Silk Cocoons and on to Hampi (including bonus food blogging information.)

October 21

Awoke very early for drive back to Bangalore.

Shanta, our driver, made a brief detour through an island city, Srirangapatana, who fought and ultimately were destroyed by the Brits. The Sultan Tupi, who we heard about in Bangalore died here at a place marked by a stone. Ox carts share the road with cars and motor bikes.

We stop for a quick coffee, then drive on to a fascinating cocoon market, where cocoons are auctioned off daily. Unfortunately, we were too early for the day’s auction, but the place teemed with activity, inside and out, with examples below, which include a fellow at an adjacent tire shop and a guy brushing his teeth. This unusual spot will be one of the more memorable on the trip.

We head for the Bangalore airport, arriving in plenty of time for our noon flight. Roadsides are littered with trash. I know we have different cultures and sensibilities, but to me the trash reflects a basic disrespect for life. Of course, I suppose it also reflects an economic choice.

We interrupt this blog for a special message. Recall that Vidya, one of our guides in Bangalore, is a major food blogger. For anyone interested, here are her blog and YouTube links:

http://vidyascooking.blogspot.in/

https://www.youtube.com/user/viduoo9

We return now to our regular programming. Flight to Hubli was a quick 45 minutes. We are met by a driver and guide, who have lunches packed for us, which we eat before setting out on what we’d thought would be an hour’s drive. Because of our late flight change to a new city (Hubli), we have a four hour drive, which tuns out to be four and a half. Oh, well.

Hampi better be terrific because, after spending the day there tomorrow, we have another full day commute the next day to reach our destination. There are only two things that could get in the way of it being terrific–excessive rain or a guide we can’t understand. Hoping for neither.

The drive is long, but not uninteresting. We pass through more rural areas. Heavy rain has flooded areas and not helped the roads, some of which are far worse than we’d encountered thus far on this trip, others fine and still others in a state of being repaired. We pass cows, goats, bulls, dogs, oxen and pigs. People tending the animals and people living their lives by the side of the road. Frustrating, because there are a hundred photos I’d like to have taken, but I don’t want to prolong our already long trip. Some time I’ll spend a day in a foreign country taking photos of nothing in particular, or maybe not. Here are a couple, taken in the rain through the car window.

We arrive at the Evolve Back Hotel, formerly known as the Kamalapura Palace and, for those of you who think that where you stay doesn’t matter, because it’s just a place to sleep, I have two words for you–you’re wrong.

I’m not going to be able to capture this place in a few photos, but here’s a slice of the lobby, with evening candles being lit

and here’s the Ambassador in which we were driven to our villa

and I’m not going to post the video I made walking around the villa, which is about the size of our condo (because the video takes two minutes to cover the villa), but perhaps this photo of our shower stall, with two overhead shower heads, gives you some idea.At 7:30, we went back to the hotel to witness a procession led by a flutist, then went upstairs to hear a storyteller tell a basically incomprehensible myth about Hampi (as we were the only two, we couldn’t very well leave) and then went for a very good meal in one of the hotel restaurants. Tired, we were then driven the short distance to our villa in a golf cart (yes, we’re shameless), and, once we found the bedroom, retired.