Category: Ooty, Mysore and Hampi

Yesterday, after an 8 hour, 340 km journey through the most rural of rural India we arrived in Hampi. I must say, having a car and driver and being able to stop anywhere anytime is the only way to see the true day-to-day existence of the people of this fascinating country. Words cannot really describe the sites we’ve seen over the more than 1,500 km’s of driving so far so hopefully some of our road pics with a few words of commentary will help but first, Hampi, another of the many sites in India designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The main town of Hampi is a typical noise and exhaust filled cornucopia of chaos. It lies about 3 km from the Village of Hampi (Hampi Bazzar) which has slowly grown into a funky little tourist area in the heart of the boulder strewn and incredibly beautiful surrounding hills and temple ruins.

Situated among banana plantations, palm groves, paddy fields and a meandering river, the area is dotted with “chill” restaurants and small family run homestays offering private rooms with toilet, bed and shower, it is such a nice change from the hectic to the relaxed.

Only motorcycles and auto rickshaws/tuk tuks are allowed on the very narrow roads that make up a small grid in this village of 1,000 people where alcohol is prohibited but secretly available as are the “special lassies”, however, there is a serious issue here that looks to cause the demise of this little Hampi hippie haven.

According to the Indian government, all of the businesses that exist to serve the tourists here are illegal and must be removed. All of them from tiny Mom and Pop window shops selling soap, water and toilet paper to all of the home stays and restaurants. Everything.

On the day we arrived we were told the court process to prevent this mass displacement had been exhausted and the next day the locals would find out their destiny.

The worst case which most were expecting was everything would be bulldozed. The second worse was they could keep their homes but must immediately close all business, their livelihoods. Not much of a choice and it was heartbreaking to have this conversation with the locals. What do you say to them?

Late the next day the verdict was in. Close all businesses immediately and don’t lose your home or defy the order and face demolition.

In a similar court ruling in 2011 they moved in and over night bulldozed homes and businesses into oblivion leaving 1,500 people homeless. Plots of land a few km’s away and compensation was offered and we’re told many are still left waiting.

Then, in 2016 they did the same to another small village in the area.

The vast majority of these businesses are run out of adjoining sections of their homes so the cost of defying the closure is the very real prospect of having your home demolished. The people knew the government wasn’t kidding.

When we departed the next day after the verdict every single business was shuttered, everything was shuttered. You couldn’t buy anything from anyone or any business that existed only 24 hours earlier.

There are over 3,700 beautiful monuments scattered over 36 sq. km’s of this amazing area and it seems if you live near these ruins your lively hoods will be ruined.

People blame the UNESCO designation (they can be very heavy handed in how they run things) but we’ve also heard some big hotels in the area are pushing for this, they are losing business and we’ve also heard (according to the gov’t) the concern is about human encroachment into the ruins. It’s probably a combination of several things.

We think the best solution is the status quo. No more construction, keep what is there and move on. It would be a terrible loss to the local people and tourism.

We doubt few travellers aside from organized tours would stay in the noisy and totally uninteresting main town of Hampi.

Unfortunately the area has lost a true jewel that glittered around the edges of a truly spectacular site.

Road pics to Hampi (iPhone pics)

The harvest is in

Laying out the wheat

The wheat is separated by the cars driving over it

A typical road block

Hampi became the centre of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in the 14th century and by the 1500 was the world’s second largest medieval-era city after Beijing. The empire was conquered, pillaged and destroyed by a coalition of Muslim sultanate armies in 1565 after which Hampi remained in ruins. The majority of sculptures were partially destroyed by breaking off the hands, feet, trunks, tusks, paws and some heads.

The amazing ruins of Hampi

Garuda Stone chariot

Market

Musical Stone Pillars

Virupaksha Temple

Queen’s Bath

Queen’s Bath

Garuda Stone Chariot and Vitthala Temple

Yoga-Narasimha Monolith

Outside walls of Hazara Rama Temple

Outer walls Hazara Rama Temple

Elephant Stables

Aqua Duct

Solid granite door

Ganesha

Krishna Bazaar in front of the temple ruins

Below are a few pics of our room, our chillin spot at Ravi’s Rose and Thali dinner.

Our room

Chillin

Our Thali dinner

We departed Mysuru on December 9th for our next stop, Hassan, about a 4 hour journey. We used Hassan as a staging point to visit two towns famous for their Hindu temples located about 40 km and 55 km respectively from Hassan. The town of Belur and the Channakeshava Temple, and the town of Halebid with the Hoysaleswara Temple. Both are very much off the beaten tourist path so we were virtually the only white faces among a sea of Indian school children and tourists. Something we noticed so far on our tour of temples.

The Channakeshava temple in Belur is a Hysola temple commissioned in 1116 and took over a century to build. The artistry and architecture are outstanding.

Channakeshava Temple

Another Hysola Temple, the Hoysaleswara located in Halebid began construction in 1121 and went on for 80 years but was never completed but is considered to be the masterpiece of Hysola architecture.

Hoysaleswara Temple

We had a full day today exploring the very nice city of Mysuru with a population of approximately 18 lakh. 1 lakh=100,000 so there are about 1.8 million people in the city. Our driver, Iyyappan wasn’t too familiar with the numerous sites to see in and around the city so we picked up a local (his name escapes us so we’ll call him Toor) who is affiliated with his company and we headed to our first stop, Chamundeshwari Temple located on the top of Chamundi Hills, about 13 km from Mysuru and about 3,000 feet above the city. The original temple was thought to have been built in the 12th century and it’s tower in the 17th century. Leading up to the temple is a huge Nandi, the bull mount of Shiva. Carved from one piece of granite it is 15 feet high and 24 feet long and around its neck are exquisite bells. Impressive and reminiscent of the Mahabalipuram rock carvings.

Nandi

Chamundeshwari Temple and views of Mysuru 

So today is a school holiday in nearby Kerala state, the Hindu temple is a revered site so us and what seemed like about 1,000 busloads of students ascended the hill to be met half way with a major traffic jam. It was utter chaos (seems to be the buzzword so far in India) so we did a u-turn and headed back down with the plan to visit again later in the day, Once we hit flat ground Toor suggested we stop in for a visit to a sea shell art emporium. How exciting! We relented and paid 50 rupee each admission ($1 CAD) and went inside to what turned out to be an amazing display of sea shell art and art created out of everyday waste and garbage. There is a huge Ganesha ranked in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest sea shell created statue in the world, a giant model of the Taj Mahal using only the natural colors of the shells and an amazing array of other art made from shells, twist ties, hair, paper, used wooden match sticks, pistachio nut shells etc.  We were fortunate to meet the artist who created all of the wonderful pieces of art and through conversation she showed us a beautiful flower and in her heavy Indian accent said it was made from what we understood her to say, “blister skin”. What?  Yes, blister skin. Joyce didn’t take a picture of this work of macabre art unfortunately but we both wondered, how do you collect blister skin?  Do people volunteer to burn their skin then peel it off of the blister in a nice oval piece of skin? Very weird but the flower was beautiful and she was an artist so, whatever. We continued to go around the museum admiring the truly incredible works of this woman until we came upon another work of art. This one was labeled ” made from pistu skin”. It looked a lot like the blister skin piece we saw earlier then it hit us. This piece and the other was made from pistacio shells. Pistu is an Indian term for pistacio and they call the shells skin. I know, pistu doesn’t really sound like blister but with a heavy accent it did. We nearly peed ourselves laughing. It was a typical lost in translation situation but man was it funny! We hadn’t had a good belly laugh like this for a long time. It reminds me of a situation in Durban, South Africa. I was at a local bar (really?) and I asked the white bar tender how he liked Durban. What I thought his reply was “it’s too white” was in fact “it’s too quiet”. Best to apologise and ask several times if necessary if you’re not sure what was said.

Sea shell art

Ganesh

Taj Mahal

It is interesting to note the swastika on the above picture of Ganesha. The swastika is an ancient religious icon used in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Southeast Asia where it has been and remains a sacred symbol of spiritual principles in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It wasn’t until the 1930’s that it became stigmatized in the West due to its association with Nazi symbolism as an emblem of  Aryan race identity.

Next stop was Mysore Palace. Built on 72 acres for a total cost of 40 lakh, 4 million dollars, because there wasn’t corruption back then we’re told, and is still home to and the official residency of the Wodeyars dynasty. The architect was British and the design incorporates Indian, Indo-Islamic/Arab, Neo-Classical and Gothic styles. Only a small portion of the palace is still in the hands of the Wodeyars, the rest we’re told was taken over by the government due to back tax issues. It is hard to ascertain the exact details on this but the government-owned portion holds a lot of  beautiful artifacts which were gifts presented to the royal family over many years from many foreign dignitaries and countries. Me thinks the government got more than was due. The most up to date info I could find dates back to 2013. ” Govt wants the palace, so does the Royal Family”. Oh the challenges of the royal!

Mysore Palace

Today we descended the Nilgiri hills and left behind the cool fresh air of Ooty. It was a real treat to sleep with the windows open and actually smell clean air. The majority of the area is a forest preserve until you reach Mudumalai National Park on the northwest side of the Nilgiri Hills. Mudumalai is a designated tiger reserve and contains around 50 tigers which we did not see (and didn’t expect to) but we did see spotted deer and gaurs (bison) while driving on the main road through the park. The forest is thick jungle and looks more like you would imagine African jungle to look like with the tigers roaming under the thick dark canopy waiting to pounce without warning. As you exit Tamil Nadu into Karnataka State, Mudumalai NP turns into Bandipur NP, also a designated tiger reserve which also hosts a small population of tiger, spotted deer, gaur, Indian elephants, antelopes and numerous other species. The park was once a private hunting reserve for the Maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore. Six hours later after what was supposed to be a 3 hour drive we arrived into Mysore (Mysuru) in the state of Karnataka. Mysore was the capital of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1399 to 1947 however here there is very little if any British architectural influence in the city as the maharaja were on good terms with the colonial British occupiers at that time in history so the architecture is considered Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture which was a style used by Indian British architects.

Ooty to Mysore road pics 

Laundry day

Needle Rock viewpoint path

Mist view from Needle Rock

Today was a long drive, about 7 hours through rural India full of chaotic towns, (the traffic and driving is crazy, there are no rules of the road!!), squashed dogs on the roadside and a very harrowing drive up into the Nilgiri Hills to the “The Queen of Hill Stations”, Ooty. At an elevation of 2,240 metres (7,350 feet) the air is much cooler and fresher which is a nice break from the smog in the lower elevation towns. Originally a hill station for the British to come to cool down during the hot Indian summer months, tea is still grown here but Ooty is essentially a supply base and market town for the surrounding area which is still largely dependant on agriculture although tourism does play a part in the local economy.

View of Ooty

Ooty Lake

Garden map of India

Botanical Garden

Botanical Garden