Travelogue: The Hampi Café

Hampi is one of those surprises that travel had brought me. Last November I visited this magnificent landscape dotted with ruins of Krishnadevaraya era. Those giant temples and complexes set in the background of stony mountains is indeed a sight. Perhaps, the river Tungabhadra brings in the additional glamour and it is always an enthralling experience to sit in the banks of it in a local coffee-shop sipping simmering hot Indian Espresso and engaging in a conversation with backpackers from all over the world.

Indeed Hampi is one of those places where the corporate-tourism had not yet set its foot, so there wont me much of advertising pamphlets announcing walk-tours or Hampi-in-2hours kind of things.

The nearest railhead is a sleepy town called Hospet. We reached there early in the morning after an overnight train-travel from Bangalore and then took an auto-rickshaw from Hospet to Hampi. We then took the state-run ferry to cross the Tungabhadra river to reach the Hippie island of Viruppur gadde. This small island formed by Tungabhadra is believed to be the nerve center of kingdom of Hanuman in the Hindu epic Ramayana. In the contemporary sense, this island is more of a ‘Hippie hideout’. The diehard backpackers choose this quite haven to abate their hangovers of rave partying in Goa. The fact that, we visited this place in lunar-eclipse night had also meant that there were bearded god-men roaming with their saffrons and unfixed glares.

The next day, we rented a two-wheeler to visit the Hampi ruins. The Virupaksha temple, The Vittala temple, the queens bath, etc and then the rocks. The rocks here are quite different and these boulders give a feel of lunar-surface. We climbed up the Matanga hill to see the sun sink into the horizons which means we were quite late for the last ferry to Viruppur Gadde. So, we took a coracle to cross Tungabhadra at exorbitant cost.

In my stay there, I felt that the beauty of Hampi is more enhanced by the interaction between the locals and the foreigners and the resulting cultural exchange.  Owing to the absence of packaged programs or conducted tours, most of the tourists set to explore Hampi on their own meeting the locals. The diary of such backpackers gets filled with experiences from People rather than that of the place itself. The true sense of travelling, which is not just clicking photographs, comes to the fore.

Perhaps, it reminded me of my encounters in Europe during my backpacking days, where I met scores of interesting peoples in various picturesque places.

Hampi, I noted down in my journal, is a place where one can easily understand different strata of Indian society without getting bothered by the hawkers selling souvenirs. The tea shops (try ginger lemon honey tea) run by locals gets visitors from Manhattan to Mannheim, from Sydney to Stockholm. This confluence is indeed the beauty of Hampi.

But the happy part of the story ends here. The tea-shops and Guest houses of Hampi are seen as encroachments, and the giant bull-dozers have already started smashing these structures. The people of Hampi, who earned their living working in such places, are now relocated (the new word for ‘Deported’) to the villages around Hampi like Kamalapuram.

Those beautiful riverside cafes where the travelers from all over the world converged will soon be a heap of dust. Those guest houses where one can stay close to ruins will now vanish.

The project, when completed, would leave Hampi only with the ruins. There would be no overnight stay possible in Hampi. One has to stay in one of those posh hotels in Hospet, and should make a day trip to Hampi.

Perhaps, I felt lucky that I had visited Hampi when its streets were teeming with life, and its ruins were a stone throw away. But with this drive, Hampi will become desolate again