South India Tour - Vijaynagar/Hampi

15 June – Hospet/Hampi/Vijaynagar

Did not sleep well on the train. Arrived Hospet around 7:30 am. Our cabin-mate advised us to take a guided tour instead of trying to do everything on our own. So we went to the tour office, 2 km straight from the train station.  We bought the tickets and went to a nearby hotel to have breakfast…good breakfast.  Bhaiya kept saying that we could have just taken a bus for Rs 7 around the city, Hampi, instead of the Rs 80 tour. And I kept saying a tour was much better than reading just the boards and not knowing where we were going in such limited time. 

The tour started at 9:30 am. There were very few of us, one family of four and one other single guy. (Actually there had been a warning against coming to India because of some issue in Pakistan, so foreign tourism was really low). Our guide started us off at the Virpaksha temple. It was a huge Shiv-Parvati temple. Vijaynagar dates back to 1300 AD. We toured by the Hampi bazaar – but there was not much to purchase.  

Map of Hampi

Got on the tour bus. Below is the stop by stop tour: 

1. Ganesh statue, Kadale Kalu Ganesh. It is 18 ft. high statue and there was also a smaller one which we saw from far away. The entire 18 ft. was a monolithic structure. 
   
2. Krishna temple – the statue was not there. 
3. Lakshmi-Narshimha statue. This is about 20 ft. high. The statue is half Lakshmi and half Narshimha – just beautifully carved. 
   
4. Next to this was the Badari Linga – a shivling about 12 ft. high. About 3 ft. of this was immersed in water. 
   
5. Shri Uddam Veerbhadraswamy temple…di darshan there and went on. 
6. Underground temple. There was really no underground – it was just below sea level. This was a meditation spot for the visiting rishis. There were several pillars around. There used to be a statue there but it is in the museum now. 
7. Close to this were the soldier’s quarters. Only a few walls and pillars were remaining. 
8. Drove by the mint place, where coins used to be minted during the king’s time. It was quite a big area. 
9. Zanana enclosure – queen’s palace. The main palace had been burned down but the lotus mahal remained because the base of this was Hindu design, arches were Muslim and it was topped off with Jain design. So multicultural and so beautiful. The ground floor had many pillars which were to provide for air conditioning. Our guide showed us how water was pumped through pipes into the pillars, circulated through all the pillars making the air cooler – an old time air conditioner. This was usually the summer palace for the queens. The palace was guarded on the four corners of the enclosure by female guards! Interesting. I can imagine how pretty it must have been in all its glory! There was a lot of greenery around. 
   
10. Past the queen’s palace were the elephant stables and the mahout’s quarters. Humongous building. So symmetrical and the roofs had beautiful domes on it. A number of things had been restored, but I could still see a lot of damage. 
    
11. Hazaar Ramchandra temple: this was so unique in its own way. Each wall had carved pictorials of the Ramayan. Apparently the queen would visit the temple and wanted to see 3000 Ram pictures, so she had 1000 pictures carved on the walls and then she would walk around the temple three times. Inside the dome were four large pillars around a large circular flat stone which was in front of the Ram statue (this was in the museum now). All the pillars were black in color and intricately carved. All four sides of the square pillar had different carvings. The queen used to perform dance in the temple. Outside the temple were the kitchen, rest areas for rishis and guests. It was quite a big size compound. The walls were beautifully carved.
    
    
    
12. From there we walked to the King’s palace. Now it was just a 16 acres stone area. All of the palace was burned down by Muslims. The palace was made of chandan (sandalwood). Apparently it burned for 6 months! The guide was telling us about the rooms, the bedrooms, the big halls where the girls would dance. I could just imagine it all in my head! There was a secret chamber below the palace. We walked in total darkness for 2 mins and then came out to a small room of 8 x 8 ft. This is where the king had his secret meetings. Coming out of the tunnel was even harder. Past all this was a really deep tank of water; symmetrical steps led down to the water. There was a long row of pillars supporting a kind of pipe, which was used to bring water from the river. We then walked to the throne area. It was quite high and decorated with elephant, horses and dancing girls. Just then it started showering lightly! But luckily it stopped quickly. 
    
    
    
    
13. We drove by the queens bathing chambers. Strange that it was a little far away from the palace. 
14. Stopped at a hotel for lunch – really bad lunch and too pricey also! It’s almost 3:30 pm now. 
15. The next and last stop was Vittal temple. This was huge! I could just feel the grandeur walking inside it. Immediately on entering the gopurum, there is a chariot drawn by elephants. It was a granite chariot. There are only three such monolithic chariots in India – one here, one was in Mamalapuram and one is in Konark (sun temple – which I will visit later!). Further inside was a large building of pillars. Each pillar had a central pillar and was surrounded by four smaller pillars.  These small pillars made music when hit at the right spot. Unbelievable! The pillars are not hollow. They are all solid, but they all make a variety of music: mradang, table, jal tarang, guitar etc. There was an old man demonstrating all this. Our guide asked us all for Rs 10 for the man – I would have given him more if the guide had not asked. Such thievery! Each pillar was also beautifully carved with animals, dance postures and from pictures religious texts. The paintings in the ceiling had all been destroyed. But we had seen some back at the Virupaksha temple. The paint used to be from fruits and vegetable and a lot of it retained even after 700 years! Amazing. On both sides of the temple were resting areas, market places and kitchen. The music pillars were played by using chandan sticks and could be heard 1 km away! From this temple we could see Kalinga, the birthplace of Hanuman.
    
    
    
    

It was a really good ending to the city of Vijaynagar. 

Tungabadra Dam

The last stop after a few kilometers was the Tungabadra Dam. This was the river that was the life of Vijaynagar Empire. We walked around the gardens. After seeing Hoover dam, all other dams are like mosquitos! The gardens were very pretty. Not all the fountains were working, but the hedges were cut and maintained beautifully.  And there were trees all around. 

We had to leave at 5:30 pm to go back to the train station. So we got dropped off at Shanbag hotel, where we had coffee and packed idlis for dinner later on. Went to the train station to take the train back to Bangalore at 8 pm. We got side berths on the train so Bhaiya got us a cabin – good going! We ate our idlis and went to sleep for the overnight journey.