Week 4 – India – Chennai to Hyderabad

We arrived at Chennai Airport at 12.30am on Monday morning – more than 4 hours late. As soon as we arrived you could tell that we were in a different world – the airport was really dirty. We organised a prepaid taxi (a vintage car of British origin) into Chennai. As it was after midnight the streets of Chennai were devoid of traffic however there was an extraordinary amount of people sleeping in the streets and all the people that were standing up seemed to be urinating. It was 2 am by the time we reached our hotel opposite Chennai Central Station. In reality the Hotel Central Tower did not look like the luxurious place it did on the internet!! The first sign of this was our porter – he had no shoes on and told Keith that he had been working at the hotel for 10 days!! The complimentary toiletries that were mentioned on the internet turned out to be a miniscule bar of soap and a single sachet of shampoo. We had to make a special request for toilet paper!

We set the alarm for 9 am and had breakfast at the hotel before heading out to the train reservations building next to Central Station to organise the first leg of our trip to Hampi. As the train was fully booked we were only able to reserve a seat in a sleeper class berth (no air conditioning) on the Mumbai Express which was leaving Chennai at 11.45 am.

The train set off on time and the entire trip was absolutely flat with bananas, sunflowers, mangoes and coconut palms all being cultivated along the way with irrigation. It got drier as we headed North West and we saw mountains occasionally in the hazy distance. We saw water buffalo, goats, cows, dogs and pigs!

The train was filled with vendors who walked continuously up and down the aisles, selling coffee, tea, cold drinks, fruit and a large variety of Indian short eats. There were also beggars and a hijra (eunuch/lady boy) who got on at each station when the train stopped. As the day progressed and more people got on the train the seats in our carriage filled up with people who did not have reserved seats. Our berth was soon littered with coconuts, peanut shells and other food debris. We saw an enterprising mouse darting around under the seats in the train feeding on the crumbs! An old guy sitting opposite insisted that we throw our rubbish out of the window so that we could keep our berth clean!

9 hours later we arrived at Guntakal Junction hot, dusty, dirty and sweaty! That night we ended up staying at the Lepakshi Hotel, a real dive with no toilet paper, no shower, but taps, a bucket and a pail instead! On the plus side the air conditioning worked well.

The next morning, we left the Lepakshi Hotel without even bothering with the deluxe bucket and pail shower and walked to the bus station where we got straight on a bus to Bellary. In the morning light Guntakal looked like any other small Indian town – dirty, dusty, smelly, busy – but not the sinister place that it seemed the night before. As we drove out of town we saw a giant white statue of Hanuman, the monkey god. The roads were sometimes good and sometimes appalling. The highways were single lane and you were always overtaking or being overtaken. We arrived at Bellary and jumped straight onto another bus to Hospet. We arrived at Hospet after another bone rattling journey and jumped on another bus to Hampi. At Hampi Bazaar we caught a tuk tuk to the river crossing and caught the boat across to Virupapur Gaddi and walked a couple of kilometres with our back packs on before settling on the Shanthi Guesthouse for a bungalow room. There was a beautiful view out the front over a rice paddy and coconut palms.

If you want to know about dirt, dust and grime, travel on the buses and trains of India and you will become an expert!

Hampi is the ancient boulder strewn capital of the Vijayanagar Empire. We spent the next few days exploring ruins of temples and ceremonial buildings the most notable of which were the Elephant Stables, the Lotus Mahal (Lotus House) and the Vitala Temple. The Lotus Mahal was a very pretty 2 storey pavilion and the Elephant Stables were topped by 11 domes of different styles. This was all surrounded by an impressive wall with watchtowers. The Vitala Temple was an impressive complex of stone temples with well preserved stone carvings. The most amazing piece was the stone chariot.

We also visited the Virupaksha Temple, a "working" temple right next to the Hampi Bazaar. We walked though the massive Gopuram (tower) where we bought some bananas from a vendor to feed Lakshmi – the 21 year old temple elephant. We walked into a huge square and then through an arch on the other side into the inner temple where we fed Lakshmi. We were lucky enough to see Lakshmi enjoying her daily bath in the river on Saturday morning just before we left Hampi.

Our train journey to Hyderabad was a totally different experience to our first train journey. This time we had a three bed berth that was curtained off from the rest of the train – and it was air-conditioned. When we got on the train we were each issued with a brown paper wrapped parcel containing two sheets and a hand towel. There were four firm pillows in our berth. It was so comfortable that we were able to go to sleep.

The train stopped at Hyderabad station a little after 5.30 am on Sunday morning. We checked into our hotel and had a shower and breakfast and then headed out for the day. We visited the Charminar, the Mecca Masjid Mosque (which seats 10,000 people), and the Chowmahalla Palace – the residence of the last Nizam (King) of Andhra Pradesh. The palace contained collections of photographs, China, bejewelled clothing, swords, and vintage cars. There was also an unusual antique clock containing figures of the Nizam smoking a hookah and moving his head and being fanned by a couple of servants. We walked back towards our hotel through the busy Laad Bazaar and the Mozamjahi Market. After a rest at our hotel we caught a tuk tuk to the Birla Mandir Temple on top of a hill overlooking the Hussain Sagar lake. It was a magnificent Hindu temple carved from white marble with some black statues dotted around the white buildings with detailed carvings of deities and scenes from Hindu mythology. There were hordes of chanting Hindu kids entering the inner sanctum with a deity covered in flowers and painting themselves with sandalwood and eating sugar chips on the way out. Great views over the lake far below as well.

We finished our day with an excellent meal at The Waterfront Restaurant and headed back to our hotel for some TV and a much needed sleep. Finally, we have scored somewhere with air conditioning, a hair dryer and satellite TV.