Trip to the Hampi Ruins

As far as my favorite modes of transportation are concerned, overnight buses in India rank near the bottom.  But since last-minute train tickets were impossible to buy due to a three-day holiday, we were left with little choice if we wanted to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site called The Groups of Monuments at Hampi.  Despite no bathrooms, no sleep, and incessant honking on the overnight buses, this trip was the crown jewel of our travels in south India, and I'm so glad we went.  UNESCO writes this about the site:

"The austere, grandiose site of Hampi was the last capital of the last great Hindu Kingdom of Vijayanagar. Its fabulously rich princes built Dravidian temples and palaces which won the admiration of travellers between the 14th and 16th centuries. Conquered by the Deccan Muslim confederacy in 1565, the city was pillaged over a period of six months before being abandoned."

We packed only a few things in our backpacks:  sunscreen, mosquito repellant, hand sanitizer, our sunglasses, a hat, a few extra clothes just in case, and "borrowed" two washcloths from the hotel.  We almost missed our bus to Hospet (about 9 miles from the Hampi ruins) because our auto driver didn't know which bus station to take us to, so he dropped us off at the main bus station.  Fortunately, a helpful ticket agent put us on a bus that was going to the terminal we wanted, and we managed to board the correct bus.  The overnight sleeper buses had a double-wide berth on one side, which was the type that Muir and I booked, and a single-width berth across the aisle.  Each sleeping berth was outfitted with a privacy curtain and a few inches of dense foam cushion, with one side slightly higher, simulating a pillow.  The foam cusion was covered by a waterproof pleather-y material and the whole thing was topped with a blue cotton chambray sheet.  I think there were supposed to be wool blankets, but we didn't have any.  Nevertheless, the night was warm enough to sleep without any covers.  There was a raised metal rack near our feet where we stored our backpacks, and with our feet under the racks, even Muir managed to lie completely outstretched.  If that doesn't sound luxurious enough, let me repeat that there was no bathroom on the bus and we were looking at a 7-hour ride through the boonies of India.  Not to mention that the roads were VERY bumpy and there was honking from all manner of vehicles outside the whole night.  I don't think either of us slept more than an hour or so in 20-minute stretches.

We arrived in Hospet just after 6AM in complete darkness and staggered off the bus to find ourselves on what appeared to be a practically deserted street with structures only one-building deep on either side of the road.  I don't recall any street lamps.  Most of the light I remember came from the illuminated signs above the shops and one large restaurant on the corner.  Even so, we were greeted by an auto rickshaw driver named Ravi, who offered to chauffer us around Hampi for the day for 1500 Rupees, about $30 USD.  We had already decided that we wanted to hire an auto driver to take us around for the day because the weather was going to be around 90 degrees, sunny, dry, and the ruins are sprinkled over an area of ten square miles, which was more than we could probably cover in one day on foot.  After a trip to  an outhouse, we were off!

Our tour of Hampi lasted from basically sunrise to sunset, and I've posted the photos and videos below.

My two favorite sunrise shots

Dog vs. monkeys.  I think they were fighting over bananas
that some other tourists were feeding to the monkeys.

After sunrise, Ravi drove us back to get breakfast at this really fun rooftop restaurant and hostel.  I think it was at the Rama Guest House.  They served delicious lassi and had a decent selection of non-Indian breakfast items.  I had a crepe and scrambled eggs.  Muir had a set breakfast of porridge, eggs, toast, and juice.

After breakfast, we watched the locals bathe their captive elephant.

After that it was lots of ruins.  I do not remember all of their names, so I won't make myself look foolish by trying to recall them all.  Just enjoy some of our photos.

Huge statue of Ganesh

Another statue of Ganesh

Collection of ruins with an Indiana Jones-like sundial in the center.

The (modern-day) Hampi bazaar can be seen behind this temple.

Stone pergolas, once part of an ancient bazaar.
Hampi was known for it's wealth of gold, silver, and diamonds,
which could be bought and sold at the grand bazaar.

Entrance to the Krishna Temple

Inside the Krishna Temple

A scary-looking statue of a god

Bats on the ceiling of the Underground Temple

Indian woman and statue of god Nandi in the
Underground Temple

The queen's summer palace.  It features both Hindu and Muslim architecture.
The first floor ceiling was made of one foot of mud below two feet
of water which served to cool the air underneath.

The elephant stable!  Notice the variety of geometric domes
topping the stables.

Bananas!

Lunch and our shady view at the Mango Tree Restaurant

Wall of carvings

Ornate columns

Black marble column inside a building

Giant black marble bath (?) inside the Royal Fort 

Intact statue

Bamboo bowl boats to the Monkey Temple

Ok, I should probably pause here to talk about the coup de grace of our tour around Hampi, which was a river boat ride on one of the above bamboo bowl boats, followed by a hike through some rice paddies, ending with a climb up 675 stairs to the Monkey Temple.  We booked our passage at about 5:30 PM and managed to make it to the temple for sunset at 6:15PM.  Then we turned around and paddled back in the waning light until it was completely dark by the time we reached the starting dock again.

*I tried to find the movie that the tour guide mentioned, and I think it was The Myth, which was shot only seven years ago, in 2005.

My only qualm with the boat ride was that they switched bowl boat captains on us in the middle to a boy who must have been no more than ten years old.  The use of child labor put a damper on that part of the trip.  If I had known, we wouldn't have taken it.

Sunset!

We were ferried down the Tungabhadra River

More gorgeous sunset!

Tired and dirty, but happy

Day Trip to Mysore

On Thursday, Muir and I hired a car and driver for an all day trip to the city of Mysore, about 90 miles southwest of Bangalore.  My main objective was to see the resplendent Mysore Palace, but the driver saved it for the last stop of the day and took us to several other historic and natural sites along the way.  We left at about 7AM, and it took about three hours to reach Mysore because of traffic and the biggest speed bumps you have ever seen planted all along the way.

Entrance gate to Tipu Sultan's palace

Our first stop was Tipu Sultan's summer palace.  The plaques around the palace didn't really talk about who he was, so you'll just have to Google it if you're interested.  I was shocked to read that the entrance fee for foreigners was 100 Rupees, only about $2 USD, but for Indians it was 5 Rupees.

The palace gardens and the palace at the end of the promenade.

The walls and ceilings were covered with colorful murals depicting battles during the Tipu Sultan's reign (1782-1799), but unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside the palace.  The caretakers of the site had even hung woven screens around the outside to protect the delicate murals from bleaching in the sun.

The next stop was Tipu Sultan's mausoleum/mosque.  Naturally.  At this site, I learned another very common and noteworthy aspect of touring temples and monuments in India (besides the entrance fee discrimination).  At many buildings, especially temples, visitors are required to take off their shoes!  Removing one's shoes serves several purposes, among them: showing respect for the temple as sacred ground, keeping the interior (relatively) clean, extorting tourists for tip money for watching your shoes while you are inside, and getting your feet/socks incredibly dirty.  I didn't really like removing my shoes.

Cenotaphs inside Gumbaz mausoleum

Intricately painted dome ceiling of the mausoleum

St. Philomena's Church

Our first stop actually within Mysore city, was St. Philomena's Church.  Then we took a break for lunch, and were shepherded into a few local shops selling materials for sarees, carved sandalwood elephants, and other kinds of souvenirs.  We didn't purchase anything.

After lunch we were taken to another shop (again, we didn't buy anything), but this one at least had playful monkeys on a wall outside.



Next the driver took us to part of the Mysore zoo that wasn't closed that day, and we walked through a bird aviary and around a large lake.  It was hot and dusty, and we were both a little sunburnt from our walk around Lal Bagh the day before.

Finally, we insisted on going to the Mysore Palace.  I for one, was a little tired and crank from the heat by that point and wanted to see my top destination.  The story was the same at the palace--no photography inside and no shoes were allowed.  The wait turned out to be worth it.  The palace (rebuilt most recently in 1912) had colorfully tiled floors, doorways of unusual shapes, carved columns, grand ballrooms, ornate murals, skylights, statues of bronze leopards guarding an interior courtyard, a carved door  made out of solid silver, oil paintings of the royal family, and a large number of antiquities.

A temple on the palace grounds

A side view of Mysore Palace

The "front" of the palace, I believe

Passage to India

It's about one month until Muir and I return to the US, but before we do, we thought a trip to India was in order.  And I was pumped!  I've never been to India before, but I love Indian food and people in India can speak some English (right?), so in my own naive way, I figured that was more than half the battle.

Traditional south Indian breakfast items.
All vegetarian, spicy, and delicious!

So on Valentine's Day, Muir and I flew from Beijing to Bangalore via Chengdu to spend about ten days in south India.  We made reservations at the SFO Hotel and Suites, the same hotel where Muir has stayed on his previous trips to the Bangalore office.  The SFO Hotel is modern and comfortable with free wi-fi, two restaurants on the property, and a free breakfast buffet.  Indian breakfast food, of course, but as I've already said, I really like Indian food, so it wasn't a problem.  The hotel also has decent decor.  Bonus!  Each floor is themed like a different neighborhood in San Francisco, and our floor pays homage to the Haight Ashbury of the 1960s and 1970s.  The hallway is painted as if covered in psychedelic graffiti with messages of peace, love, and Budweiser.  There's also a decent portrait of Bob Marley.

It took us about 24 hours to reach Bangalore due to a 4-hour layover and a 90-minute flight delay in Chengdu.  We arrived in the obscenely early hours of the morning on the 15th despite the 2.5 hours we gained by traveling west into a country that understands the concept of time zones...  Anyway!  The evening--sorry, pre-dawn morning--was a balmy and dry 60 degrees.  A pre-arranged driver picked us up from the airport and ported us to our hotel.  We took a quick nap at the hotel and went out later that morning to explore the city.

Yum, electrolytes!

We decided to visit the Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore so as to stay close to home base and promised to venture further afield the next day.  We tried to buy sunscreen and mosquito repellent en route, but the closest shopping center didn't open until 11:30 AM!  We did however try some fresh coconut water for about 30 cents US.  (The exchange rate is about 50 Rupees per US dollar right now!)

The coconut vendor

The jelly-like coconut meat of our green coconut.

To get to the gardens, we took one of the ubiquitous three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, called "autos."  They're basically tin cans on wheels, powered by lawn mower motors.

As for the gardens themselves, they were a little anti-climactic.  The weather was dry, so not many flowers were in bloom, the grass of the gardens appeared to be plain old crab grass, and everything just seemed parched.  There were lots of stray dogs sleeping in the garden and lots of young couples sitting on benches in the shade.  Muir and I had a good walk around the large lake in the center, and after a few hours called it an afternoon.

Interesting vegetation

A central lawn.

Another view of the central lawn.

A large Kapok tree

World War III

Before we left for Taipei, Muir's co-workers said that spending CNY in Taiwan would be more traditional since the fleeing Nationalists preserved more of the "traditional" Chinese culture (such as writing traditional characters, for example) that existed before the Great Leap Forward.  However, once we arrived in Taiwan, I was surprised (and glad) to see just how modern Taipei was, even compared to the last time I was there seven years ago in December 2005.  Taipei city itself is clean and modern, the subway cars are roomier than in Beijing, no one spits in public, traffic has learned to drive in its proper lane, there are fewer small stray dogs and mopeds, and fewer piles of debris along the sides of the road.  The people are generally still shorter than in Beijing and the building exteriors are still covered in ceramic tiles (It rains like 300 days of the year there).  Anyway, my relatives in Taiwan said that they didn't really celebrate CNY as much as was done many years ago.  My cousin Jerome who works in Taipei didn't get the whole week off work.  They said only agricultural economies have time to spend days cooking, feasting, and visiting family for the two or three weeks that comprise "traditional" Chinese New Year.  It would appear that modernity has displaced that part of traditional Chinese culture in Taiwan.

Back in Beijing on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, we were barraged with a cacophony of firecrackers from about 7PM to midnight.  Nearly every street corner or courtyard was fair game for pyrotechnic displays.  The crackling fireworks and whistling fountains made Beijing sound like it was under siege.  Hollywood take note--if you ever get tired of playing those staid bombing and gunfire sound clips, just come to Beijing during Chinese New Year and you'll get lots of great material to work with.  This video was taken just outside out apartment door.

We can still hear fireworks tonight, almost two weeks after Chinese New Year.

UPDATE:  I spoke too soon.  Today (February 6th) is the Lantern Festival and it's the Fourth of July on steroids.  Displays are being lit in the courtyards around our apartment that are 20+ stories high.  It's been like this for at least an hour and a half now.

The Never Ending Christmas Story

Friday at work Muir received the Christmas present that my parents had mailed to us back on DECEMBER 19th!  Good thing it was dried fruit and nuts because it took almost two months to arrive.  Luckily the comestibles were all still in good condition when we opened the box.  Thanks Mom and Dad.  Merry Christmas!

Chinese New Year 2012 in Taiwan!

Happy year of the water dragon, dear readers!  Apologies for the delay in this post, but it has been a challenging week healthwise for both of us.  Since Chinese New Year, we've had about two colds/illnesses each, but seem to be recovering now.

This year was the first year that both Muir and I got to experience Chinese New Year (CNY) in China/Taiwan, and it was a fun experience, definitely one that I'll always remember.

This year, CNY Eve fell on Sunday, January 23rd.  Since CNY is calculated based on the lunar calendar it varies from year-to-year, sometimes by several weeks.  The People's Republic of China grants a week-long official public holiday in observance of CNY, and my co-workers began departing for their home cities the Tuesday and Wednesday before CNY.  Muir and I also observed an up-tick in subway and vehicular congestion as early as January 12th.  Travel gets both expensive and hectic because such a large part of Beijing's population is comprised of migrant workers from other parts of the country, and they all like to go home for the holiday.

We flew direct from Beijing to Taipei first thing in the morning on Thursday, January 19th.  The flight was only three hours, and my aunt and cousin picked us up at the airport.  My aunt lives in a cute northern suburb of Taipei called DanShui.  The first day we didn't do too much.  We had some lunch at an American restaurant called Swenson's, bought cereal and yogurt for breakfast at a nearby grocery store, unpacked and settled in, went out for Japanese for dinner, ate some buddah fruit back at Auntie's house and then went to bed.

Delicious and delicate seafood soup served in its own teapot!

Me and Auntie in the living room

Gloria, me, Muir

The next morning my cousin, Gloria, who was visiting from New Zealand where she works as a dentist agreed to take us out sightseeing.  We stopped at the DanShui mangrove preserve and ecology center and walked north along the river until we reached Old DanShui.

Mangrove seedling exhibit at the ecology center

Museums are fun!

Me and Gloria on the mangrove trail,
sleeping buddah mountain in the background

And on the other side, DanShui

The seed of a future mangrove tree,
called a "water pen seed" in Chinese

In Old DanShui we basically pigged-out on all the goodies being sold in hole-in-the-wall shops:  a real donut, sweet and savory pork sausage, the best fish ball soup I have ever had(!), a sticky milk curd dessert ball that you roll in ground peauts or coconut, and some traditional "candy" of dense pucks of ground and sweetened red beans or lotus root wrapped with flaky pastry dough.

Fish balls with a pork filling that tastes like the kind my mom
makes for dumplings

Best. Fish ball. Soup. Ever!

Street in Old Dan Shui

After gorging on delicious snacks, we rode the subway into downtown Taipei to visit a large bookstore because Muir wanted to buy a book written in traditional characters while we were in Taiwan.  He didn't find the book he was looking for, but he bought another by the same author.  After that, we had a dinner of Vietnamese pho and Taiwanese beer in the shopping mall basement and then headed home.

On Saturday morning, the four of us went shopping for fruit at a traditional open-air market and then had lunch at a Japanese fast food restaurant called Mos Burger.  In the afternoon Gloria took us to see Fort San Domingo in another part of DanShui.  One of the buildings on the grounds was the former office and resident of the British consulate on the island.  The linguist Herbert Allen Giles, co-creator of the Wade-Giles system of romanization of Chinese also lived there with his family for a while.  Sorry Herb, pinyin forever!  For dinner that night, Gloria cooked a lavish spread.  She must have made eight dishes!  Ridiculous.  She says she's even better at western food, as if I needed another reason to visit her in New Zealand!

Pork vendor on the right,
vegetable vendor on the left

Teriyaki burger + fried egg = Mos Burger!

Nom nom nom!

Former British consulate at Fort San Domingo

Ready, aim, fire!

Finally found a pair of shoes that fit!

Gloria sitting pretty

Fort Antonio at Fort San Domingo

Trying to crack the safe in Fort Antonio

A building on Alethia University's campus

Agei - a snack of mung bean noodles wrapped
in tofu with a spicy sauce

Sunday, New Year's Eve Day was a day of eating.  Auntie picked a seafood restaurant in Dan Shui where you pick the seafood you want to eat straight from the tank and then they prepare it to order.  Seafood that fresh is unbelievable!  After that late lunch, we had coffee at a nearby hotel.  In the evening, we drove into Taipei and had dinner at my Uncle Jing-Shyr's new apartment.  His wife had cooked at least a dozen dishes, which were also delicious.  Among the more unusual items we consumed, tripe and cow brains!  Both actually quite tasty.

The catch of the day

This place was legit!  The seafood was so fresh.

Me, Muir, Auntie, Gloria, Jerome's baby boy, my cousin Jerome, Jerome's wife

New Year's Eve Dinner

Auntie Hsiao Fann, Auntie Jie Wu, my cousin Yuemei

Grandma, Auntie Jie Wu, Yuemei, Uncle Jing-Shyr

Bei Bei, Jerome's wife, Jerome, Muir, me

Uncle Tien Li, Jerome's wife, Bei Bei, Jerome

Chinese fruit cake.
Made with rice, topped with dates, flavored with citrus peel,
and filled with red bean paste, of course!

Grandma, Jerome's wife, Yuemei, Gloria

A variety of buddha fruit that is super sweet and tastes slightly like pineapple

Monday, I felt under the weather, so it was a low key day.  We watched a few hours of the Australian open on TV in the evening.  On Tuesday, Auntie Hsiao Fann had made lunch reservations at a fancy pants Japanese restaurant in Taipei.  Gloria's friends Solomon and Ebony also visiting from New Zealand were invited along with Uncle Tien Li and his high school friend, Mr. Chen.  Uncle Tien Li had invited us to spend the night at his new condo south of Taipei and then take us to the airport the next morning.  Unfortunately, we didn't think to take any photos, but it was a super nice condo.  My favorite feature was the anti-fog mirrors in the bathrooms.

Wednesday we flew back to Beijing without any issues to a much emptier city.