Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Ahhh, Hampi


A few weekends ago ten of us ventured over to Hampi, a city famous for its ancient ruins in the neighboring state of Karnataka.

Getting there was full of adventures including sharing seats on the train, meeting attractive French men who actually made me LIKE French people, peeing over open train tracks while trying NOT to pee all over myself, and finally arriving stinky and tired, but very excited.









The ancient temples were beautiful and it was so interesting to learn a little bit about an old civilization that lasted only brief time. One morning we even got to participate in bathing Lakshmi, the revered elephant of one of the temples. After her bath and “dressing” we got to receive her blessing. A lot of it was done for the show and money, but how many times do you get to bathe and be blessed by an elephant in India, I ask you?




We ate delicious food in places overlooking a river that looks like I imagine it did thousands of years ago. At one point, we got dinner AND entertainment at the Mango Tree when a huge snake fell out of the tree and onto Eryn, another intern. Things are just never boring in India.





When it was time to go home we were pretty reluctant. Partly because we loved it there and wanted to see more, but mostly because heading back we didn’t have ANY seats on the train and had the pleasure of enduring a 12 hour stinky, bumpy, hot-then-freezing-cold INDIAN bus ride full of creepy, drunk Indian men who liked to sit too close to us and puke out windows.



One good thing did come of it though. I mastered the art of relieving my bladder in public leaving none the wiser. If ever you need some tips on that matter, I'm your girl. And yes, I realize that pee is referenced a lot in this post. Just go with it.

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