Traveling To Goa—A Beach Town, Hampi—The Ruins Capital Of India Then On To Mysore And The Most Beautiful Palace!

After our overnight train from Mumbai, we had three days at the beach in Goa. The season had not started yet so a lot of restaurants and beach cabanas were not ready for us. The Arabian Sea was pretty ruff with “red flag” warnings for riptides. Lunch was a yummy papadum (a cracker like baked bread) with a tomato, cucumber and chilli salsa. Even without time in the sea this stop was a nice break from all the temples, palaces and forts:

There are plenty of fruit stands for fresh coconut milk, watermelon, pineapple and bananas:

The next day we took the Howrah Express Train (there are no real express trains-all make multiple stops) to Hampi. This city was the capital of a Hindi empire in the 14th century. It was the second wealthiest/largest medieval city until the Muslim invaded in 1565 and left it in ruins. I DO mean ruins–there are 1600 of them scattered across the area:

We only spent one day in Hampi before catching our overnight train to Mysore. A charming city of one million citizens (small by India standards). This is the cleanest city we have visited with many lovely wide tree lined streets.

The main attraction is the Amba Valis, the Maharajah’ s beautiful palace that took 15 years to build and was completed in 1912. The royal family still lives in the back section. The palace is owned by the government and the front rooms and halls, which are really exquisite, are open to the public. Every Sunday evening 100,000 lights are turned on for 45 minutes at an electric cost of 12,000 dollars. We were lucky to be there for the light up:

The other highlight in this city is the Temple for the female Hindi god whose statute is on top of a hill outside the city. You could pray to her for help finding a husband or marriage troubles:

Half way down the hill is the Bull God:

We stopped for a tasty lunch of the local thali. This is my favorite food to order in India. It changes a little from state to state but is comprised of a bunch of little dishes usually served in a metal tray. Some portions are hotter than others but you can cool things off with the yogurt you get. Some come with a sweet rice pudding for dessert. You can get naan, roti, or rice to mix with or scoop up the vegetarian foods. This restaurant served the thali right on a banana leaf. The tomato soup in the left hand corner was the hottest:

We spent the next day in Madikeri, the coffee capital of India. We stopped at a Buddhist Temple and Monastery where 5000 monks live, go to school and pray:

We left early the next morning for a full day of travel to Kochi where we will spend three nights and loose two travelers but gain three more.