crucial

The best thing about Hampi is the frogs. Layers and layers of chirping, resonant tweaks by some seriously virtuouso creatures. Its amazing and beautiful. The worst thing about Hampi is the unrelenting touts, followed by Hampi itself which is a lame bunch of overpriced tourist shacks.

Oh yeah, there are all these amazing rocks everywhere, larger than life, the size of jet planes and trucks. They don't photograph very well (you need that subtle stereoscopic vision to appreciate the unreal landscape). Thoughtfully, somebody has carved them up into a 15th century city of ruins the size of ancient Rome. This gives the tourists something to do in between eating, smoking and sleeping.

Actually it is really beautiful here, and very quiet. Once you have a guest house, there isn't anything to pester you about, and the touts disappear. The rice fields, bananas, birds (parrots flying free), palm trees and usual cows and monkeys are all perfect.

It is quite relaxed and laid back here, and many people stay for weeks. The accomodations are classic overpriced tourist huts with overpriced tourist food and the ubiqutous Tibetan art and handicrafts shops, as always run by Kashmiris. They get the stuff in Ladakh.

I think I might have mentioned this: I met this guy Shirish in Calcutta, he studied Tourism as a career until he realized the philosophy is to recreate the "comforts of home" (especially cuisine and toilets) and sell it for higher than cost. When he realized tourists weren't mostly coming to experience India, he quit and now he wants to do Reiki.

Everywhere you go you see German Bakery, French Bakery, Italian Restaraunt (lazania, lasania, lasanya, lasane), Israeli Food, Western, Continental. There is nothing more bland than Indians cooking western food. They figure we don't have intestines and cannot handle spices at all. Always eat where all the locals are eating, its so much better. Some Indian woman on a train was asking me how I was handling the food. I have been eating Indian food for more than 20 years thank you. I explained that in New York we had food from all the planets, and much of it was much spicer than Indian. And we have Indian food too. Curry in the UK is spicer than most curries here. And in fact I can cook Indian food myself and better than much of what I've eaten here. Today's lunch was a really good thali though, no complaints. In general the South has been really good food.

As you can see, I'm through being a tourist. I'm sick of being a walking wallet which people spend all their time trying to get money out of. But I'm also pretty good at it now, I know where to find little towns or off the track places.

Not that I'm having a bad time at all... but I'm off to Gokarna shortly (which will also be crap), and then to Mumbai to prepare for Re-Entry into 'normal' existence.