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Day 52 (February 28, 2000) Chitradurga has some beautiful ruins but is anticlimatical after the incredible impressive ruins of Hampi, where I could have spent an entire week, even two. It makes a good halfway spot to stop on the intense trucker highway route to Bangalore though, and Marcia and I appreciated the rest, though the hotel seemed to be run by a bunch of teenage boys who giggled and ran around in circles every time we asked them a question. There's an impressive fort at the top of the mountain above the city, and we stumbled into a wedding inside the temple there. Bowing out of the invitation to stay five or six hours for dinner and celebrations, we were accosted by monkeys who had their eye on our packs, and had to carry rocks to throw to keep them at bay. Truthfully, the highlight of the day was the evening beer. Hampi is a temple town, as are most towns in Southern India, and it's a real challenge to get alcohol though everything from marijuana to ketamine is readily available. So we had room service with a big Kingfisher and a packet of peanuts, put the dial to some traditional dance on the black and white television to drown out the sound of the airhorns of passing trucks, the hogs fighting over restaurant scraps, and the scramble of roaches across the linolium floor. BACK TO HOME |