Happy kids- before they got our Danish
While Christmas away from home is always a little strange, it was also my fourth time in the last five years. I have spent Christmas day in Nicaragua, Bali, Colombia and now India. Inevitably, it always seems to be in the warmest place, usually with palm trees in sight. At least this year I had at least 5 people wish me Happy Christmas!
Having spent the previous day mostly in bed due to our first bout of Delhi Belly, we were ready to take on the day at 8am. We started out visiting the German Bakery (not sure why, but these places seem to crop up in every tourist town in India), and took our treasures up to the top of the boulders to enjoy the magnificent view of the river, rice fields, old temple ruins, and of course, palm trees. An hour in and we were wished Happy Christmas by three unkempt looking kids, who proceeded to get 60R ($1.10 CAD) and a half eaten danish out of us in exchange for two very sweet cups of chai. Worth it.
Having seen these cool looking round boats floating down the river when we first arrived in Hampi, we decided today would be the day! We walked along the river taking in some more temples we had missed, getting our photo taken by a million Indian tourists, and found a boat to take us back to town. My favourite part of the ride was where the driver spun us around so fast I thought Marieke might throw up, but getting our photo taken in the very “romantic” (according to our driver) spot under some rocks was a close second. We actually ended up with a pretty great photo.
Dropped a 20 minute walk from where we thought we would land, we ended up with a bit of a desert stroll, rather than walking in a winter wonderland on Christmas. We had a quick cold shower and headed off for our first Indian Ayurvedic massages. It’s hard to say whether the woman was up-selling me or not, as she pleaded with me to come back the next day for a back massage as I was so tense. We committed to booking a Henna appointment instead for the following day and set off for dinner.
Boat ride!
While there were a couple of places offering Christmas specials, including “Turkey Bird”, we decided to stick with what we knew, a pure veg (link to definition) restaurant specializing in Indian and Israeli food we had tried a couple of days earlier and loved. Paleek paneer and chana masala it would be! Ironically, there was a Hanukkah celebration there the last time we had been there. No Hanukah tonight, so we celebrated instead with a few games of Yahtzee, followed by Love Actually and Die Hard to get us in the spirit. Yippee Kayee and Merry Christmas!
Clothes Drying
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