Trip to INDIA - 05 PANAJI, and HAMPI

PANAJI, and HAMPI

20 January 2008

Dear Friends and Family

The trip to Panaji turned out to take “only” 16 hours instead of the anticipated 17 hours. Typical on these overnite long trip I drifted in and out of sleep. We made several bathroom/food stops along the away. We arrived in Panaji around 8 am in the main bus terminal. I dropped by the Paulo travel agency to enquire about my next trip to Hampi. I walked around the town looking for a place to stay and found one close to the Saint Sebastian Church. An old quaint place with lots of plants around situated in the old Portugese quarter. During my wandering I suddenly realize that I left my daypack somewhere (I guessed I am not totally awake!).I had to retrace my steps and I found my daypack at the travel agency.

The very pleasant city of Panaji is located in Goa that stretches along the Arabian Sea and is blessed with several natural harbors and wide rivers, An ideal base for the seafaring Portugese that took control of the area in 1510. The main goal was to control the spice route from the east. The Jesuit missionaries, with St Francis Xavier arrived in 1542. After several wars with native Indians,and the British, the Portugese lost control of the area in 1961. Many of the streets still have Portugese names and many people are descendent of the Portugese.

23 January

I will be taking an overnite bus to Hampi at 7:00 pm with and ETA of 7:00 am the next day. I decided that I would spent part of the day catching up with email and diary writing. Unfortunately, early in the morning we lost power (Seems to be a frequent occurrence in India). Instead I took a 25 minutes bus ride to Old Goa which used to be the Portugese capital. Today the only thing left are the churches, cathedrals, and convents. St Francis Xavier came here to promote Catholicism and some of his relics are buried in the cathedral.

In the evening I went to the area to board the bus to Hampi. The “bus station” is simply a very large dirt-covered area with no signs of any sorts. My bus is supposed to leave at 7:30 pm (although, in the bus’ office it says 8:00 pm). The area is full of buses, more are coming. I finally locate some people who are taking the same bus. Apparently, our bus is not yet here, and nobody knows where it will park, nor at what time it will arrive. The bus finally shows up shortly after 8;00 pm. We are supposed to be in Hampi around 7:00 am. To make a long, long story short we arrived in Hampi around 11:30 am. Why? Bad roads, stop-and-go traffic in some area of construction- When I say stop-and-go I mean we go at 10 mph for a few minutes then we stop for a few minutes and so on. In Hampi I walk to Hotel Vickie.

Hampi is an amazing area with a river running thru it. It is a sacred place full of ruins of temples. One of the temple, Virupaksha, is in very good shape and is actively used as the center for worship. It stands in a courtyard which is entered under the huge Hampi Tower.. the dominating monument in Hampi. The complex is at the end of a long street that used to be lined with shops. Today, the Hampi Bazar takes about half of that space. The landscape is hilly and strewn with huge boulders. Over the next few days I did a lot of walking around, visited many temples, and a Royal Complex with a queen’s palace, a huge elephant stable. The accommodations are adequate (without hot water), we lose power several times each day,but there is a good choice of restaurants. Hampi is the most interesting place so far, even without any beer or any kind of alcohol available!.

The 27 the I boarded an overnite sleeper – bus in Hospet (20 minutes away by local bus) for Bangalore. The trip speed was about the same as for the previous one, and we arrived several hours later than the ETA. In Bangalore I am staying close the train station in a fairly large hotel. Two immediate improvement: we have hot water, and beer is available! This is one of the oldest area of Bangalore and the number of people on the streets is incredible and the traffic is worse than Mumbai!

Love and peace - henri