Hampi day 2 and the rest of the week

Hey all,

Its taking far longer than I expected to get up all of this stuff about Hampi, so I'm going to try to keep this post short and actually get up to date! We woke up fairly late, having *really* enjoyed sleeping after our long day. After another cold, soapless shower (that nonetheless felt great) we went to breakfast. This place was actually pretty fast with our food, which means that we were only able to go to the main streed, buy some shirts, and come back before the food was ready!

Breakfast was delicious, and then set out for a temple/castle complex about 5km away from modern day Hampi. Everyone else rode bikes, but since my knee had been hurting and Sonnett was also having knee problems we instead hired a rickshaw for the day. It was the nicest rickshaw that I have yet been in, with plush seats, an analog clock mounted inside, and even a good stereo system! The driver first took us to the royal baths, which used to be a swimming pool for the king and queen and was really cool. He then took us over to this *massive* area that used to be a castle. It had several swimming pools, one of which looked about olympic sized, and one that looked like an Escher painting! Keep in mind that all of this stuff is ~1000 years old! There are also a few remaining tall buildings, which provided a breathtaking view of the surrounding area. The rest of the group caught up with us at this temple complex, we wandered through some "secret" (cloak & dagger) tunnels that Prasad knew about, then moved on to see elephant stables!

The stables were very neat (I posted some pictures) and there was also an ancient statues museum that was neat to tour around. We finished the touring for the day by visiting one final temple, that had the most well preserved and intricate carvings and sculpture that I have yet seen. The temple contains 1000 images of the prince Rama (hero of the Ramayana), and is decorated with a montage of scenes form the Ramayana! Very cool!

After the touring we headed back to Hampi, shopped a little, then had a *very* late and very long lunch/early dinner at the Mango Tree (excellent food to finish up the visit to Hamp ^_^). After dinner we grabbed all of our stuff from our hotel and headed out to the train station (where Nels and Prasad disappeared for a while to go buy booze to sneak onto the train!). We got onto the train without any major issues, but we found out that all of our beds were side births :-(. What this means is that instead of having a semi-compartment of four beds that are separated from the rest of the train by a curtain, we instead had beds that were smaller and built into the wall (and no place to gather and party :-( ). Despite this we found some space for the first hour or so and consumed most of our booze. Nels, Prasad (though he denied it at the time), and myself all got a bit soused. We managed to find some snacks, Prasad & I chatted with the astrophysicists (Natalie, Sonnett, and Nick) for a while, then came back to our own car and Prasad, Nels, and I just sort of sat around and chatted for a little while before we went to bed (I must say, I really enjoy chatting ^_^).

Sleeping was less of a challenge than I was expecting, though I will avoid side births when possible in the future. We woke up at 5:00am on Monday, as the train was supposed to get into Bangalore at 6. We didn't get there until 8! :-( It was, nonetheless, a fantastic weekend. And after not having more than a cold, no soap shower for several days, my shower back at the apartment was *awesome*!

Well thats about all for Hampi. Here are the links for the pictures that I posted to facebook:
Day 1: http://claremont.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045131&l=15c16&id=13300735
Day 2: http://claremont.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045349&l=3d68f&id=13300735

Cheers,
Jason