Of Dawn Treks, Section 3 and a Little Slice of Paradise: Hampi Travelogues Day I

Every blog once in a while always turns into a boring travelogue. This is it for mine.

On what was mostly a whim and a fancy, and a burning desire to temporarily leave law school environs, Goo, self and Abu caught a bus and landed in Hampi, the site of arguably the only proper kingdom Karnataka can boast of. As we discovered, it's a pretty hippie place as well. I was admittedly the sober third wheel of the little group but that didn't detract from my having a good time.

We came to the town at the early hours of six a.m. and the auto driver was good enough to actually show us a decent, cheap place to stay. After dumping our luggage, we set out on an early morning trek to check the place out. We climbed up what looked like an unfinished path up the mountain and were treated to a glorious view of the early morning sun from the top overlooking some temple complex. The trip was off to good start. We also first encountered the signs which said that that particular construction was protected by Section 3 of the Karnataka Archaeological (something something) Act. These signs had mushroomed everywhere and had been slapped on everything, over the course of our trip we found them stuck on random rocks as wells. We don't know why, but we found this quite amusing.

Then we had an average breakfast (charitably speaking - it was our only below par meal on the trip) and went to the river. The other two bathed in the river while I guarded the luggage. I had already taken a bath so it wasn't a big deal. Then we all went into iguana mode, found a nice rock (the whole area is unbelievably rocky) with a good view of the river and the town and smoked (well, they smoked, I just threw sand at passing dogs and scared the hell out of them.) Then we found a much better place called 'Mango Tree' for another round of breakfast. It was a gorgeously shady open air place where you could just lean back against the slanted walls and relax. Which is what we did. The food was good too.

All this happened before my batch started class.

Now comes the real part of the day's events. The time had come to pass when Goo and Abu desperately needed to score. Their junkie radar told them that the stuff would be found across the river. So we crossed it. Then a little kid in an auto blasted us when we asked him where it could be found (that was one of their plans, to ask a young auto driver. I didn't realsie they were desperate enough to ask a kid). The kid ended his rant with the firm words of "Follow the Road, and don't look back". Of course, he was admonishing us, but it proved to be very sound advice. Having nothing whatsoever to go upon, we followed the road. Every once in a while we would question the sanity of going blindly into nowhere, but I guess the heat had made us kinda insane.

After walking forever, we did manage to score, thanks to directions given by a foreign wanderer with a straw hat and a stick. Then we went back to this place called 'Arba Mistika' which we had stumbled upon while we were searching.

It was a little oasis in the middle of nowhere. Run by a young guy in dreadlocks, it was home to a whole bunch of hippies, and the booze and narcotics was flowing like water. There was a central tent which was magically cool within the unbearable heat and nice, relaxing, trippy music was playing. Mattresses around low lying tables completed the setup.

The guys exchanged their stuff with the other hippies and we soon made friends. There was a German sadhu chap called Marcos, a Dutch kurta wearing fellow named Ramko and who preferred to be addressed as Ram, an Argentinian theatre chick whose name I've forgotten and some others. The others were happy with their grass and hash, I was happy with my beer and chicken (the rest of the town's places were vegetarian except for eggs :|) and my naps. We chilled there till evening and what a glorious few hours they were. Even till the next day Goo kept asking Abu whether they didn't imagine the place up in some stony haze and I had to assure them that they didn't.

As the sun fell we regretfully headed back to our side of the river and crashed in our room. Which was a good thing because the other two were really tired and high still and they needed some sleep. We woke up and went to this Tibetan run establishment for dinner. I had excellent thukpa for the first time after Gokarna but the highlight was a dessert dish called 'Hello to the Queen' which Goo ordered. It had molten chocolate, biscuits, fried bananas topped off with a scoop of icecream and was excellent. The ambience was dim and serene. Another good spot discovered.

We came back and slept soundly. And thus our first day was done.

Highlight of the Day: Arba Mistika, by far.