After the day visiting the Hampi temples, we already had to check out of our straw huts (more on the accommodation in another post) as we had booked a night train leaving at 21:10 from the nearby Hosapete train station. Taking overnight trains should save us the cost for one night at a (stationary) hotel while at the same time we would not loose daytime for traveling. So much for the plan. Thankfully my Indian colleague mentioned that trains should be booked well in advance to get seat confirmations. Unfortunately I did not take this advice seriously enough so that – despite booking 3 weeks ahead – for this train we did not have seats confirmed, instead we were number 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the waiting list. So in case someone cancels/changes her/his trip, we’d get the vacated seats that respectively berths. This made us somehow insecure because 24 hours prior to boarding we still had no seats. But to make the long story short with the help or the Vector colleagues and their enquiries at the train company and frequent updates to us we finally managed to get 3 of the 4 berths in one cabin and our youth adjusted to share one berth so we had a train ride nearly as planned.
Nevertheless the insecurity has let us stay most of the day in the very relaxing open air lounge/restaurant of the Dream Mango Hotel to be available in case of any change of plan. Also a day of rest did suit us all well, the Indian temperature and humidity, the cleanliness (or dirtiness depending on where we turn our heads), the multitude of impressions, the different food and the in-between travel arrangements that were more complicated than in southeast asian countries we traveled before, were taking its toll. So we chilled the great part of that day.
After all was arranged though, we had some more hours to spend and as the others liked to be lazy, I decided to walk to the Hampi Falls, some waterfalls in an arm of the Tungabhadra river around 5 kilometers from our place. Prepared with best motivation to do some physical exercise I turned into the main road. As thirty seconds later the first tukuk (riksha) stopped and asked it could take me somewhere, I declined and the tuktuk went off. 30 seconds later I sat in the next one that had stopped and was on my way.
The driver dropped me off and – surprise – asked when he should collect me again. We arranged a time and he didn’t bother driving away while I enjoyed the small but beautiful scene.
The driver turned out to be a good tour guide, so on the way back he recommended to see the Sanapur Lake, an artificial reservoir lake, fed from a Tungabhadra canal that probably is (also) used to manage a constant water supply to the many rice fields. So I saw another great site with boulders, some of which I climbed (without doing serious bouldering).
On the way back I had some more impressions of that beautiful landscape before – after sunset- we made us on the way to the train station.
