sarah, i'm sorry my blogging skills fail to impress you.

been a while since my last update (about a week i guess) but 24 hour power outtages in Hampi made it a leeetle difficult to blog... now that we're in mysore however it's gonna be much easier.

here are a few left over pics from goa... this would be the world's sorriest playground... at a monestary in old goa...

ruins of an old church which the portuguese decided to destroy when they pulled out of goa in the early 20th century... now being restored ?

oh, and meet dee's paisley hammer pants... fantastic, functional, fun. kept everyone entertained during monsoony nights with no television and nowhere to drink...

i'm not sure exactly what eug is doing... but i think i prefer them on miss heiny.

anyway...we left goa on the third (much to everyone's dismay)

and unwittingly spent the ENTIRE day on a stuffy train chugging up the ghats (hills/mountains... i dunno) out of goa and into karnataka...

it was the suckiest train ride thus far: krista's camera was stolen, and our "assigned seats" belonged to everyone but us, so we ended up squished in amongst a bunch of catholic folk (one of whom slept on me for most of the 16 hours)



the only two positive elements of the day: the cutest muslim kid ever who decided we were movie stars and planned to tell all his friends back home we were from hollywood, and our first eunnuch sighting.

anyhoo, adding insult to injury, the second we got into hospet things immediately got worse. we have all agreed that this is the worst city anyone's ever been to. the people we encountered were creepy, rude and bordered on stalkerish. we had people following us the entire way from getting off the train (they were harrassing us through the bars of the window) until we got to our hotel. one would think they would leave us at teh door, but oooh no. we actually had people calling our rooms throughout the night and next morning trying to convince us to take their taxi or autorickshaw, quoting ridiculous prices.... and then we actually had one guy come to our door and harrass us through the peephole...

this is the only existing picture of hospet. a lovely little corner in the middle of the buzzing metropolis which i shall fondly remember as the nastiest place on earth... oh, and it's about 20 feet away from the half-naked dying man being eaten by cows. (you may wish to read that again, but i assure you, all three of us were quite sure of what we saw, and diana even left the dude her leftover meal from dinner... the cows had left by that point)



needless to say we got the f*** outta dodge asap and headed to hampi, the awesomest little village on the face of the planet (and that's taking into accounts power cuts, non-existatnt a/c and the fact there is no such thing as a cold beverage to be found within the city limits)




it's got the coolest geography too, hills formed of massive bolders that were used by past kingdoms as fortifications, and hidden amongst them are ruins of temples and palaces and whatnot. it used to be the seat of an entire empire that spanned most of the southern tip of india, now it's just random spots here and there fading into the red earth.

we of course being the oh-so enlightened westerners roamed around the purdy buildings taking silly pictures of ourselves voguing with statues or in doorways.

siva and parvati.... i think?
if vogue were a goddess...

oh yeah, krista kept telling us that she expected dinosaurs to pop up out of the water and do whatever it is that dinosaurs do, as the geography kinda reminded her of the land before time and other such accurately prehistoric landscapes we grew up with as kids...

day 2 and 3 we rented mopeds and zoomed around the countryside trying to find a signal for krista and diana's cellphones... apparently the massive boulders create a bit of a dead spot) and ended up in some barren desert wandering around while the two lovebirds chatted with their men.... as well as checking out various temples along the way. unfortch krista and dee's bike refused to start up and would involve about 15 diff locals trying various methods to get the bike running and i managed to crash one going about...oh, i dunno -2 miles and hour... it was pretty spectacular. i've got a lovely roadrash now, go me!)

(this is the only photographic evidence ever caught of diana driving a moped. the amazing phenomenon lasted about 40 seconds. note the intense focus and concentration she gives to the task....)

this is one of krista's many fourlegged friends... about 10 seconds away from a nice big kiss.... again, i've yet to see these cows eating anything but garbage, sooo....

some of the local kids who at first tried to get moola but then decided that they just wanted to mug and get their picture taken... i'm a sucker i s'pose.



we're not entirely sure what this structure was... built of scraps of corrugated metal, in the middle of the main drag, we all agreed that hampi was attempting to build it's very own spaceship... and ingenious they are, it was guarded entirely by monkeys. fantastic!


diana attempting a thoughtful, yet confused face, while local religious men disapprove of our bare shoulders...

so now after two days in hampi, we've headed down south, towards the coast of karnataka and are staying in mysore for a day or two. will post more in ooty when we head up into the niligiri hills and relax.

ps. we totally miss goa...