Indiaaargh: Hampi Fear

I will recommend Hampi. It's pretty idyllic there, huge mysterious boulders that could have been dropped out of the sky, monkeys and mad temples and a lazy river that does well at sunset. My only caveat would be that you should go fully prepared to be meithered for postcards everywhere you go and be ready to encounter plenty of dread locked bongo playing types in MC Hammer pants who listen to Thievery Corporation and have cut glass torsos that they spend hundreds of hours on, yet claim never to do anything to. People who belong in Bristol basically. As I said last time, we rode bikes about and we swam in fresh water lagoons and all that other smug stuff. Up at the temple on one of the days a monkey started on Alex, which was quietly hilarious yet also terrifying. It wrapped its arms around his legs at one point and all I could think about as I fled around the corner of the temple to save myself was that I hoped it would come nowhere near me as I was too much of a tight arse to have all of my rabies jabs before I left. Later on in the five days we buzzed around the ruins of temples, which I know is magical and all that but which I find pretty tedious after half an hour or so. Evocative and mystical feelings can go only so far when you're sweating your tits off around some rubble - though I admit the carvings were pretty awesome and we also saw a Cobra - which some Indians made me take a photo of: my heart again filling with fear as I got close, at the thought that something might happen to me. On one night we chugged the magic mushrooms I brought. We were going to have them in the day and swim at the reservoir then be down in time for nightfall so we could go for dinner and endure some more of the mystic warrior zen chill step tunes they play in most of the venues. We left it too late though and when night fell still nothing had happened so we decided to head back. I came up hard as I was riding a motorbike in the dark through an Indian Village, and it was honestly one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. The road swelled, babies and people looked massive, as did the lights of the tuk-tuks and other bikes, and I became convinced I was going the wrong way and I was doing it at 100 mph. I was probably only going at about 20 though, if that. I managed to sort myself out slightly once we'd left the town (it looked looked like a ghost tunnel and people kept talking to us), and we eventually found an ancient aquaduct where nearby some men in robes were chanting outside a shrine to some deity that had a tiger bursting out of it's belly. The stars were shining like mad and the lights from the road kept lighting up the ruin whilst the men sang and I thought my head was going to explode. I'm not making this up. Later we climbed up on the rocks above the town and the three of us talked about how scared we had been; well, how scared Rupert and I had been, and it was hilarious (mushroom hilarious) and a lot of fun, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. Too much of a blag. I'm alone again in Kerala now, staying in Fort Kochi for one more night before going off elsewhere. Weirdly, I ended up having dinner with a 50 odd year old Dutchman who visits Goa every year the other night. I suspect he is a sex tourist - it's in the eyes - but he claims to be quite good friends with the trumpet player from UB40 who later went on to be in the Fine Young Cannibals. I used to absolutely buzz off the FYC's when I was a kid so that pleased me and enabled me to overlook Tom's suspected sexual deviance. Last night I tried to go to a festival with loads of elephants but a huge monsoon stopped me. I love lightning so I tried to take a few pictures of it, snapping away excitedly with my slow camera whilst the glum Indians waited the storm out as they must always do, but turns out it is very hard to catch on film (who knew?). Few more fairly standard pics below.