Hampi - India

Jorge Yuri
14 de mar. de 2016
2 min de leitura

Hampi was the tenth stop of “Reviravolta ao Mundo”. This city was a suggestion of a colleague in my last job in France and this place couldn’t have been more pleasant.

The Hampi history’s is very interesting. It is the ancient city of Vijayanagara. In the sixteenth century Hampi was a city of 500,000 inhabitants and was the largest trade centre in southern India. After years of sovereignty in the region, a reign’s conglomerate was formed and managed to defeat the Vijayanagara army. After that no one left in the city (who was not dead, ran away). The city was abandoned, until the nineteenth century. At the time of British colonialism in India, an English archaeologist found the abandoned city. With this very interesting story, Hampi is an open-air museum. There are ruins and temples everywhere of the ancient city, in a region full of mountains and a beautiful landscape.

We ended up staying only two days in Hampi, but we would like to have stayed longer.

“Reviravolta ao Mundo” recommends:

- It's not easy to get in Hampi. We were in Palolem beach, in Goa. We had to catch a train to Margão, a train to Hospet and then an auto rickshaw (also known as tuc-tuc) to Hampi. It was about 12 hours of travel.

- For those who want to save, there is a bus that connects Hospet to Hampi that costs 14 rupees (on January/2016) right in front of the station. For those who prefer the auto rickshaw, we negotiated a value of 100 rupees (on January/2016)

- Hampi only have vegetarian restaurants, so for those who are carnivorous you have to prepare yourselves. I am one of those and to my surprise I did not feel at any time the lack of meat. All the spices used in Indian cooking, the vegetables have a special taste and it replaces the meat taste.

- Try local Tali. It is very good.

- Look for small restaurants to taste the local cuisine without adaptations for tourists (be prepared to have your mouth on fire) and attractive prices.

- It worth to rent a bicycle to visit the temples and ruins of the city. The road is ok and not very busy, but there are some hills.

Hereafter some pictures of our visit to Hampi. They are split in different galleries because there was too many.

On the way to Hampi: