©Photos BC. Hampi-Ancient ruins of a temple part of the Vijayanagara Empire-Karnataka-India.

India – Hampi

Travel Journal

HAMPI STONES, RIVER AND RUINES

Journal – Fragment .IV

I hadn’t planned to go to Hampi. I was in Arambol when the impulse came to move, to explore beyond what I already knew.

Someone mentioned a peaceful town scattered with ancient stones, and that was enough.

I boarded a night bus, curled into a cocoon of warmth under a thick sleeping blanket, resting on the upper sleeper deck, behind a curtain.

The ride itself felt like entering a dream, closed off from the world , drifting through the Indian night.

At dawn, I woke up to what felt like another realm. Hampi was real, yet it seemed to belong to an imaginary world.

The light was soft, the horizon sculpted by giant stones stacked like puzzles, some perched as if by magic.

I chose a quiet room by the river, large, airy, peaceful. The family who ran the guesthouse prepared meals in their open-air kitchen.

I would sit each morning on the terrace by the river, sipping coffee while watching the faraway rocks catch the sun,

the river flowing quietly between the two sides of the town.

Everything in Hampi moved slowly: the water, the clouds, the people. Some travelers seemed to have stayed forever,

absorbed into the silence of the place. At the local market, artisans displayed their work with quiet pride, dyed fabrics, carved wood,

simple tools, useful things. The colors were vivid, the air full of incense, dust and sun.

After a few days of slipping into the gentle rhythm of the place, I heard about the temple ruins, spread across the landscape like scattered memories.

I rented a bicycle and joined another traveler for a day of exploration. We cycled for hours under the open sky,

stopping at temple after temple, each one holding its own atmosphere, its own time.

The architecture was mesmerising: fragments of history exposed to wind and light. We barely spoke, just pedaled in quiet awe.

Later that everning, the family offered to take me to a view point hight above the stones. We climbed until the world fell ope.

Below us: immense boulders balancing impossibly on one another, suspended, still, like breath held in stone.

The sunset painted everything in gold and rose. There was a purity to the silence, a stillness that held the sky and the earth together.

The view, the air, the colors, it all felt beyond reality, yet it was there. I remember the feeling vividly, small present, amazed.

©Photos BC. Hampi-Around the river-Karnataka-India.