Hampi – boulders, temples and your true self

Hampi had been attracting me for all these years…One day I knew that I’ll surely make it to this land of loose mountains, temples and hippie… I am not sure if being hippie is really what my heart desires but having a free spirit has always been alluring and I guess that’s the reason Hampi was secretly calling me. January 2017 I finally decided to give into my temptation and planned a 4 day trip to this hippie capital along with few of my friends. We were total of 8 traveling together and somehow I feel it’s always to travel in even numbers…not numerology of course, but for some logical reasons… like it gets easier to distribute rooms and also not much of food is wasted as most of Indian delicacies can easily serve 2 medium build person per plate.

The trip cost us approx 10215/person (including travel, accommodation and food). We took a bus from Mumbai to Hospet and back. Bus is the most convenient mode of travel to Hampi from Mumbai as there are no direct trains. Bus(AC sleeper) cost us INR 2800/- for to and fro journey and I must say that both the buses(Canara Pinto & SRE respectively) were super comfortable.

We boarded bus on 25th Jan 2016 at 17.30 and reached Hospet on 26th at around 08.00 in the morning. We had booked our accommodation @ Rambo Guest House via Goibibo. Since the guest house was in Sanapur which was on the other side of the Tungabhadra river, we decided to take two auto costing us roughly INR 900 each to reach our accommodation 20kms away. I must say the travel to Rambo was scenic and we already started seeing the loose mountains with huge boulders and we couldn’t wait enough to lose ourselves in this beautiful place.

Soon enough we reached Rambo guest house and it was exactly as we expected it to be…right in the middle of nowhere and without any amenities. We had booked a dormitory which could easily fit in 6 of us and our host Rambo, was courteous enough to give us another room for additional 2.

After refreshing and a heavy and delicious breakfast we decided to rent 4 bikes and explore Sanapur for that day. Rambo is just 100mts away from the beautiful Sanapur lake. Sanapur is on the northern side of the Tungabhadra river and has quite some places worth exploring.

Sanapur is relatively a small area and you can easily explore the place in approx 4-6 hours. We didn’t have a point to point itinerary or list of places to visit hence we would just stop at places we liked and that is how I recommend you experience Hampi. However you should know about the must visit place and one such on our mind was monkey temple/ sunset point. Below are pics from our exploration @ Sanapur.

And the monkey temple…

After exploring for a couple of hours it was time to look for a beautiful spot where we could also munch on… and hampi has some really peaceful restaurants where you can easily lose track of time.

It was end of our first day in Hampi and we felt like we had been here for so long. The day was soothing and we really enjoyed losing ourselves in an unknown yet a friendly region. However before we finished our day lying down at the restaurant @ Rambo, we planned to visit Badami the next day (27th January 2017), we hired a Tata ace which could easily fit in us 8. It was one of our best decisions to travel with Mehboob bhai(contact number provided at the bottom). I have added a separate, small info blog for Badami.

On our third day (28th January 2017), we requested Mehboob bhai to take us around Hampi. We departed around 10.00 and visited Vitthala temple first. We crossed newly constructed bridge while heading towards the southern part of the region, and I must say this place was beautiful and we decided to come back here to enjoy the setting sun by the river banks. Vitthala temple is the place that preserves the iconic stone chariot which is one of the landmark of hampi.

We next visited the beautiful Lotus temple and the Elephant stable near it.

It was now time to head towards another iconic landmark of Hampi, the Virupaksha temple. However we decided to have lunch at the famous Mango tree restaurant before visiting the temple. The food here was delicious and filling to the core. The service was blazing fast. I strongly recommend having food here once during your trip.

With full stomach it was now time to head towards Virupaksha temple.

Post temple, we wandered in the markets of Hampi. Hampi markets are beautiful and has a Indian feel to it, these are real rural markets, with small lanes and array of stores in line. It had all from birth stone to Buddha printed t-shirts.

With the fading day we decided to head back to the river bank for the sunset. It was a beautiful place below the new bridge connecting north to south.

After bidding adieu to the sun we started back for our guest house. Rambo served really delicious meals and had quite some options from around the world.

On our last day we decided to chill at the restaurant without doing much traveling as we had to leave for our bus at around 16.00. However we two things of our checklist still unchecked, we had done the sunset a day before but sunrise was still pending and hence we went hiking up on the boulders next to the guest house next morning. It was one of the finest morning I’ve ever had basking under the rising sun next to the Sanapur dam.

Our trip was almost over…but wait… how can you complete the Hampi trip without a coracle ride…and hence we decided to complete the last thing on our checklist…’A coracle ride’ @ Sanapur lake. This was another unknown advantage of staying at the Rambo guest house… the coracle ride was at 15 mins walk from the guest house.

And with a heavy heart with said goodbye to an awesome host Rambo. We can’t thank you enough to make our trip a memorable one.

Epilogue

Trip to hampi was on my mind for a long time and I must say it was a wonderful trip indeed. Hampi is beautiful and the locals are super friendly and warm gestured. The place is laid back and the one thing you should do once here is to do nothing and chill. Plan for at least 4 days so that you could have a relaxed sightseeing and do a single day trip to Badami without fail. We stayed at Rambo guest house and believe me Rambo was a perfect host, however the place is in Sanapur which is on the other side of river compared to the main Hampi bazaar. I recommend that you stay on northern side of the Tungabhadra river as it is more picturesque compared to congested Hampi. Crossing river is no big deal and can be lovely if you choose to take a coracle ride across river.

Below are some details that might help you to plan your trip and yes feel free to contact me for any further questions

Rambo guest house: +91 8600 694 920, +91 9901 233 124

Mehboob bhai (Transportation – Tata Ace): +91 8762 665 040, +91 9620 110 445

You should call Mehboob bhai for all your travel needs, and it best suits group of 8.

P.S: A big hug to Zaid for letting me use few of his wonderful images 😉