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.

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.

I’m not one of those overly-concerned-about-cleanliness-types, but I’ll admit it– I HAD to wonder how clean it was to be sitting in the overflow of an Indian dam with hundreds of other people, sipping tea all the while.

This was definitely one of those days that broke all the health and safety guidelines my guidebook listed.

My travel mates and I sat on hundred-meter wide steps, the cold overflow of Bhusi Dam splashing down upon us, sipping cup after cup.  Everyone was packed onto the steps like sardines– young couples, families, groups of rowdy guys. Children shrieked in delight at the refreshingly cool water rushing past them, young men splashed each other and shouted, and everyone was smiling. The tea vendors stayed on the go, weaving their way through the crowds, stopping to pour hot chai into small plastic cups in exchange for a few rupees. Further down, below the steps, where the water was calmer and shallower, vendors sold fresh, hot corn– from stands set up smack in the middle of the stream. And, of course, there was a smattering of cows who couldn’t miss out on the action.

It was, without a doubt, one of the strangest places I’d been to in all my travels.

Maybe I should explain how I ended up in Bhusi Dam to begin with. A British friend of mine, Sarah (not the  Sarah I refer to in the two Syrian posts) was working at a NGO in Mumbai. It was July. Now those of you who know India know that Mumbai+July=dripping hot weather. It can be unbearable. We’d sat a bar one night earlier that week, our faces beaded with sweat, Sarah blowing her bangs off her forehead, when she suggested we make like Mumbaikers and escape to the hill stations in Lonavla that weekend. She said that there were a few things to see in the area, including the Karla Caves, and that the weather is allegedly much cooler than Mumbai.

My reply: why not?

Not long after we checked into our hotel– which was damp inside and out thanks to the monsoon rains (our sheets were damp, our towels were damp, and there was a damp cow standing in the lobby. Yes, IN THE LOBBY)– and not long after a woman attending a wedding celebration in the hotel had shoved sugar into our mouths with, “This is a sweet day, no?” we met Ben, another Brit.

We’d hiked up a gently sloping mountain to go to Karla Caves and the adjacent temple, only to find a long, snaking line to enter the temple. We couldn’t quite figure out why, but there was a marching band roaming the vicinity. Between the throngs of people waiting to enter the temple and the festive music, we sort of felt like we were at a theme park.

Ben joined us as we stood– in India, foreigners tend to act as magnets for other foreigners– kickstarting a conversation with a very witty, very British line (I wish I could remember what he said). Turns out that, like Sarah, he was from London and they launched into that “who do you know? where did you study? where did you go?” game.

Long story short– by the time we’d waited out the lines, the brass band with its crashing cymbals, Sarah’d made a friend. Ben invited us to join him on his next stop… only he didn’t know exactly what it was.

“A dam?” he told us, with a bewildered shake of his head.

He explained that the company he worked for in Mumbai had paid for a car and driver for his weekend in the hill stations and that the driver was taking him around to the local spots… and that his driver had been raving about this dam all morning.

When we reached the bottom of the mountain, and the car, Ben asked the driver what was next on the itinerary.

“Bhusi Dam,” he replied.

“What’s that?” I asked.

The driver looked at me. “A dam, madam.”

But of course.

Ben shrugged and smiled. “I have no idea,” he said.

Still not sure why anyone would want to see a dam, weary of the fact that we were getting into the car with two total strangers, off I went… against my better judgment.

About ten minutes later– after the driver regaled us with tales about coming to Bhusi Dam with his family when he was a boy, managing to never actually tell us WHAT Bhusi Dam was– we pulled into a muddy parking lot. I didn’t see much but some trees, and a smattering of people following what looked like a path into some thinly scattered trees.

The driver turned to us, grinning. “Bhusi Dam,” he announced.

Ummmm.

“Where?” we asked him.

“There,” he pointed to the small stream of people.

We looked at each other. “OK. Let’s go have a look. Shall we?” Ben said.

Why not?

We got out of the car and followed the small crowd on the muddy path… which quickly gave way to a small stream. The people ahead of us kept walking, the men not bothering to roll up their pants, the women’s skirts and saris trailing in the water.

So we forged ahead, too. Past a defunct merry-go-round on the bank, past “name on rice” stands, past an empty red ferris wheel, past a sign that cautioned us swimming here could result in death. Past people who were frolicking, splashing, and sliding about in the water. Past cows, past corn vendors…

You know where this story ends.

Bhusi Dam– you sit in the surging overflow. That’s it. It’s simple. It’s strange. It’s delightful. It’s freeing. It’s India.

That was the strangest travel destination I have seen. What was yours?

It was nearing 2 AM and my travel mate and I– two women, obviously tourists, alone in the middle of the night on the empty streets of Damascus– were desperate for a hotel room.

We’d been wandering from full hotel to full hotel for half an hour when we saw a small neon hotel sign in a window—far up in what looked like a residential building. We entered the quiet, litter-strewn stairwell. There was graffiti on the walls. We wondered to each other if the building was abandoned.

As we rounded the corner to the next landing, a hand-printed sign that only read “Hotel” with an arrow urged us to continue up the stairs.

“I don’t know about this,” Sarah said.

“What choice do we have?” I asked her. “Look, let’s give it another flight or two and if we don’t see it, we can get out of here.”

She agreed and we continued up.

After another two flights, we heard voices and strains of music. A light shone from above. We pushed on.

We entered the “hotel”– which looked more like an apartment– out of breath, hunched over from the weight of our large backpacks. Three Syrian men sat in the living room, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes, the TV blaring classical Arabic music.

My Arabic speaking companion was too out of breath to speak, so I gave it a try in English. “Is there a room?” I wheezed.

The men looked at each other.

“Sit, sit!” one insisted.

I didn’t want a chair. I wanted a bed. Dawn was just hours away. I wanted to sleep. “No, no, we need a room,” I said.

They looked at each other again, spoke rapidly in Arabic. I glanced at Sarah. She shrugged that she didn’t understand them.

Finally, they turned to us. “Yes, we have a room,” one of the men said. He offered it to us for 10 dollars and suggested we see it.

“That’s OK,” I said. “We’ll take it.”

The small room had a sink, three single beds, and an armoire. We flung our packs down on one bed and didn’t bother with changing or washing, we each got into our own bed.

“This room is sort of dirty,” Sarah said.

I looked around. A pair of reading glasses rested on the edge of the sink, as did a used bar of soap. A button down shirt was draped across the slightly open door of the armoire. Three pairs of slippers—one pair next to each bed.

It hit me. “Sarah,” I said. “They gave us their room.”

OK, so the sheets weren’t clean, and neither was the room, but I was so touched it didn’t matter to me. I slept deeply that night and woke up content and relaxed, ready to see Damascus, hoping to encounter more people as gentle and friendly as the men who gave up their beds.