From the beach to some big red rocks

Namaste. Just a mini blog as the internet is unpredictable here (powercuts and the like). I arrived in Goa airport last wednesday about 5am, and took a taxi to Benaulim, which seemed like a quiet, reltaively undeveloped place from my guidebook and not too far from the airport. It was ok for a few days, but I'm not much of a beach person at the best of times, and there was not much to do apart from wander down the beach, back up again and then sit in the few bars that were open at night time. Hardly any tourists there, so most of the town was looking pretty bored. I have this impression that Goa is just a big beach resort. Nice and relaxed but thats about it. Had curries and Chinese food mostly, cheap (about 80-100 rupees for a curry and rice and a nan, so about 2 pounds). Anyway, I was half deciding whether to just go back home, but I thought I might as well travel around India a bit.

Fishing boat, Benaulim beach, Goa

So today I'm in Hampi, which was an 8 hour train ride from Goa's Margao station. From the train I could see forests, open grassland, a few small settlements, and miles and miles of agricultural areas (paddy fields, bananas, coconuts). Not a very heavily populated part of the country. Hampi is a very small town, basically catering for tourists who come to see the ruins of what used to be a great Hindu city here. There's some nice little walks up on top of hills with various ruins scattered around and lots of monkeys. Not done much today, I walked along the river here watching the Hindu people bathing in the water and carrying out various religious ceremonies. Been chatting to a Kiwi bloke most of the day, we're going to meet up later and find the one bar in this town that supposedly serves alcohol...

Cows mooching by temple ruins, Hampi

Next place I'm going is Mysore, further down south. It is of interest to me as the main ashtanga yoga training centre is there; Unfortunately I don't have a reservation (you need to book a month in advance and it was way out of my budget), so I'm just going to do the usual thing of wandering around aimlessly taking random photos.