The long road to Hampi...

It started out harmlessly - I got a ticket from Goa to Hampi on the overnight bus without any trouble, the bus was more than on time, that is, it left 20 min earlier than scheduled (this must have happened the first time in the history of Indian public transport).

At 2 a.m. I got rudely woken up by Indian screaming "bus change!!". OK, whatever. The 'new' bus went off, soon started making roaring sounds and stopped shortly after. I woke up at 8 a.m. realizing that we were still at the same spot, in the middle of nowhere. Scenario: 2 broken down PAULO buses by the side of the road, some very confused tourists, and one tiny food/drinks stall making the business of a lifetime:



Apparently a mechanic was on the way, expected to arrive within 2 - 3 hrs. Since Hampi was "just" 250 km away some of us figured it might be wiser to call a taxi. Miraculously (that is after promising a fee of 5000 RS) a taxi appeared and 7 of us happily piled in, almost sitting on top of each other. That was at around 10 a.m. At 12 a.m., a number of errants and two fillings of propane gas bottles later (I didn't know that cars can run on this...) we finally hit the road.

The driver had promised to arrive around 2.30 p.m. The hours passed. The driver seemed to be lost in small village roads (although he would never admit to it), his average speed was 45 km/h. Food was nowhere to be found and we were all starving. We finally arrived at 10 p.m. - 12 hrs after he had picked us up, and 24 hrs after starting a supposedly 10 hrs long trip!

In Hampi all guesthouses were full due to a festival going on that was attended by 4 Million (!) Indians. Luckily we all managed to find some place or the other to crash. The next day we heard that our bus had arrived 1 hr after us but dropping the remaining passengers in a different town 14 km away!

After all this transport hassle I decided to be my own driver for a change and rented a little girlie-motorbike. I thoroughly enjoyed cruising through the impressive boulder landscape and along the rice fields of Hampi, jumping from rocks and visiting innumerable temples.

My favorite vehicle so far on this trip:



For the way back I steadfastly refused to take a PAULO bus again and luckily found a ticket for ISLAND bus, whose driver raced like a madman over the bumpiest of all roads dropping us in Gokarna at 5 a.m., I could not believe that I
a) was still alive (well, at least until the cows started attacking...)
b) had really arrived after traveling only for 1 night.