A to B - Arambol to Hampi:
After staying overnight in Panjim again, we board the overnight "sleeping" bus to Hampi. It felt so comfortable, that was until the bus engine started and we moved down the road... What ensued was an 8 hour waking nightmare of rattling windows and treacherous potholed roads.
Arrive extremely early.

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After 12 hours on a "sleeper" bus, Hampi, site of the great overthrown city of Vijayanagar. Monkeys clamber on the soaring temple gateway a pyramid of 10 steps each ornamented with Gods. The stone changes from orange to grey to pink following the day.

All around battlefields of hanging boulders, pure granite in balance.

Dotted around valleys, mountains and river, the ruins of a once great and very rich city.

550 elephants were used to evacuate the gold before the overthrow.

Hundreds of temples remain from the original thousands. Some describe Vishnu and his avatars: fish, tortoise, Krishna, manlion, Rama, boar, dwarf, Buddha, and the horseman still to come. Other describe the story of Rama hiring the great monkey warrior Hanuman to save his kidnapped wife Sita held in Sri Lanka from the hands of the demon king Ravana.

Shiva abounds.

Musical stone pillars, underground temples, monumental elephant stables, aqueducts, geometrical baths and wide boulevards lined with bazaars stretch for kilometres.

In the middle of the ruins, we joined in an improvised cricket game played by local children, the ball madly ricocheting on the granite blocks.

Music from the temple woke us at dawn and bewitched us at dusk. Then when night fell, the village life, without car and television, was played out in the streets.

Monkeys roamed the city taunting locals and entertaining us with their games.

Local characters - Mounesh the customised rickshaw driver and his pumping Rs5000 sound system, the chai man wishing you a cheery "good morning" at all times of day, the pink sunglass wearing Sadhu, the 'lads' pilgrimage south and Agnes' Rs50 quick fire barber all mix with weary travellers and bright young upstarts (us!).

The Mango Tree bar, a haven reached by a dried mud path through a richly fruited banana grove. A great place to chill out overlooking the river and its small bowl like rush boats ferrying passengers (and motorbikes!) to the other shore. Whiling away the afternoon in hammocks under the shade afforded by the expansive mango tree.

Every morning the Ghats (steps onto the river) is visited by the temple elephant to wash, the waters shared with the locals beating the dirt from their clothes.

Vijayanagar , in its day was one of the worlds great cities and the echoes of its past are still writ large. The scale, richness and extent of its ruins combined with the sublime chaos of the landscape and relaxed village life left us with an unforgettable imprint.