Friday, July 08, 2005

Blast from the past [Part 1]

Namaste, last week as I was cleaning up my stuff, I discovered few pages of my writing in my box. It was my maiden journal on my travelling in India. It was Hampi trip, back in November 2004. I realized that I didn't have this on my blog and so, I decided I retype and post it in my blog, into a three part series. The reason I did this is because up to this date, Hampi is the best and the greatest place I ever visit and had left a very memorable memories to me, personally. Earlier, I decided not to upload this journal because it was kind of personal. But as time flies, memories faded and events become somewhat unimportant, or just another phase of life. With some extraction out of the original journal I wrote on Hampi trip, here I posted for the first time my very first writing in India, on my very first travelling which is the greatest trip I ever had, into three part series.

Hampi: The diary of ancient civilization revisited

1st week, November 2004

Day 0

The time is 10:29 and the date is 9th November, in my office cubicle, looking forward to a discussion Mr. Satyadeo Purohit, A GM of Sales & Marketing. He’s nice and intelligent man, not to mention low profile and humble too.

Yesterday was fruitful to both my working and social life. Finally, Thomas and I had been given an assignment to execute. The project assigned was to study and analyze company’s order business cycle, of every stages of production and at the end of project, made recommendations to improve loopholes of every stages to the board of directors.

Beside me now is a coffee, my third one to be exact and it’s not even 11am yet. I guess in a month or two, caffeine will be my new addiction, in addition to cigarette, beer and sometime weeds and hash.

Yesterday was kind of romantic because Gokce, the Turkish girl who looks like Penelope Cruz but slightly prettier and I did something cool and crazy. It was raining in the evening and the rain was the second one since I landed in Pune. Since I had promised to walk her to the end of the road for some stuff, we decided to walk down the long and busy little street, despite the heavy rain. Of course, we were wet and soak but it sparked some unexplained romanticism.

Muddy water, bumpy roads and crazy traffic we went through but neither of us complaining. The even of the night was when we came back from a wine shop, a motorbike almost hit her, followed by the chaotic of road traffic. In the blink of eye and in the nick of time, I suddenly become a Bollywood hero and came to her rescue by grabbing her arms towards me. After the incident, I hold her hand and crossed the busy road. There were unspoken words in the air but I guess both of us know it meant nothing. Or was it something?

As for now I wasn’t feeling so well because my lips is so dry that it began to pealing off and the part under my lower lips is infected by itchiness, numbness and difficulties in moving my lips. I consulted Dr. Iranee of Forbes Marshall and she said nothing serious and one of the causes might be I kissed a wrong girl. Thomas said I might as well forget about kissing the Turkish girl.

That night, friend of Bernard, the one with peculiar and strange behavior like Jack Nicholson in the movie "As good as it get" came to my apartment and will be bumping with us for one week or maybe more. Her name is Gesine Hoinke and she’s from Germany. She looks like Gytneth Patrow in the 1990’s first appearance in ELLE Jeans’s advertisement. She have the attitudes of Jennifer Aniston's character in "Along came Polly". You may think I am bullshitting you again, but honestly I can swear on my precious bike that I wasn’t lying. In Pune, everybody looks like somebody except for me, who looks like nobody except for me.

Day 1

It’s Wednesday and it’s the day that everybody is waiting desperately for, the Hampi (South India) trip. We are supposed to depart from our lovely place at night. Needless to say, the day in the office was utmost de-motivated. Thomas and I took a half-day off and met up with Gokce, the Turkish girl, Gytneth Patrow and Jack Nicholson at the district police commissioner to collect our residential visa. It took us less than half-hour to collect our visa despite some slight commotion caused by group of fucking tourist, mainly British and Irish.

We went to MG road (Mahatma Gandhi road), the famous place in Pune where everything that is classy and branded available to you, that if, you have the bucks. We went to this restaurant, which recommended by the LP. We ordered Chinese varieties and I can’t believe that the Indians can cook very fine Chinese foods. When in MG road, the store I will never miss is the book store which I ended up buying Harper Lee’s "To Kill a Mockingbird" and John Grisham’s "The Brethren" for about Rs.80.
We reached our place at Koregeon Park when the sun goes down. Here, the sun goes down at 5pm. We started to pack and when the time has finally come, we were all ready like a group of children ready for first day to school. Tom UK was the main person organizing the transportation. Tom, the Paul Bettany look-alike did a great job. He hired two TATA 4WD for the Hampi trip. Everything was in place namely the luggage, the chips, the beers and most importantly the people.

Nine of us in one jeep and the others were in the other. Thomas (Germany, the one that look like English football-hooligans, my colleague/housemate) was in front with the driver, Natalie (the Colombian chicks, the one that look like Spanish porn-actress), Dennis (Dutch, the one that look like one of the Irish boy-band singer), Michael (Germany, the one that look like international man of mystery or drug dealer was in second row and at the back seat, Tom UK, Lars (Germany, the one that look like Quentin Terantino but Latin’s version, Magda (Poland, the one that look like a barbie doll) and myself was in the back seat.

On the other jeep was Jack Nicholson, Lothar (Germany), Yoshke (Japan), Gytneth Patrow (Germany), Gokce (Turkey, the one that look like Penelope Cruz but slightly prettier), Veronica (Hungary, the one that look like lead vocalist of Cranberries), Thomas C1 (Germany) and Omar (Egypt, the one that look like Sly Stallone).

The journey to South India took us exactly 15 hours and though it was a long and tiring journey, it was the greatest road-trip I ever had in my life. We departed from Koregeon Park, the trainee paradise, the place in Pune where the rich and famous resided, just like Bangsar or Damansara Height. In India, no matter how develop or upper class the residential is, it will never escape from poverty hence people begging on the street and stuff.

The first three hours was great. Everybody was crazily talking and singing. Tom UK cracked some British dry jokes, mainly about the stupidity and ignorance of the Irish while Dennis cracked some Irish jokes, about the idiotic of the British. We were singing and drinking and the journey was great, enough said. Of course every once in a while, we will stop the jeep for resting, peeing, smoking and stuff. The weather was cold as usual and the road the Hampi was not an expressway but merely a long and sometime bumpy road. Everybody was beginning to get quiet and dozing off after a while. None of us are able to sleep peacefully and comfortably. But nevertheless, it was a great experience. Although I was rather sad because Gokce was on the other jeep, but I try to make the journey as fun as possible. Magda was so lovely. I guess no Gokce, Magda also can do la…

Arms and legs were stretched across each other. Due to the cold and windy weather, Magda the Barbie doll and I ended up needing each other like a lover. She was dozing off on my my lap.

In the middle of the night, we stopped at this small bamboo stall in the middle of nowhere for a cup of hot tea. Members of Jeep 1 and 2 meet again and we were chatting like we just met.
To cut the long story short, 9 hours passed and we reached one of the resting area and the sun start to shine upon us. It was a clear sunshine and seems like a new day has come. Everybody was wide-awake and did the morning stuff like brushing teeth, peeing and breakfast.

Photo: In the middle of nowhere...[L to R]: Magda, Tom & Myself

After a long hours of passing through the huge empty lands, farms, trees and small villages, accompanied by the music of Eric Clapton, Oasis, Suede, Wallflower, Joan Osborne, INXS, and of course, Kaho na Kaho songs and the rest of MURDER songtracks, we finally reached the Hampi bazaar. The market looks like an ancient market, full of traders, cows, businessman, fruit seller etc.

My first reaction was wordless. It was like living in the ancient history. Hampi is a place full of ancient civilization monuments, buildings, and ruined cities leftover. It paints me the picture and images of buildings I used to read about India’s Indus River civilization. It is exactly the same, without slight changes. You can see the river, big, wide and long river, with countless rocks, in various shape and sizes, on top of each other, divided by the great river. The people still do the laundry in the river.

Hampi, as been described in LP, is a thriving travelling center and most people stay for at least couple of days, just to lives and discover the sites of Hampi. Hampi is divided by a great river into two parts and to cross to the other side, we are link by a local coracle rider. One part is the Hampi bazaar itself and the other part across the river is rather quiet and laid back.

Once we reached, we soon find ourselves separated by a group who wants to stay across the river and the other, near the bazaar. Sometime, when travelling in big group, it is good to break into two smaller groups so that it is less chaotic and less organized.

Gokce the Turkish girl, myself, Thomas the football hooligan, Jack Nicholson, Michael the drug dealer, Gytneth Patrow, Omar the Stallone and Lothar stayed at the bazaar, at Shanti guesthouse.
After a check in and shower, We soon travelling to the Hampi bazaar and visiting the ancient places, namely the river, the ancient buildings leftover, the sites, the temple, the villages and lots more.
So, why Omar has been given the nickname Stallone? Not only physically undoubtable, but he dressed exactly like Rambo, with his infamous cargo pant and army singlet, walking around bazaar and in the mountain barefooted, eating and sucking sugar canes and bananas along the way, in the jungle and village area.

We walk and walk non-stop, about the total of 5km. First we walked to the village area and there, we bumped into some local kids.

These kids brought us deep into the jungle saying and convinced us that at the end of the jungle is a waterfall. They told us the distance is about 10 minutes but it took us one hour to reach the inside and another hour to get out. Well, I guess, these people still didn’t understand the concept of time and still depending the sun to indicate night and day for them. The walking through the village and sugar cane and banana farms was great, surround by peaceful views. The feeling then was so great.

Photo: Hampi's ancient ruin temples

Photo: Snapshot of Omar & Hampi kids...


At night, we were quite tired but nothing could stop us from discovering. So we went to this café, similar to the Raggae club in Penang for drinking and chilling out after a quite fulfilling dinner across the street.

The café is lighted by a dim neon and playing only Bob Marley’s songs, decorated by Marijuana plants and poster of Santana. The runner approached us to sell us Lassi drink mix with marijuana for Rs 200, or a hash for Rs 1000- 10 grams or Rs 500 for similar quantity but weeds. Of course none of us interested to smoke joint or hash that night. We ended up drinking only beers.


In this travel, I grew closer with Patrow. I really admire her attitude and behavior. She’s not your regular girl next door. She is tougher and braver than any of us man and she possesses great travelling skills. Not to say she’s bionic women or what but she’s really cool with her surviving skill, mix with her equal lot of feminism. I love her direct bluntness and easygoing attitude. I will write more about the story of her and me in later part.

to be continue...

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