Hampi

Hampi is located approximately 8 hours away from the big city of Bangalore, in the state of Karnataka. With my trip from Coimbatore to Hampi, my journey to North India begins, Hampi is the first stop on this way.

Already on my arrival trip from the train station in a tuktuk to Hampi, I could feel how special a place Hampi is when I saw the landscape and the first ruins. Hampi was once one of the richest cities on earth until it was invaded and plundered around 1650 AD. It was the capital of a large empire in South India at that time. Castles, huge stone baths, countless magnificent temples, and gigantic kilometer-long marketplaces and alleys give an idea of the life that once flourished and enjoyed here.

Today, you can visit countless ruins and enjoy the unique nature, lush green rice fields, and a wide landscape dotted with huge artful rock formations. In addition, Hampi is a paradise for hippies. Here you can find everything, colorful hippie clothing and cafes, yoga and meditation offers everywhere, sound healing sessions, Babas to meet, Goa music, and so on... Many young people come here just to enjoy and relax, not because they want to engage with the still palpable ancient Indian culture. Everyone can handle it as they wish, but I have noticed for myself that I had to consciously focus on my interest, namely Indian culture, and sometimes I found hippie tourism a bit exhausting, although it was often totally beautiful, pleasant, and also very amusing.

You can experience many beautiful sunsets here every day, go swimming in the nearby river, as long as there are no crocodiles, enjoy delicious food, and let the breathtaking landscape take effect on you.

I had the great fortune to meet Shaun, a young Indian man who was staying in the same hostel as I was for a few nights. He impressed me greatly with his passion for Indian mythology.

If you want to delve into Indian mythology, it is not that easy. You need a lot of personal interest and the will to want to discover the stories yourself. First, you have to find a good translation because the stories, which were initially passed down orally for centuries, were eventually written down in Sanskrit. They were written in a very artful language, like a poem. That is why it is so essential to find a good translation that conveys these essential details in order to truly experience the essence of the stories. There are also incredibly many versions of the same story, points that are unclear and cause emotional disputes in India, and there are also some gaps.

Shaun specially came to Hampi to close some of these gaps. There is a temple in Hampi where images of the great story 'Ramayana' are carved into the walls, the story of God and Prince Rama, who tries to find and free his abducted wife Sita in a huge, epic search.

On the evening of Shaun's arrival, I quickly noticed his great passion for Indian mythology and his resulting vast and special knowledge. So I started bombard him with questions since I am incredibly interested in this topic and astonishingly, you can hardly find anyone among the tour guides in Hampi who is knowledgeable about this magnificent and important aspect of Indian history. After he gave me an introduction to the Indian mythology in Hampi with glowing eyes and expressive gestures and clearly noticeable enthusiasm, I cautiously asked him if it was okay for him if I would accompany him on his Hampi tour the next day to learn even more from him. Luckily, he had no problem with that, and the next day we took a big tour with many stops where he told me the stories behind many details and images of the temples. I really enjoyed it. I hope to be able to convince him to record a video to tell something about the mythology of Hampi so that I can show it to you in my presentations in Germany and give you a taste of this rich, wonderful part of India's culture.