Hello once again,
Continuing from my previous post, our trio of merry travelers left the sandy beaches and blue waves in search of the ancient city of Vijayanagara. We found it, next to the small town of Hampi. It sat amidst an alien, otherworldy landscape. This landscape, where the town and ruins reside, looks like Mars once it's been terraformed. Giant piles of massive, rusty red boulders are scattered about as far as the eye can see. And the plains between these piles are rife with dark green vegetation; banana plantations, rice farms, coconut, and mango trees in abundance. Atop many of the giant rock piles are temples, some still active, where devotees sing into loudspeakers, the ancient music bounces across the rocks, over town and farms, from dawn till dusk.
The town of Hampi exists primarily to feed and house the travellers and pilgrims that arrive to explore the ancient ruins. It's small, comprising of a main road and a network of small alleyways that are easy to lose yourself in. At one end of the main road is a large pyramidal structure. We likened it to Vishnu's lingam (if you don't know what that is, you're not old enough to know). It's an entrance to a temple where a blessed elephant named Lakshmi lives, she is the embodiment of the Goddess Lakshmi, who represents beauty and abundance.
We were lucky to arrive in Hampi on the night of a full moon. At night, Lakshmi, along with a moveable shrine, a band, and a crowd of worshipers, parade up and down the main road. If you give Lakshmi some rupees, she'll bless you with her trunk. This, I felt, must be done. I ran in front of the great beautiful beast, who was adorned with a garland of flowers and India's finest makeup, with a 50 ruppee note trembling in my hand, I stood there. She stopped and looked at me, she appeared as to be smiling. After she deftly plucked the bill from my hand, leaving a trail of elephant snot, she brought her holy trunk down on my head and over my face. How's that for beautiful abundance?
The next day, it was time to visit another one of Hindu's many Gods. This time it was Hanuman, the great monkey God. Apparently, he was born atop one of the massive hills of rock just a few kilometres outside of Hampi. You could see the whitewashed temple from the town, so we rented some bicycles and made our way to it. We got to the bottom of the mountain, 610 steps (we counted) a number of old beggar women, and a smattering of monkey's stood between us and Hanuman. We brought with us several bunches of bananas as offering, and several rupee coins to give to the beggars that awaited us. After a harrowing 30 minutes of climbing stairs under the hot Indian sun (oh how we suffered!), we got to the top. There, we found a great many monkeys, some were white, with black, round faces and long tails. Others had a more ape-like face, were smaller and had a reddish skin. We gave bananas to them all. Inside, we knelt before Hanuman and were given sugar and a trail of red powder smeared on our foreheads by the Sadhu inside. He looked young but walked with a large wooden stick, his legs very thin. He had a small round tray that burned with an oil wick, and sang he a song while moving his flame over us, and Hanuman. We left the depths of the temple feeling slightly simian. The view from the temple was astounding, Hanuman chose well.
From there, we explored a variety of different temples. One that stood out for me was called the underground temple. It was called this because around half of it was, well, underground. It was also ankle-deep in water. At first I was hesitant, this is India after all, and after all this is a 1000 year old temple. But an old woman was there as well, she had a large smile and laughed when she saw us peer nervously at the wet temple ground. She calmly walked into the water and after wading a few steps in, beckoned us to follow. I shrugged and went in, the farther we got the darker it became. Bats lived on the ceiling and swooped in and out of the corridors. On the pillars were carvings of all the manifestations of Shiva. As well as some Ganesh's sprinkled in with a dab of Rama. At the deepest part of the temple was Shiva's lingam (there's that word again) it had flowers draped over it and was surrounded in coins. I felt it was in my best interest to throw the pride of good ol' Shiva a few rupees. And with a wink, and a tip of my hat, I was out of there. Bats still hanging from the temple ceiling.
I was going to tell you about the holiest hug in India but this message had gone long enough so i'll leave that to another day. I'm in Pondicherry now. It's more French than most places in India and I'm still coming to terms with that.
Otherwise,
Intestines doing fine.
Continuing from my previous post, our trio of merry travelers left the sandy beaches and blue waves in search of the ancient city of Vijayanagara. We found it, next to the small town of Hampi. It sat amidst an alien, otherworldy landscape. This landscape, where the town and ruins reside, looks like Mars once it's been terraformed. Giant piles of massive, rusty red boulders are scattered about as far as the eye can see. And the plains between these piles are rife with dark green vegetation; banana plantations, rice farms, coconut, and mango trees in abundance. Atop many of the giant rock piles are temples, some still active, where devotees sing into loudspeakers, the ancient music bounces across the rocks, over town and farms, from dawn till dusk.
The town of Hampi exists primarily to feed and house the travellers and pilgrims that arrive to explore the ancient ruins. It's small, comprising of a main road and a network of small alleyways that are easy to lose yourself in. At one end of the main road is a large pyramidal structure. We likened it to Vishnu's lingam (if you don't know what that is, you're not old enough to know). It's an entrance to a temple where a blessed elephant named Lakshmi lives, she is the embodiment of the Goddess Lakshmi, who represents beauty and abundance.
We were lucky to arrive in Hampi on the night of a full moon. At night, Lakshmi, along with a moveable shrine, a band, and a crowd of worshipers, parade up and down the main road. If you give Lakshmi some rupees, she'll bless you with her trunk. This, I felt, must be done. I ran in front of the great beautiful beast, who was adorned with a garland of flowers and India's finest makeup, with a 50 ruppee note trembling in my hand, I stood there. She stopped and looked at me, she appeared as to be smiling. After she deftly plucked the bill from my hand, leaving a trail of elephant snot, she brought her holy trunk down on my head and over my face. How's that for beautiful abundance?
The next day, it was time to visit another one of Hindu's many Gods. This time it was Hanuman, the great monkey God. Apparently, he was born atop one of the massive hills of rock just a few kilometres outside of Hampi. You could see the whitewashed temple from the town, so we rented some bicycles and made our way to it. We got to the bottom of the mountain, 610 steps (we counted) a number of old beggar women, and a smattering of monkey's stood between us and Hanuman. We brought with us several bunches of bananas as offering, and several rupee coins to give to the beggars that awaited us. After a harrowing 30 minutes of climbing stairs under the hot Indian sun (oh how we suffered!), we got to the top. There, we found a great many monkeys, some were white, with black, round faces and long tails. Others had a more ape-like face, were smaller and had a reddish skin. We gave bananas to them all. Inside, we knelt before Hanuman and were given sugar and a trail of red powder smeared on our foreheads by the Sadhu inside. He looked young but walked with a large wooden stick, his legs very thin. He had a small round tray that burned with an oil wick, and sang he a song while moving his flame over us, and Hanuman. We left the depths of the temple feeling slightly simian. The view from the temple was astounding, Hanuman chose well.
From there, we explored a variety of different temples. One that stood out for me was called the underground temple. It was called this because around half of it was, well, underground. It was also ankle-deep in water. At first I was hesitant, this is India after all, and after all this is a 1000 year old temple. But an old woman was there as well, she had a large smile and laughed when she saw us peer nervously at the wet temple ground. She calmly walked into the water and after wading a few steps in, beckoned us to follow. I shrugged and went in, the farther we got the darker it became. Bats lived on the ceiling and swooped in and out of the corridors. On the pillars were carvings of all the manifestations of Shiva. As well as some Ganesh's sprinkled in with a dab of Rama. At the deepest part of the temple was Shiva's lingam (there's that word again) it had flowers draped over it and was surrounded in coins. I felt it was in my best interest to throw the pride of good ol' Shiva a few rupees. And with a wink, and a tip of my hat, I was out of there. Bats still hanging from the temple ceiling.
I was going to tell you about the holiest hug in India but this message had gone long enough so i'll leave that to another day. I'm in Pondicherry now. It's more French than most places in India and I'm still coming to terms with that.
Otherwise,
Intestines doing fine.
