Badami to Hampi

I checked into a nice little hotel in Badami. There wasn’t much to do but eat, so that’s what I did. The food in Karnatak continues to impress. I had a great veg thali nearby. I called Ganesha, a guy I found on workaway who guides rock climbing, and planned to join him the next morning for a session, something I was very much looking forward to. I really wanted to volunteer, but I hadn’t been having luck with workaway and even when I did have luck I realized I just didn’t have the time to kill at these places for such long stretches. India’s too big. I’ve said it before. They really ought to have made it smaller. So that’s that. Maybe in the other nations of the world I’ll do a workaway. I think it would be nice to travel slower and have deeper connections with people.

I learned pretty quickly that Ganesha is a bit of a rapscallion. I arrived at his place and met two Indians there who’d never climbed in their lives waiting to join the morning session and learned two others would accompany us as well. For a mere two hour session. I could see where this was going. Ganesha said hi to us and then his indentured servant workaway Europeans came by to pick us up and do all the work that Ganesha was cashing in on free of charge. Gotta love the volunteer model. A Romanian guy told me straight up I should just leave and not pay the fee. I still hung around to climb a couple easy routes, but then I left. The Romanian also said Ganesha specifically told him not to invite me to hang out after and climb for free because he wanted to wring me out for more rupees. A little taste of the Delhi extortion spirit. This left me in a difficult position. I really wanted to hang around in Badami and be a climbing bum. The rock was smooth sandstone and a pleasure to climb, there were a bunch of great sport climbing routes in the temple complex super easy to access and a wonderful place to grow my skills. Badami itself was a sleepy town but had a beautiful ancient cave temple area swarming with monkey. But this whole situation meant I had to leave Ganesha, or give him a bunch of money. I just didn’t like the vibe, it was against what climbing and community are supposed to be about. And Ganeshas hold out is right smack in the middle of the entrance to the climbing area, so bypassing it would prove difficult and I just didn’t feel like “sneaking around” to climb with the Europeans. The whole thing was all of a sudden unnecessarily complicated. I cured Ganesha for being a schmuck. I enjoyed hanging out with the Indians who had come down to climb. One guy was a yoga instructor in Goa and he recommended I go to the Sivananda ashram in Kerala. The girl, his friend, was a chef in Mumbai.l Another guy who came down was a tech bro from Bangalore. I stayed friends with all of them. It was with a heavy despondency that I checked out of my hotel the next day and got on my bike. I hope Hampi will be better.

I left Badami only to find that my Airtel data was once again not working. It would appear that the address I gave as a reference wasn’t confirmable, so said the email I received from Airtel. This was the nice guy I met in Sangli. I’m not sure what happened. I called him but he never answered. I sent him a few messages. Nothing. There goes that friendship. I was frustrated, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I’d just have to go to Hosapete, the town near Hampi, and do the monkey dance at the Airtel there. I was determined to get there as quickly as possible. It was around 130km away. Not my easiest day but what the hell. I had to stop frequently to ask people for hotspots along the way as my google maps frequently lost all memory of my route. I had to take a series of smaller roads to shorten my distance. I don’t remember this day so well. I know I stopped for chai with some people. I don’t know what I did for lunch. I remember when night came I was still going strong. I got lost a few times and had to backtrack. At one point, a dog blocked my path and I had to circumvent. At one point I went down a dusty road and could barely see, and ended up at another alcoholic hotel, and ended up needing to go back the way I came. Eventually, I joined the highway to Hosapete. It was quite late and I was knackered as the British say. I found a perfect camp spot in some fields and rested my bones, just 20kms away from Hosapete. Not bad. 

The next day was an easy but sore ride to Hosapete. I had a great South Indian breakfast and killed a few hours at Airtel getting my life together again. This time I used Abhay in Mumbai as my reference and he’s was happy and willing to talk with the Airtel folks and comply on my behalf. It’s good to have a friend like Abhay. I decided to prepay the postpaid plan for 4 months of data so that I’d never have to talk to these people again. It worked. Thank god. I left Hosapete and cycled up to a town near the ruins of Hampi to find lodging for the night.