Where: The ancient city of Vijayanagara (also called Hampi), and Hospet/Hosapete (the nearest large town to Hampi), Karnataka.

When: October 2011

Why: I visited Hampi on my Himalaya adventure and Indian back packing trip. On this trip I also visited Delhi, Dharamsala, Bir and the Himalaya, Agra, Varanasi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Mumbai, Goa and Hampi.

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Map

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Introduction

Temples, temples, temples, monkey, cows, elephant, lizards, temples, coracles, temples, carvings, rocks, rocks, rocks, temples, carvings, temple, temple, temple. Temple.

There’s a lot of temples in the vast ruined city of Hampi – located in a surreal, rocky landscape. Sometimes it’s hard to know where the rocks end and the temples start.

Vijayanagara was the capital of the Vijayanagara kingdom; a kingdom that stretched from coast to coast, across the tip of India. Vijayanagara used to be a city of 500,000 people, with palaces, hundreds of temples and 38km of walls. The whole city was destroyed within six months in 1565, after the kingdom fell to the Mughals. This must have been one of the most magnificent cities, now all that is left are majestic ruins.

Personally, I love ruined cities. I love exploring the old roads and lanes, the old houses and markets – clambering over rocks, trying to imagine what was here before. I love feeling like Indiana Jens, archaeologist and explorer – and even though Hampi is a well traversed tourist site, visited by millions of people a year, it still had a wildness to it that made it feel as if I was one of the first people to discover it.

There were set tracks and pathways across the site but these were still rough enough for them to not feel man made. And the site is so huge that in many areas I was the only person around (or at least seemed to be). I had the whole of the temple of Achyutharaya to myself, with just the birds and the insects to accompany me. It was slightly scary in some ways, but also very exciting.

What I also liked about Hampi is that this is a landscape that is still lived in. Local people mend their coracles by the river, watched over by the wild monkeys. Goat herders tramp over the mint pathways, herding their animals from one temple grazing ground to another. At dusk, women in bright saris, peacefully wash their clothes by the ford in the river. They live in this magical, wild landscape, amongst the trees and the boulders and the ruined remains of this once great city.

I visited Vijayanagara over two days. The first day I visited the sites around Hampi Bazaar and alongside the Tungabhandra river (Virupaksa Temple, Hampi Bazaar, Hemakuta Hill, Achyutharaya Temple, the Second Bazaar, the King’s Balance and the Vittala Temple).

The second day I visited the palace side of the city (close to the village of Hampi) and then I went to see Ganesh the elephant, the Narasimna Statue and the Krishna Temple, which I had missed the previous day.

Even after two days of exploring, there were still many key sites that I had missed and many more hills to climb, temples to explore and ruins to see – but I had to get back to Goa so that I could fly home.

Visiting Hampi is not a day trip: it’s out of the way, takes a long time to get to and is not easy to access, but if you have the time then I definitely recommend that you go visit this amazing, unique place. Hampi is one of the best tourist sites in India and well worth the journey.

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Getting there

I caught a train to Hospet Junction Station from Vasco da Gama, a major city in Goa. The train left super early in the morning and took about twelve hours to get me to Hospet.

I travelled to Hospet just before Diwali, in a second-class, air-conditioned coach, and I had a really annoying journey as people kept swapping seats and letting their children (who are supposed to share) take seats from other people, so I ended up having to move a number of times. Indian trains are now supposed to have allocated seating to avoid overcrowding, but on this journey this was being ignored. We couldn’t see out of the windows as they were so dirty, and I got rather annoyed that an Indian man kept asking questions about me to a complete random stranger, a German man – who just happened to be travelling in the same compartment. The Indian man couldn’t understand that this other foreigner and I had no connection and that he could have just asked me about me. I’m sure he didn’t mean to be rude, but it was a culture clash which I hadn’t experienced before and, as an independent lady, it annoyed me.

Coming back from Hospet to Vasco de Gama, I did the same journey in reverse but this time I travelled sleeper class and travelled on Diwali. Indian trains have five different classes: first class (private, four-seater compartments), second class air-conditioned (two seats per row, which convert into two bunks, air-conditioned carriage); third class air-conditioned (as above but with three bunks); sleeper class (three bunks, open windows) and class-less class – hard benches in open carriages. I mostly travelled second-class air-conditioned, but here I travelled sleeper class as this was one of the only seats left available.

This journey was actually much better than the outward journey. Because it was Diwali everyone was really friendly and happy. I got a lower side bunk so had a window to myself – and the sleeper carriage had open windows, so we had a lovely breeze blowing through the carriage.

The views, that I could see this time, were amazing and on the edge of the Goan border we travelled along the edge of a mountain range, past jungle and forests, through tunnels and then right over the Dudhsagar waterfalls – the second largest waterfalls in India.

I had been a bit worried about this journey and whether I had a valid ticket, as the train number on my ticket was different to the train number on the board – but it turned out that I was catching a train that had joined up somewhere further down the line, but which still kept their separate numbers for the whole journey.

I booked my tickets through Cleartrip (on my smart phone – which at the time was a novelty). The second class, air-conditioned ticket cost me 512 rupees (about £8) and the sleeper ticket cost 200 rupees (about £4).

There are also trains to Hospet Junction from Bangalore and Hyderabad. You can find train times and prices on the Cleartrip website.

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Getting around

I decided to stay in Hospet, where the station is, as I wanted to be close to the station for my early return journey and because I wanted to be in a town. I’m sure it would have been magical to stay at Hampi Bazaar, located in the ruined city, but I wasn’t sure if they’d have infrastructure, such as restaurants, and so I decided to stay out of town and to commute in each day.

To get from the station to and from my hotel in Hospet I caught a rickshaw (even for my 6 a.m. departure on Diwali). This journey took about fifteen minutes and cost me 100 rupees. There is a local bus from the train station to the town. Apparently this is the same bus that then goes on to Hampi itself and according to wikitravel it costs 6 rupees (8p).

The commute to the site was really easy. Buses departed from Hospet bus station about every half an hour and they took about an hour to get to Hampi Bazaar. They cost 15 rupees each way (about 20p). The local buses were complete rust buckets and people stared at me (especially the men), but it was a pretty and interesting journey to the site, and in the heat it was nice to travel on the bus with the windows open and a breeze blowing through. The bus ran through Hampi village, where the archaeology museum is and which is a better place to get off for the palace sites. It then ran along the edge of the palace to Hampi Bazaar. The bus stop for Hampi Bazaar was in the huge car park at the edge of the bazaar.

The city of Hampi is huge! You can get around on foot, but you probably will need a bit of help to get from one side of the city to the other. Many people hire bikes and cycle the site – and this would be a good way to get about the whole site in one go, although some of the terrain is quite rough. You can also get rickshaws and taxis, and the public bus runs between the two sides of the park, about once every hour.

Within the site I just walked and walked, although on my second day I did (accidentally) hitch a lift with a tour bus from the palace side of the site to Hampi Bazaar. I thought it was a public bus, so I flagged it down, not realising it was actually a private coach. Very kindly they gave me a lift anyway.

There is a boat at Hampi Bazaar to get across the river. Apparently this only runs till 6 p.m. though and after that you have to get an auto-rickshaw 40km to get around from one side of the river to the other. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to stay on the other side of the river – I didn’t want to be trapped there.

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What I did on my holiday

I had two days to visit Vijayanagara so I split my visit into two parts. On the first day I visited the sites close to Hampi Bazaar, on the second I visited the sites closer to the village of Hampi.

There’s some useful links for visiting the site, including links to maps and visitor information, at the bottom of the What I Did section.

Hampi Bazaar

Hampi Bazaar is a key focal-point of the Hampi site. This is where the main car park is, there’s information here and some key temples. The main celebrations take place here and there is accommodation, shops and restaurants (and a post-office, I think).

Hampi Bazaar is based along the old main street of Vijayanagara. All along the main street are the old shops of the bazaar. Whilst I was there, families lived in these ruined shops, although I have since heard that they have been evicted from the site.

Hampi Bazaar is located close to the Tungabhandra River. Much of the accommodation in Hampi Bazaar is located on the other side of the Tungabhandra River and to get to these you have to take a coracle across the river. I’ve heard it’s magical to stay in Hampi; that the wilderness, the isolation, the slow pace-of-life, the peace of having this ruined city to yourself is a unique experience. I had originally planned to stay in one of the guest-houses here, but I didn’t really have to time. If we return, I’d love to stay here though.

I started my visit with lunch at a great restaurant in Hampi Bazaar. I’d based myself in Hospet, mistakenly thinking that there would be loads of places to eat in this much bigger town – but I was wrong. However, in the village of Hampi Bazaar there were many wonderful cafés, shops and restaurants and so the first thing I did was to stop off for my first proper meal in three days.

Virupaksa Temple

At one end of the main high street, dominating the village, is the magnificent Virupaksa Temple. The entrance to the temple is a wonderful, steep, pyramid-like structure, covered in the most ornate statues. Playing hide and seek amongst the gods, goddesses and avatars were monkeys. This crazy, overly-decorated temple gateway was like nothing I had seen before. It was magnificent:  50 meters high and covered in carvings.

Behind the crazy entrance way was the temple proper. Inside the first courtyard there was an old, friendly elephant that I went to say hello to, and some holy cows just wandering about. After this was the central area of the temple, a beautiful colonnaded area, populated by many monkeys! In fact, the temple was covered in monkeys – no wonder I loved it so much.

The rest of the temple was interesting and beautiful, but it didn’t feel very holy to me – it felt like a dead temple. There weren’t many worshippers here or flowers, offerings etc., so it just felt like something to see, rather than something alive. It was still an interesting building to visit though, but it didn’t have the same energy as other Indian temples I visited. The Virupaksa Temple is in fact a site of Hindu pilgrimage and the centre of festivities in Hampi, but when I was there it was all very quiet – not like India at all!

I spent about an hour in the temple and I could have spent another hour just looking at all of the detail on the entrance gate.

There was a temple tank / bath on the outside of the temple, off towards the river.

Entrance to the temple was 2 rupees (about 2p), plus 50 rupees (80p) for a camera.

Hemakuta Hill

If you are facing Virupaksa temple, to the left of you is the very strange Hemakuta Hill. Hemakuta Hill is a strange granite hill, almost volcanic-plug like, covered in mini temples, balanced on and carved into the flat rock. The whole hill seems to be made of one huge, smooth stone – so the temples seem to rest on top of the hill, rather than be dug into it. Carved into this stone were lingas (fertility symbols) or sacred carvings. It was all very strange.

At the top of the hill were some huge boulders and a temple next to them. Apparently this is a great place from which to watch the sun set. It’s the best place on the site to get views of the complex; from here you overlook Virupaksa Temple, Hampi Bazaar and the river, the palace complex, the strange Narasimna Statue, the Hazra Rama Temple and then the banana plantations running between Hampi and Hospet.

I spent about an hour wandering on this strange hill, exploring all of the deserted buildings, admiring the views, looking for carvings. It was quite an exposed area, not somewhere I’d like to be in the heat of the afternoon. At dawn and dusk though, silhouetted against the sky, this place must be magical.

Achyutharaya Temple

After visiting Hemakuta Hill I walked back down to Hampi Bazaar and to the other end of the high street, where there is a monolithic statue of Nandi, the bull ridden by Shiva. He’s a bit worn away now – but you can still go and say hi.

After saying hi to Nandi, I took the path which winds up over the hill, across to the Achyutharaya Temple. At this point, I had no idea where I was, or even if this was the path described in my guide book (it wasn’t), but there were a few people about and so I wasn’t too worried.

The Achyutharaya Temple is a huge courtyard temple complex, covered in stone decorations, that was completely empty when I was there. Today, most of the centre of the temple is just grassed over ruins, but there are still many shrines to see and loads of fun avatar statues. The carvings here are wonderful: ladies peeking out of alcoves, elephant gods, dancers – all look wonderfully real. Achyutharaya must have been magnificent when it was alive.

The temple is dedicated to Lord Venkateshwara, but is named after Achyutha Raya, who was king of the kingdom at the time the temple was built (1534).  The temple was originally named Tiruvengalanatha, but it’s now known by the name of it’s founder. India.com has more information on the temple and a video.

In front of Achyutharaya Temple is Courtesan Street and the second bazaar. Unlike the main bazaar, there are no full shops or buildings here any more – rather a series of small walls which mark out where the stalls used to be. I walked down the grassy centre, towards the river, where I met up with the main pathway which leads to the King’s Balance and the Vittala Temple (the path I should have been on).

From the second bazaar I walked along the Tungabhandra River. There were lots of small temples that I could pop my head into on the way, more lingam, shuffling goats with bells around their neck. The path was lined with mint, so as I wandered along, there was this lovely, crisp, fresh smell. When I think of Hampi, this is what I think of: the heavy heat haze of a late afternoon sun, the quiet broken only by goat bells, deserted temples, soft minty grass.

King’s Balance and Vittala Temple

The King’s Balance (Tulapurushandana) and Vittala Temple are two of the key things to see in Vijayanagara. The king’s balance was a large stone balance on which the king used to be weighed and then his weight in gold and jewels would be given to the temple priests. What a great incentive to stay thin! I think weight watchers should introduce this. Now, all that remains is the outer stone arch of the balance – but it’s fun to look at and to imagine what a ceremony this must have been.

Just past the balance is the site that features on many of the Hampi adverts: Vijaya Vittala Temple. This is a key site in Hampi and one of the most ornate temples on the site  – though by this time I visited here I was templed out. I’d seen so many shrines, gods, avatars, carving, colonnades and shrines that they had started to blend together and it was hard to recognise why this particular temple was so much more celebrated than some of the others.

Inside the Vijaya Vittala Temple is the beautiful stone chariot, that apparently used to move. There is also an amazing feature that I completely missed and only found out about whist writing this page (damn – I’ll have to go back). The maha mandapam is a colonnaded hall, where each of the pillars are carved from a single piece of rock and each of them emits a different note when the breeze blows through – so the temple actually sings to you! Apparently the stupid British damaged the temple when they cut some the pillars open to try to find out where the noise was coming from.

There are also many more lovely, ornate shrines here and it’s a very impressive temple. I spent about half an hour looking around.

This was one of the only places on the site for which there was an extra charge.  Entrance to the Vittala Temple cost me 250 rupees (about £3.50). However, when I was there the ticket could also be used to enter the palace buildings (Zenena Enclosure), which are on the other side of the site. I visited the palace on my second day.

After visiting the Vittala Temple I walked back along the river to Hampi Bazaar, past people fixing their coracles, past monkeys, past people washing their clothes in the river, past some amazing rock formations. It was a great walk that took me about half an hour to get me back to the bus stop.

The Royal Palace Area

On the first day of my visit I had only seen half of the ancient city of Hampi, so the next day I returned to Hampi but this time I focused my visit on the area closer to Hampi village, the palace area.

The palace area is a little different to the temple area as all of the remains are together in one space. A lot of them I didn’t bother to go to see as they were mostly just series of small walls, and it was hot and I stupidly had not bought enough water with me. I seemed to be the only person in this area of the site. It was quite exciting!

The first place I visited in this area was Saraswathi Temple,  a very distinctively shaped, blocky temple. I could have gone inside but it looked to be dark and intimidating inside and the building didn’t look that safe. Also, being bare, blocky stone, I got the impression that there wouldn’t be that much to see inside – just darkness and bats, so I moved on.

I then walked to Candrashekara Temple, which was the old royal temple. This temple is nice – but very much like the temples I had seen the previous day and there’s not much that I can do to describe it that won’t make it sound like all the other temples. It had high walls, covered in etchings. On it’s own, it would be celebrated – here it’s overshadowed by it’s sibling temples. There are some Shiva carvings on the doorway. That is all.

The key thing to see in this area is the Queen’s Bath, which is beautiful. This is not your typical tub, but a beautiful swimming pool style bath, located in a romantic, arched building, one of the most complete buildings in this area of the site. It really is a bath fit for a queen. The bath is set in gardened grounds and it is a very pretty, Moghul style pool. It’s very romantic. With water, this must have been a fabulous spa for the queen.

After visiting the Queen’s Baths, I had a look at the interesting public baths. The public baths are in the open air. They are now drained and so you can see the wonderful stepped design of this pool. The shapes and shadows made for great photographs.

After this I went to have a look at, and clamber all over, Mahanavami Dibba. Mahanavami Dibba is also known as the Dassera Platform or the House of Victory.

This is a strange, pyramid like structure – with lots of interesting carvings all over the walls. It almost seems Mayan rather than Indian. It’s a raised platform, and the highest point in this area of the site. It’s a great place to go to for views over the whole site.

Apparently this wasn’t a temple, but a ceremonial stage, where the king would sit to watch entertainments, view his armies, be paid tribute to etc. It’s a great building that you can climb and get up close to. There were great views and a breeze on the top – though it was pretty exposed and by this time the sun was getting pretty strong, so I didn’t stay long.

The next stop on my visit was the Zanana Enclosure, a beautiful area of the Royal Enclosures which is still quite complete. This is a wonderful grassy area (someone was mowing the lawns), surrounded by walls and towers etc. This used to be the queens area of the palace and so it is very pretty. There is a museum in the old treasury building.

Inside the Zenana Enclosure is the gorgeous Lotus Mahal. Like the Queen’s Baths, the Lotus Mahal is a very pretty, Mughal style building, built in a wonderful golden/pink stone, with ornate peaks and crests in the design. They think this was where the ladies of the court would come hang out, and that there used to be billowing curtains hanging from the lotus shaped windows and doors. Wouldn’t that be a magical place to be in such a dry, desert landscape?  It sounds like something from a dream. Nowadays, it is very pretty and probably the most photogenic thing on the site.

Behind the Lotus Mahal are the elephant stables. These are interesting, pretty and great to explore. I enjoyed imagining the elephants who used to live here. Sadly, there are no elephants here now though.

Entrance to the Zenana Enclosure cost 250 rupees (about £3.50). At the time of my visit, you could use this ticket to also visit the Vijaya Vittala Temple, and vice versa, so long as you visited both within 24 hours.

After visiting the Zenana Enclosure I was hot, tired and thirsty, and in desperate need of some lunch, so I popped into the underground temple, which is not underground now, just in a dip – but which had a great Ganesh. Then I wandered to Hampi Bazaar to get lunch.

I missed a lot of the rest of the site, such as the underground rooms and the king’s audience chamber – but by this point I was hot and tired, and I’d seen enough.

A great map of the Royal Enclosure area can be viewed at Hampi.in.

Narasimna Statue and the Krishna Temple

After lunch I walked over Hemakuta Hill to have a look at Sasivekalu Ganesha, the very strange Narasimna Statue and the Krishna Temple – a temple which the road goes through.

I’ll be really honest. I’d forgotten that I had visited the Sasivekalu Ganesha temple until I went back to put the photos into this page. I would say it’s unforgettable, but it obviously is as I forgot all about it – even though it’s really cool! It has a fantastic Ganesh statue and is a gorgeous open temple on Hernaka Hill. Sasivekalu Ganesha is located by the road in between Hampi Bazaar and the Krishna Temple. I stopped off here on my way to see Krishna and Narasimna. The Ganesh statue is really cool (I can’t believe I forgot him). One day the elephant god ate so much that he thought his tummy was going to burst. To stop this, he grabbed a snake and used it as a belt. You can see his big tummy and the snake belt in the statue here. I can’t believe I forgot about Ganesh. That’s the problem with Hampi – there’s too many amazing things that you can’t remember them all.

The Narasimna Statue is brilliant: it’s a huge, stone avatar that looks like a rocky monster. I loved visiting him. This is the largest statue in Hampi and it shows Narashima, the fourth incarnation of Shiva, sitting on top of the seven-headed king of snakes. To be honest though, to me Narashima here actually looks like a really cute, sweet, cartoon lion and I found him to be funny, rather than imposing or intimidating. The original statue contained the image of goddess Lakshmi, consort of the god, sitting on his lap.

The Krishna Temple is a large temple complex, located next to the Narasimna Statue. It’s a very pretty, impressive temple. Hampi.in describe it as one of the ‘must sees’ of Hampi and they have a great description of the temple, which I’m not going to recreate here. The thing that I found really cool about the Krishna Temple was that the road ran through it – that made it unique for me. To be honest, again, this could be the most beautiful religious house in the world, but by this point I had seen so many magnificent shrines that I was slightly numb to the beauty.

Top tips and useful links for a visit to Hampi

India.com has a great guide to Hampi, including visiting information, opening times and information on all of the key sites.

Hampi.in has a clear map of the sacred sites at Hampi. I found this to be really useful in distinguishing all of the temples, as there are so many of them.

The city of Hampi is located on a huge, open sprawly site. The ground is rough, there’s little shade and it’s quite exposed. Therefore, I highly recommend wearing good shoes and a hat, and taking lots of water with you. There are shops and restaurants in Hampi bazaar and there were some people selling drinks from ice boxes near the key areas of the site, but in many areas there was nobody and it was a long walk back to Hampi or Hampi Bazaar. Pack as if you are going for a days trekking in a very hot place.

Don’t swim in the river. When it’s so hot, the river looks so tempting, but there are crocodiles in there and very strange currents. Our guide in the Himalaya told us about a friend of hers who died in the river here. Apparently he drowned in the strong current. It took three days to find his body and the police just tried to bribe them rather than help. The river looks quite benign, but there are very dangerous undertows and crocs. No matter how hot you are, it’s just not worth it.

Many people stay at Hampi Bazaar – on the far side of the river. If you decide to do this, you catch a coracle across the river at Hampi Bazaar. I looked into this option, and there are many okay places to stay, but I decided instead to base myself in town.

There was an ATM in Hampi Bazaar.

In the high street of Hampi bazaar there was a huge structure, covered in corrugated iron. I had a peek behind the covering and saw the most enormous chariot. Apparently, this is used in the Virupaksha Car Festival, a holy procession that takes place in March/April. It was seriously huge: the wheels were 8 – 9 feet high! It must be magnificent to see it in use.

Hampi has a number of festivals, to find out more visit hampi.in/festivals.

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Where I stayed

Hotel Malligi

I decided to stay in Hospet because I wanted to be close to the station for my early morning departure and because I wanted to be close to infrastructure, such as cafés and banks, in case I needed it.

I chose to stay at the Hotel Malligi because it offered cheap rooms for 650 rupees (about £10/ night) and it had a swimming pool. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love a swimming pool – and so I decided to pay a little bit more, just for this luxury. The idea of coming off the Hampi site, all dusty and sweaty and diving into that cool pool sounded like heaven.

I should have been a little bit wary after the hotel sent me two confirmation emails, with two different prices. They honoured the lower price, but it showed a lack of organisation and customer service that ran through my whole stay with them.

When I checked in, the male check in clerk was quite patronising to me and wouldn’t let me pay for my stay in advance. He insisted that I wait and pay after my visit in case there were any extra bills, where as I wanted to settle them separately, and just pay as I went along.

I asked him where the bus station was, he told me to go to the main road and ask someone else. ‘Is it left?’ I asked – he told me the same, to ask someone else. So I asked again, ‘yes, but is it to the left?’ eventually he said ‘yes’. Why couldn’t he have just said that in the first place or even drawn me a map or something?

Use of the pool wasn’t included with my room rate. I had to pay an extra 50 rupees to use the pool and when I got in it was dirty, near a building site and there were leering men hanging about, so I only used it once. The internet cost 30 rupees for ½ an hour, 80 rupees for one hour (why?).

But the worst thing was the food. They had a huge menu, with lots of ornately described options on it – but whatever I tried to order they didn’t have. Eventually I ordered a vegetable sandwich, ‘lightly kissed with cheese’. When it came, it was two slices of bread with some tomato and cucumber. If it was kissed by cheese, it must have been a peck because there was no cheese on it. So I complained (which Indian restaurants really don’t like), so the waiter picked up my sandwich and used his fingers to lift it up to see there was no cheese. He then took it to another waiter who used his fingers to lift it up to check there was no cheese – who took it to the chef who did the same – so by this point, three people (not including me) had touched my sandwich. They then offered to give me some cheese to put on my original sardine (why couldn’t they just put it on?) By this time, I had had enough and demanded a new sandwich – only lightly touched by the chef. I tried to order an ice cream for desert – they offered 50 types of ice cream in the menu – they didn’t have any.

And it was a dry hotel – so I had to sneak in my bottle of beer.

I did make a complaint to the front desk, but they don’t do customer service very well in India. I think that this is partly because this is a patriarchal society where men aren’t questioned, which is fine in the privacy of your own home, but not when you are in the service industry. I met many male hotel managers who thought they could do no wrong, and acted like it.

The room had no window and the bed was uncomfy, but it was big and cheap and I had a TV, so I spent a lot of time watching the pre-Diwali movies.

However, I really wish I stayed somewhere else. This was such a depressing hotel and I was very lonely here. Hospet is a run down dump of a place. I’d have been much better off staying in Hampi Bazaar.

www.malligihotels.com

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Useful links

The best website I found for planning a visit to Hampi, is hampi.in. This site has information on all the key sites, great maps which you can print out and practical information to help plan your visit too.

Other useful links include:

wikitravel.org/en/Hampi

www.lonelyplanet.com/india/karnataka/hampi

whc.unesco.org/en/list/241

www.roughguides.com/travel/asia/india/karnataka/hampi-vijayanagar

Disclaimer

Please note, some, if not much of this information may not be correct, or may be out of date. All these articles show is how we found these places when we visited and what we personally thought of each place. Where possible I will include links to site which will contain more up-to-date info. All of this is our own work and any opinion expressed is that of the author only.

All photos copyright of J Clemo-Halpenny, unless otherwise stated. If you would like to copy or reproduce any of these images, please email me to ask permission.