Are you scared? I asked myself on one of the Thursdays evening. My heart said, yes, I scared but excited too. I was in a major dilemma whether to go for it or not, because if I did not do it, that will kill me on remaining days. So, I went for sleep with that confusion itself to wake early as part of schedule and independent of my decision. After I reached office, I decided to book the tickets, so that I won’t step back from the plan.  

Yes, I am talking about my first ever solo and long longing trip to Hampi. It is a long post, just bear with me.

“If it scares you, then you have to try it” – Unknown

As per the quote, you should try at least once in your life to go for a solo trip. People says, it has more risk but obviously you will have fun and best experience when you take that risk with precautions.

Time came and my journey started from room. I packed few things which may require to stay alone and few snacks too. The bus at 10.15 PM from Hyderabad to Hospet. I noticed that except 3, remaining all are going to Hampi. A big gang came from the meetup and I hesitated to talk to them as they may call me to join with them. All settled and the journey starts.

Let me tell the truth, I don’t have any plans except going to Hampi. I surfed few details about the place like where to stay, what places are important which I should not miss and what precautions I have to take to be careful but once I stepped down all the above things gone in to Trash.

I stepped down from the bus in Kamlapur, near Hospet as the conductor suggests this place is very near to Hampi. There comes this person (Sarwesh) who is going to be friend in later. We together travelled in auto by sharing the money with another two people. Once we are near the river, he asked me, what’s your plan and I told nothing. Then he asked me to join with him if I willing to and he also introduced me about “Couch Surfing” which will be hosted by a person from Hampi to stay in their place for free.

As I don’t have any plan, I thought a minute and said okay. I am sure that I made very good decision which I felt once I finished this trip. He did not make me regret for this decision. He is from Indian Navy and we headed towards to our host’s place which we need to cross the river. Then rented the bike together and went to this place called “Hidden Place” which is really hidden because we crossed this particular place thrice but we couldn’t find and with the help of locals, we could.

I have to write a separate blog to describe the beauty of that place. It is like a farm house with the huts and big lawn with artificially made water pool with natural water flowing. It’s an amazing place where you can simply sit and enjoy yourselves. There comes our next hero, Yash who came alone like us to Hampi. So, we three are planned to roam Hampi together.

Got refreshed and before we started our plan, we went to have a home food which was yummy. I felt like that I ate it in my home. We found the hotel with the help of Srikanth who is running that hidden place by staying there more than a month and Gargi too, she is also traveled solo to Hampi but the thing she has to leave due to her personal work.

We were in the other side of Hippie island (I will come to this later) and started visiting few temples around the place. The view is awesome and so refreshing. We enter in to one temple through a cave which was really interesting and obviously the top view from the mountain is always a breath-taking. En Route the lunch and headed to another mountain for sunset in the island.

There come these children those who made my evening awesome with a fantastic climate already. They are selling the tea for 30rs in the juice cup and they are keeping on asking us to buy. We told, climb with us to top, we will buy from everyone. They are so energetic and came up until the top. So, as we promised, we bought the tea from everyone and rated the best tea among them. We had very nice time with them along with view and climate. As our friend said, their happiness is worth than the taste of their tea.

Then we went jamming session in the Hippie island. Hippie island is like all the travelers from foreign used to come here and stay for long time, hence the name came like this. Restaurants to attract people, they do live music with free entry and you can order foods and alcohols. We spent time there and danced for hours. Around 3o clock, we returned to our place.

At last, we met our host in the place who is doing party and waiting for us to meet. His name is Rajesh and he is such a nice guy that even he offered dinner at that time. We spoke for an hour and went to bed, hope that we will wake early to see sunrise which is not going to happen as we slept around 4.30 AM in the morning.

That’s the end of the first day and it is very long.

Next day woke up around 8o clock and enjoyed the beauty of the hidden place and two dogs name is Salt and pepper where they are too emotional to get attached very easily. We played with them for some time and started getting refreshing.

Then we crossed back the river from Hippie island and started to explore the real Hampi after our lunch with the help of one auto wala which quoted the price very low. We visited all the temples which really an amazing architecture which was constructed by the Vijayanagara kingdom and demolished by the Mughals.

Then came back to Hampi, started to trek the Mathunga hill for sunset but which was already happened but still we trekked for the view. The pain of the trek will make you feel worth when you see the view from the top. The trek is bit dangerous as the route is end of the rock and bit slippery.

There comes the twist, it’s getting dark and rain has started. We supposed to get down at any cost because once we crossed the time 6.30 pm, then we will end up in to the trouble. As I told, its already slippery, there are lot of people who waited that rain will stop but everyone started descending the hill in the rain itself. When the problem comes, the unity of people will be high, so everyone is helping others to descend carefully. That’s another best part of the evening I can say.

We started back to Hospet for the respective buses to their corresponding places with full of memories.

Before I started back to Hyderabad, I visited Mantralayam which is on the way. I reached Hyderabad next day evening.

I can say it is one of the best trips in my life. I learned lot of things from this trip and taking with me also. I can say that I earned the moments and people equally. I can say few names too but the list will be very long. Sarwesh, Yash, Gargi, Austin, Rajesh, Sandeep, Srikanth, Lourda, Ram(Who we rented the bike), Yamunri, Arun, Kushi (3 are chai walas), the list goes on…

I recommend everyone to try at least once in their life to go for solo travelling and am sure that you won’t regret it.

With Love,

Purush