OMFG!

Quick rundown of the last two days, in no particular order:
Holy elephant, exploring waterfalls, 800 year old projector, yelling contest with children, hiking through ruins, lizard sticks, celebrity status, giant millipedes, and beautiful restaurant views.

We got into Hampi the day before yesterday around noon; we were planning on staying here four days before moving on to Bangalore, but train tickets were sold out and so we wound up having to stay here for another two days, moving the total up to six. At first I was a little worried that we were going to run out of stuff to do and see and would wind up just reading in our room for the last few days, but I am now under the impression that I could happily do two weeks here.

We spent out first half-day here finding a hotel, getting our grub on, and internetting. We got an awesome room overlooking a banana plantation for about $2.50 a night per person. The next day (yesterday) was pretty action packed. After fooding we traipsed down to the giant-ass temple at the end of the main street. The temple had a pet elephant named Lakshmi who would bless you if you gave it a coin. It would take it with its trunk, hand it off to a dude, and then put its trunk on your head. After poking around a bit more we were flagged down buy a guy who asked if we wanted to see the upside-down temple. I was kinda expecting a Caslevania SOTN type situation, but it was actually an old timey, pin-hole projection of the main spire of the temple, through a small hole in the wall and onto the opposite wall. At first I thought it was a painting or a shadow, but then our guide held up a sheet and walked forward and you could see that it wasn't a painting, it was in fact MAGIC. Unfortunately it was nigh-impossible to photograph, so you will just have to believe me when I tell you how rad it was. We then found some stairs up a hillside that was covered in old ruins and explored at our own pace for a while.

The whole time we were exploring the temple and ruins, families of Indian tourists would stop us and ask to get there picture taken with us. It got pretty ridiculous, and we actually had trouble progressing through the temple because we kept getting stopped for photos. At one point, while poking through ruins on the hillside, a family who spoke no English stopped us and had me take their pictures with Roxy and Jill, then they flagged down someone to translate for them and told us to mail them the photos. We told them that we could email them, but they didn't have internet access so we has to decline; they seemed rather upset with us that we wouldn't print them out, and then mail them internationally to them.

After that we skipped down to the other side of town where we started following the "Monolithic Bull" signs. They led to some sort of monolithic bull, which was cool but not altogether unexpected. The coolest thing about that was actually the Attack-Of-The-Giant sized millipedes that we found in cracks around the bull. I poked 'em with a stick until they came out and we played with them a bit before moving on.

We followed the trail up into the hills and when we got to the top we found ourselves looking down at the old city-center of Hampi back when it was a 12th century city of 500,000 (that's about the size of modern day Sacramento). It was amazing to walk through the ruined bazaar and try to imagine it full of noise and vendors. The magic was lessened a bit, however, by a loud-ass group of guys following us around and posting up on the priceless artifacts. We took the long way back into town and stopped at a little restaurant by overlooking the river where we ate while watching kids paddle around in round basket boats while a thunderstorm moved in.

Today we got up late and took a walk the other way out of town to a restaurant that our hotel owner recommended called Mango Tree where we ate awesome foods while watching water buffalo and local fishermen. After, we kept on, heading further out of town toward some waterfalls that we heard about. On the way a small girl tried to sell us a dead lizard on a stick for ten rupees, and later a little boy randomly roared at me and stuck his tongue out. He seemed rather taken aback when I responded in kind, and we wound up walking backward, away from each other yelling and making faces; it was not my proudest moment.

We stumbled though head high grass and banana trees to the river where a dude with a dead eye that I'm pretty sure could see how I die, volunteered to lead us to the waterfalls. We followed him about a mile through more grass and mud, over rocks, and around boulders until we found the falls. They were fairly unimpressive in themselves, but the scenery was spectacular, and what the falls had done to the landscape was breathtaking. After we made it back to the main street I tipped him 50 rupees (enough for a meal at most restaurants) and he looked affronted and said that he always charges 100 rupees per head. I felt as though if he wanted that much he should have talked price before giving us a product that we didn't ask for, and so I left him with the 50.

This is something that happens here; people will force a product or service on you without your invitation (and sometimes in spite of your protests) and then expect you to pay whatever they ask for it; a good business model if you ask me.

Anyway, we are obviously now taking an internet break, and thinking of you good people back home. Jill is uploading photos and Roxy is looking up wedding stuff (because she's a girl). If I mentioned anything at the start of this blog that I forgot to cover, tough luck, this thing is already entirely too long and rambley, I leave it to you to fill in what you think probably happened in the comments.