Deborah delves into the secrets of Hampi’s magnetic beauty and recounts an eerie tale of the dead body on the beach.

An Indian Disneyland

Hampi is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth. Even the most cynical and experienced traveler will admit as much. No camera can capture even a fraction of Hampi’s jaw-dropping beauty. Words are even less sufficient. My initial impression was that I’d been transposited into a CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) movie or a surrealist pseudo-Dali landscape done by a Thai street artist. Hampi is an Indian Disneyland – the rice fields are so startlingly green and the sky so stupidly blue and the stones so manically yellow…

Welcome to the Jurassic

If you don’t die of heat or exhaustion after walking up the 650 steps to reach the Monkey Temple you’ll be privy to the most magnificent sight of your life. When I reached the top and looked out at as the sun was setting over a mental panorama of tall green rice grass, palm trees and hundreds of human-monkeys, I turned to my “stair-mates” and, to quote Sam Neil, said “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Jurassic!” And I really did expect a Stegosaurus to stretch its neck over the treetops hundreds of feet below me.

The Value of Death

Meanwhile, back at the guesthouse the silent Kiwi guy, Andrew, is telling us a story that happened to him two days ago. He was walking along in Gokarna and stumbled upon a dead body on the beach. He told the owner of his guesthouse whose first question was “westerner or Indian?” When Andrew answered that it was the latter the owner shrugged his shoulders and continued about his work.

The same thing happened in two more guesthouses so Andrew decided to climb the steep cliff path to find some police. They too asked the question. When he answered that the body was indeed Indian they told the by-now-incredulous Kiwi that they are the tourist police, they do not deal with locals and, if he likes, there is a police station in the village where he can report his finding.

End of story. Death is so much a part of life here that it’s difficult for westerners to grasp. Manju, the Indian amongst us explained it thus: “In India, we do not fear death like the West. For us it is as known as birth and survival, and since those are the things we can control, we put our energy into that instead of worrying about death.”

Lego of the Gods

I have decided to explore the region and there is no better way than by motorbike. When you turn you have to be careful not to crash into a flock of goats led by a boy as tall as your knee. And even though technically they drive on the left, there isn’t really enforcement of such trivial laws. The traffic police are absent around here and survival on the roads is left up to Karma.

So I rode the bike up to the lake and stopped where the rocks are precariously balanced over the edge. It seems as if Shiva and Ganesh were building lego together and thought it’d be fun to place a few rocks over the lake to see if people would jump. And the people jumped. Some more crazy than others. I witnessed three Indians do the suicide jump from 20 meters above water level where you’re lucky if you don’t smash your body into the rocks that lurk beneath the surface. The little jump at seven metres (some say eight, some six) was scary enough. After you’ve flung yourself over the edge your life does indeed briefly pass in front of your eyes.

The Festival of Holi

I am ill. Running to the loo.

It is Holi – the Hindu festival celebrating the beginning of spring where everyone throws coloured water and powder at each other. We want to get across the river to celebrate but the police have banned the boat because of ‘incidents’ between drunk Indians and tourists. So the only option is to swim.

We make it over as the festival is in full swing: primeval dancing, drum playing and chucking colours on everything and everyone. Its loads of fun. Women are not really allowed to take part and we get told off a few times. I carry Sunita, a local eight year old girl I have grown attached to, on my shoulders.

Since I have been in India I now understand what it must be like to be famous and hunted by the Paparazzi. Indians are constantly snapping pictures on their camera phones. I have made a new rule: every time someone catches me unawares I make them teach me something in their local tongue. Here in Karnataka they speak Kannada. I now can say about 10 basic sentences. The locals love it when I speak to them in their language.

Dining by Moonlight

Raj, who sells water by the lake, hosts a Thali moonlight dinner for us on the rocks. We discuss the virtues of being a cow in India and how all the other cows in the rest of the world must be green with envy – especially Argentinean ones.

The full moon lights up the lake and embalms the Hampi boulders in an ethereal glow. I muse again for the millionth time about Hampi’s splendor. I think that Homer must have had Hampi in mind when he conjured Calypso’s island in the Odyssey. The Indian at my guesthouse told me that Hampi has a magnetic energy. You want to leave but you can’t. I believe him.

How would you describe Hampi? What do you make of Andrew’s dead body encounter? Post up your comments below, we want to hear from you!

Deborah Danan.

Photos by Deborah.

Captain Alan W. Price reveals some fascinating facts about aircraft bird strikes and re-creates the terrifying moments leading up to Air Flight 1549’s miraculous landing in the Hudson River.

4 little-known facts about aircraft bird strikes
1. Since 1998, only 219 deaths have occurred worldwide as a result of bird strikes, from a total of close to one billion flights!*

2. Damage from bird strikes is estimated at 550,000 hours of aircraft down time/year which equates to an annual cost of $625 million.*

3. Aircraft engines and windshields are tested through simulated bird strikes whereby dead chickens are fired from a cannon at varying weights and speeds.

4. Despite these precautions, large birds such as geese can still cause catastrophic damage, as experienced by US Air Flight 1549.

* Source “Aviation Week and Space Technology”

5 techniques for averting a bird strike disaster
1. Distinctive swirl patterns are sometimes painted on engine compressor hub spinners, mimicking a giant rotating barber shop pole.

2. Aircraft windshield glass is built several inches thick to prevent penetration. Electrical heat systems are used to warm the glass, making it more malleable and resistant to damage.

3. Airports are often built near areas that attract birds – garbage dumps, marshy wetlands etc.. Noise cannons, scarecrows and bird activity reports all are part of the defensive systems aimed at combating bird hazards.

4. The majority of bird strikes occur below 3,000’AGL. Efficient departure/arrival handling by air traffic control can lead to less time spent at these lower altitudes.

5. Pilots avoid flocks of birds the same way they avoid other aircraft – through a “see and avoid” method, with “eyes out of the cockpit” at lower altitudes.

Birds!
Picture this. It’s just after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia airport, gear up, climb speed established. Initial departure path will take you to the north, then up the Jersey side of the Hudson. Climbing through 1,000’AGL (Above Ground Level), you accelerate toward best climb speed and finish the after takeoff checklist. Life is good. Suddenly, whilst climbing through 3,000’AGL, you notice grey streaks flashing past the windscreen. “Birds!” You hear, feel, and smell the impact.

Your goose is cooked
“Your goose is cooked” is a bad thing when dealing with jet engines. Birds, lots of large birds picked today to use your A320 for target practice. Both engines are fatally damaged. You feel the loss of thrust, and look for a place to put this puppy down. Ninety seconds later, you are in the ice-cold waters of the Hudson River.

Train the way you want to fly
What I’ve just described is the first few minutes of US Air Flight 1549. Let me say this plainly – in circumstances like these, when an unexpected emergency occurs, pilots do not think like normal people imagine they think. When pilots have a problem, they’ve got to solve it. There’s no time to worry about what might have been. Years of experience and thousands of hours of training kick in.

There is an old adage in military circles – “train the way you want to fight.” In aviation parlance it’s – “train the way you want to fly.” Endless hours of simulated emergencies spent in full-motion simulators allow modern pilots to be “there” before we are actually “there.” Capt Sullenberger and his crew leveraged this advantage – training – coupled with a huge amount of aviation creativity to perform an incredible ditching in the Hudson River. “Sully” would be the first to tell you it wasn’t perfect, but it was damn good.

Keeping cool in a crisis
In the event of a bird strike, the pilot’s first order of business is damage assessment. Damage to the windshield is immediately obvious, engine damage can usually be diagnosed by scanning engine instruments. If damage does occur, we are faced with a “go/no go” choice – landing short of destination or continuing. US Air Flight 1549 faced a wonderfully simple choice since they became an unpowered glider. The decision was not if they should land, but where!

I once ingested several birds from a flock of sea gulls into both engines. The abiding memory that stays with me is the smell of cooked birds. There was no obvious damage, and the question foremost in my mind was “could it be unseen”? That’s where professional judgment comes in. In my case, we continued to destination since we were nearby. Inspection on the ground produced numerous feathers, but no engine damage.

Final words
If you are unlucky enough to experience an aircraft bird strike, you want your pilot to have a healthy sense of skepticism. This serves well when things go wrong. Bird strikes are always unexpected, so your pilot’s response is crucial. Advance planning also becomes a huge factor for averting potential disaster.

In the final analysis, you should find comfort in the fact that the chances of being hit by a bird strike are miniscule. Should one occur, the chance of major damage is small. If your aircraft does suffer major damage, the probability of physical harm is still remote. US Air Flight 1549 defied all these odds – it was an exceptional event in more ways than one. So my final words on bird strikes? Relax. The Force is with you!

Fly Safely.

Capt Alan W. Price

Feb 25th
Why do I cry? I am all alone on the wrong train. I need to find the train to Goa. There are no tourists. Anywhere. It is just me and the Indians, yet I cry. This is what I wanted, no? Total unfamiliarity. Escapism. Why do I fear the next 40 hours or so where I will have to suffer my own company sans entertainment. The landscape is bleak – miles and miles of fields with no lights punctuated by the occasional zhodpatti – or slum.

My driver today in Agra, as with so many other Indians I have met kept beginning his sentences “In India…” followed by some little anecdote about this land. Little villages are springing up around the train stations. People staring at me everywhere I go. In Delhi they stared less. But here on the train, everyone from Chai Wallahs to ticket inspectors thinks I’m some sort of alien.

Spending extended amounts of time with yourself can be extremely trying. Especially with the knowledge that those around you do not speak your tongue. Will try to sleep before I get off to change for the right train to Goa.

Feb 26th
It is the dead of the night. I am on the right train. Another 36 hours till Goa. I got off last night in a place called Gwalior – middle of nowheresville. Station full of soldiers. Was a bit nervous. The Indians in my booth cheered my up loads. Dr King, San something and other guy and his lovely old wife who spoke no English. I told him I think I’m falling in my love with his wife. He translated for her and she laughed hard and grabbed my hand. There’s lots of head-wagging here (in the North there is no head-wagging). I am getting the hang of it. I slept fitfully fearing my bags which are under lock and chain, but still. Today, I awoke to shrieks which I learnt were from a woman who had her chain stolen while she was sleeping.

I met some more young Indians – Rahul and Vinod – the hopeless romantic who took countless photos of me with his camera phone. I charged my MP3 and when I took it out the charger it continued to charge! They explained in unexceptional tones: “this happens only in India. There is energy in the air, no need for conventional electricity.” I realised maybe I am to have one good day and one bad day in India. Today was a good day. Met Na’eem Sitarmaker who incidentally, makes sitars. Only in India.

Met Raphael from Chile who has a sister Deborah. He is very cool. Met King Banesh – a 20 year old Indian who claims to be King.  Indian humour is quite dry – actually I really like it. They are very deadpan. Vinod is on his way to Puna to see about a girl. Either he will work it out with her or he will have his parents arrange a marriage for him which will mean meeting the girl at their engagement and for the second time at their wedding. But he wants to confess his undying love to the Puna girl who he has been seeing for a few months behind his parents back but has never touched. Raphael and I told him to go for it. India is kind of haunting at night – especially with all these forest fires, caused by “mischief” as explained by Dr King.

Was not alone at all today. I taught Raff Backgammon and all the Indians crowded around to look. Rubbish lines the railway tracks as do rats the size of cats. Everyone throws everything outside – not very environmentally conscious here. Vinod paid for my drink, “In India we are very hospitable. When I come to your country you will do the same for me surely. India has great heart.” And it does. Vinod says everyone is living a Bollywood film story here in India – some are living the bad parts and some are living the happy endings. The Indians I met couldn’t believe I was travelling – and alone at that. “You surely very bold. In India, we busy marrying off children and busy all the time with family.”

March 1st (I think)
Having strange feelings here in Gokarna on Kudli beach. We all went to a jam where I’d been told that there were really talented musicians. But the jam was fully of smoking stoner hippies who really it seemed to me had no feeling to their jamming. How I missed suddenly the jams in my house where one doesn’t have to be “gone” to bond with others – the music bonds not the Indian Hashish.

So I’ll leave. And on my way “home” I went past the loos (the public hole in the ground I should say) and saw that the restaurant that accompanies the guest house had Indians sleeping in it covering every square inch. Everywhere. So I’ve come instead to the beach where I am now as I write this and the waves are lapping and glistening with plankton – the shiny whale food, and millions of stars above are ablaze, reflecting the plankton. India is a place brimming with contradictions. I want to write more but a stray dog followed by a cow have come to greet me….

That’s all for now, must go catch sleeper to Hampi will be a 16 hour ride. The most terrible thing happened. I lost all my pictures – I filled up the memory card of 4GB (About 1000 pics) and they all got erased from the heat. So I took some off someone else’s camera (mine were way better).

Deborah Danan

Photos by Deborah’s friends. (Hopefully she’ll get her camera fixed soon).

India is all the rage. It’s captivating, it’s chaotic and it’s huge. It’s become a top destination for adventurous travelers of all ages keen to take themselves far from their comfort zone and experience some of the most stupendous natural and spiritual sights in the world.

The good news is that we’ll be getting an insight into what it’s really like to travel around India. Alone.

Deborah Danan is a friend and travel writer who’ll be posting regular blogs as she embarks on her fantastic Indian adventure.

We love her stories, the hilarity and absurdity of the situations she finds herself in, and are sure you will too. To find out more about Deborah, visit our guest blogger page and be sure to follow all her latest installments here at the Tripbase Travel Blog.