28 days in India with flight ticket + accomodation: 729 EUR
I would definitely mention a personal story connecting to Hampi. Before I got here, I had no idea what to expect, so after the bustling Indian urbanity of Mumbai, I imagined a city like that. It was a huge surprise when I saw Hampi getting off the bus. The city, in the traditional sense, had no trace. I could describe it as if the chinese market had moved to India on dusty, asphalt-free roads. On the streets there is a myriad of market huts, punctuated with a couple of chop houses and little guesthouses. Cows and stray dogs were crossing the path between the merchants' stalls to get food. Even Western tourists here were more hardcore, mostly hippies or company leaders tired in their everyday squirrel wheel, who came to find themselves and burned everything at home. It spiced up the atmosphere of the place that this market-like Indian city lay, in a completely absurd way in the heart of a holy place. (To our sorrow, it also meant that alcohol was definitely not available.) After the first shock, I looked out and looked around, realising that a lot of gigantic stone temples surround this special urban-like place. In a nutshell, Hampi was a real surprise, at first not in a positive meaning. However, as the days went by, this place stole my heart, it has a simply indescribable atmosphere, unlike anything else.
At first, of course, I got lost regularly, because there were no streets, no street names, it all seemed like an impenetrable cavalcade of markets. Later it was easier to compare, as the faces of the merchants were familiar. However, in some inexplicable way, they weren’t familiar with my face because every day they hit me again and again with the same irrecusable offers, or they just hoped that I finally change my mind and buy the 89th sunglasses, which are on sale only for me only today. 😎
The monkeys were the most unusual, after all. I had encountered two of them stepping out of the terrace of the guesthouse, in a panic-stricken way, before unintentionally engaging with them in some sort of attraction. 🙂
There was no shortage of adventure either, because one day we decided to climb to one of the stone temples not using the usual way (stairs), but rather the path that seemed solid from below. After a while this didn't seem to be a good idea, but by then we had walked so much that it wasn't a good idea to turn back. And at one point it seemed almost impossible that we would ever come down from here, because no guardrail or rope was there to our aid. When I looked down into the the depth, balancing on the slippery rocks without any handrails, to put it mildly, I thought it might had been better to have some tea with the monkeys on the terrace. 😃🐵
All in all, it turned out to be one of the most defining experiences of my life in Hampi, you shouldn’t miss it.
(cozyandspirit is official partner of agoda and kiwi)
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