bunk’s barely effectual curtaining. When I found my bunk, I had to rouse some hippie from it, which he wordlessly complied with my curt logic and shambled off to his next nesting. Getting into my bunk was kind of a production, having to climb the bunk below to get into my own, and ruffling my sleepy downstairs neighbors. The cloistered quarters of this mobile catacomb was slightly unnerving to my Western sensibilities, so I was grateful when I finally got settled, drew the curtain, and the bus was underway. My bunk had too much air conditioning, as the metal seam that ran along the duct above me was gashed out and freezing air ran unregulated all over me. I gathered what of my curtain could reach and crammed it into the gape, futily. Once again, I resigned myself to a quiet discomfort and tried to sleep, laughing at the folly of my expectations and circumstances. Imagine my disappointment when on the next stop we picked up the Indian gentleman that I was to be sharing my bunk with, as I learned then that I had only a reservation for one half of the bunk, not the whole thing.
My travel companion had a good sense of humor, which was great because that’s probably the best universal attribute that people can share. It occurred to me that he was accustomed to this proximity with strangers and that he could perceive my good-natured lack there of. We both did our best to accommodate one another, failed repeatedly, and slowly embraced the situation whilst trying to avoid embracing one another. At some point, it began to rain heavily outside the bus, and the wounded air conditioner duct above me directed whatever water made it’s way through the bus’s fuselage down onto my chest. Within minutes I was soaked, freezing, and my trusty companion and I pantomimed speculations as to how to remedy the problem. Laughing and two languages cursing didn’t fix the leak, but, they helped nonetheless.
Sometime after the rain subsided outside and in, my companion gave a silent salute as he disembarked the bus at some dark, little town along our route. I took advantage of the vacancy and splayed out, getting something that resembled an exhausted cat nap before I woke to dawn coloring the passing world around. Soon we came to a dingy burg called Hospet, and in case there’s need of reminding, Hospet was definitely in India. I was beleaguered and half awake when I got off the bus, squinting into zealous factions of Indians doing there damnedest to get anyone they could into their respective Hampi lodgings and transport options. I was amazed that the bus was at least an hour away from Hampi, and we had touts and criers up before dawn already raring to go, harassing us in Hospet. It was annoying, but kind of amazing how coveted a traveler’s money was competed for. We would see those same criers again once we arrived in Hampi.
Harried back into the bus, we left Hospet and had another hour before we arrived in Hampi where the full force of solicitous harassment came to bear. I was one of the first off the bus, and the best way to describe what I experienced would be analogous to a couple of otherwise dissimilar circumstances:
- A firefighter running through a burning foyer
- A bull in a china shop, assuming the china was made of piranhas
- That time in high school when I was in the mosh pit during AFI’s performance at Warped Tour
Polite refusals were useless, so, they were disregarded almost immediately. Snatching my giant pack and swatting away people from literally grabbing for my attention, I joined up with my travel companions and we briskly walked through the onslaught. A few criers hung in our wake, but after a half hour of walking, the tide had receded.
The town of Hampi was an interesting juxtaposition of the ancient and current, all nestled in a valley that looked like Bedrock from The Flintstones. It had beautiful wheat fields and rice patties, and the Tungabhadra river bisected the temple-laden Hampi proper from a more quiet residential and lodgings area. We made our winding way to the river crossing where we waited with other travelers for the local river ferry to take us over to the less frenetic side of town. This was the time and place of my introduction to one of the more mystifying and polarizing features of my traveling: The Israeli Hippie.
Left to Right: Some Brahmins, a nice local guy, myself, an Israeli hippie, and my friends Ben and Sophie.
I won’t harp on this too long, but I think the potency of arrogance and inclusiveness that I witnessed emanating from the Israeli Hippies, broadcast by way of persons that fashion themselves in a couture that has no earthly rights to self-seriousness, was so riddled with fresh contradictions that I couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing. They’re already on holiday in a poor country and go out of their way to demean the locals into cheaper lodgings in haggling matches that resembled cockfights. They wear garish Ali Baba pants which no self-respecting Indian would wear, even though the Israel Hippies don them in a bid of a billowy, forced authenticity. They wear weaponized patchouli. Their smug avoidance of speaking to someone in English, even though they’ve just finished speaking to a local in English. All their secret handshake bullshit. Half the time you talk to one they’re so hashed out of their mind you have to wonder if they perceive your interaction as having divine import. It’s all just so awful.
Otherwise, Hampi was a pretty alright experience. As long as I’m firing off from the mouth, here’s some more bullet points!
- Transport by scooter was a great experience. We visited shrines and explored old ruins and took in a landscape that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. We were there during a grain harvest and it was pretty interesting to watch the extraction process. The farmers were polite and fun to talk to as well.
- Monkeys are everywhere and they know the game. Pack along some peanuts so you can fend off that one monkey that was missing half of his face and has subsequently guest starred in some of your darker nightmares.
- Brahmins can be extortionists not unlike televangelists.
- Mosquito nets are hardly a substitute for DDT. I know the environmental impact, but c’mon. It was insane.
- Cowboy boots have stridently proved themselves as being a great choice, despite the fact you have to take them off before lots of open-air businesses. One thing I never understood was that these areas are usually just as dirty with or without unregulated footwear. You don’t want to wear flip flops through some of the crud you’ll have to trudge through, I’ll tell you that for free.
- Hippies were selling dreamcatchers, which I took as the equivalent of merchants selling Mexican sombreros at the Running of the Bulls in Spain.
- Nights in Hampi are pretty sleepy (alcohol is illegal), so lots of restaurants hold movie nights to attract business. Watching the overtly romantic “Slumdog Millionaire” (an enjoyable movie, really) with a room full of First World travelers is certainly surreal. The next night was “Big Lebowski”, and additionally entertaining were the Germans laughing at all the wrong parts. The French flick “The Intouchables” was also a great diversion from mosquitoes and beats going back to your hut which probably doesn’t have power anyway.
SCORECARD FOR TYPICAL QUESTIONS FROM INDIAN MALE DEMOGRAPHIC
“DO YOU WANT SMOKE? ” COUNT: 26 times (+/- 2)
“ARE YOU A WRESTLER? ” COUNT: 6
USED COPIES OF “Shantaram” COUNT: 19
Up Next: “Jaipur, Rajasthan: Dewali World”
or
Much appreciation to those that have followed this story and the ones that helped make it worth writing. What a world, huh?- CR
The Online Archival of Casey Ruff 