quick summary: India is where you learn about lane changing, getting 'toked"(cheated), how to deal with diarrhea
AND FANTASTIC CLIMBING.
oh yes, for all of you who do not know about Hampi, watch THE MYTH by Jackie Chan. some of the places they acted in, we had been to as well!honour man!=)
okay.lets see; we arrived in Bangalore on 5th dec 11pm, it was the nearest airport to Hampi. it was a cold cold night. managed to get a room at Hotel Swagath which was pretty decent for a back alley hotel.haha.Bangalore's expressways/highways have speed bumps. really high ones.and this was the night where i learnt that the lines that are drawn on the roads, are just for decorative purpose. because never before have i seen such weaving in and out of lanes for all the vehicles there. but the people horn every 5 sec. my ears were just starting to get used to all the honking. the cars drive without opening up their side mirrors!reason: they all drive right next to you. if your mirror was out, it would be gone. in the auto-rickshaws, the cars were soo near us that we could reach out and just open their doors or probably kick the bikes coming beside us. but i didnt wanto lose a leg in the process.its amazing that admist all the chaotic lanes, i hadnt seen a single accident the whole time i was in India. gosh.and to think i see at least 1 accident everyday in singapore. was telling the rest that when i go back to singapore, i might be so used to the honking that if someone honks me, i wont bother. only difference is that in singapore, people only horn when death is impending, while in India, honking is a way of telling people you are beside them and "get out of my way".
couldnt get a train ticket to hospet/hampi. appearently, it was better to book everything online. and yes, India's system of bureaucracy is something different from SIngapore's. for example. at the railway station, ground level had an office where all the train information and departure timings and destination was, BUT, to buy a ticket, you had to push with everyone ( result of a non- existent queue), stick your hand into the counter and shout for a form. this was a matter of whose hand was the longest. henghong succedded in pushing past the other locals and managed to get the forms. after filling them out, we went to the counter to buy the tickets only to find out that we had to still "queue up" at the line where there was a mad rush for the forms to book a place. i really dont know why they have 2 different tasks for the same person. when we finally got our turn after abit of jostling, we were told we had to be put on the waiting list, there were over 200 people on the waiting list. gosh. we were then told to go 2nd floor to get our names into the waiting list. the woman on the 1st floor only had the task of telling us how many people were on the list, but we had to go to the 2nd floor to get a queue number to get a waiting list number for the train. i shall stop elaborating because we simply got pushed to one person to another. no one ever seems to know what their colleague is doing.
WE DIDNT GET THE TICKETS.instead, we booked a bus, and this was where we got cheated the most. the bus tickets only cost $1500 rupees in total on the receipt. but we had to pay $3200 rupees to the man who bought us the tickets. starting of our discovery of the world of "MIDDLEMEN".
we were soon on our way to Hampi. bumpy bus ride but managed to sleep alil. reached Hampi early in the morning. the minute we alighted from the bus, we were bombarded by a dozen rickshaw drivers all requesting to take us to our destination, with the same fare.HOW TO DECIDE LIKE THAT.haha.heng hong said he would choose the one who gave him a map first, immediately, a dozen hands shot out a map infront of heng hong.we were shocked. when we finally chose our driver, the rest walked away muttering.
we stayed at GOAN Corner lodge. very nice and quiet lodge, all the way to the end. i love that place. it was like living in a farm, it had pigs,ducks,hens, cocks, turkeys, dogs, cats, and yes,houseflies and mozzies a plentyful.regina would surely die there.hahaha.the food was pretty decent, but alil too salty.and oily.
the boulders in Hampi are so vast, so vast it will prob take me 10 lifetimes to discover it. unfortunately, i think we only climbed 1/10000000000000000 boulders there. still, we cldnt even finish the boulders found in the topo.sigh.the granite stones in Hampi are are quite something. sharp at every touch, but strangely enough, the minute you are up on the rock, all the adrenaline numbs the pain on the fingers. the problem was getting myself lifted up from the rock.haha.manage to attempt some of the 7a/7b routes which the guys easily finished.haha.found myself at a huge disadvantage with my height problem. couldnt even start on the Goan Corner Boulder.sad.but felt good being able to touch it.
was particularly pleased with myself at having completed a particular arete route. took me at least 10 tries, but im glad i didnt give up on trying. the feeling of sending a route is indescribable! especially when i kept falling in the first half of the route.
we made friends with plenty of international climbers. french,scandinavian, scottish, americans, italians, swedish. the climbing world is really quite something!=)they are really strong. but of course, our singaporean climbers namely heng hong,brian,jansen and jia wei can easily match them. i was pretty proud of them when they finished particularly challenging problems that most of the other climbers couldnt do. but we could still do with a lot of guidance from these climbers who have had plenty of experience in natural rocks and climbing trips. most of them were in India for at least 2 months and more, while we could only afford 2 weeks.pathetic. im soo looking forward to the day where i can easily spend 4 -5 months in a climbing "haven" and not worrying about having to rush back home for work. some of the climbers had allegedly quit their jobs to travel. no worries man!but i guess its a different culture for us singaporeans. needing to return back to the dreadful rat race of who gets the best paying job, has the most successful family, etc. for these people, its just explore and climb, worry about everything else later. we couldnt help but worry about our exam grades during the trip.ha
i discovered treasure there. you know all those clothing in British India shops? yea, you can easily find them in Hampi, and for a fraction of the cost as well. made plenty of clothing over there. the cloth and tailors are in abundance over there. i literally went crazy having tailormade dresses and pants. pity my bag and money ran out before the cloth in india ran out.so i was stuck with only a few.sigh.
we finally did take the train from Hospet to Bangalore. i have always dreamt of taking a train in India, and yes, many an expectation i had for the trains. but it all went down the minute i got into the train. it was small, it smelled and best, crammed. 3 bunk beds in a row, above each other. the first bunk was for jansen, the middle for me, and the 3rd for a stranger. the wierd thing was.jansen and i could only sleep as long as the 3rd bunker agreed.he had to go all the way up to his bed before we could bring out beds out.tsk. imagine u met a meanie who didnt want to sit on his bed.and yes, should you still wanto take the trains in India, pray hard you do not get a bunk near a SNORER. unfortunate enough for us, we had to bear the 120decibel loud snores of a nearby bunker. it was as if he had a mike beside his snores. could hardly catch forty winks that night. it was a long, bumpy and noisy train ride.bad for the sleep. a once in a lifetime experience. and i mean it when i say once in a lifetime. nxt ride: FIRST CLASS ONLY!
my summary:
INCREDIBLE INDIA
BREATHTAKING BOULDERS
PEERLESS PEOPLE
i guess i shall end this post here, uploading more pictures on my next post.im getting a little lazy right now.
