Stressful overlanding, wonderful relaxing.

Well it is just a brief update as we have the chance, we haven't done too much since the last time.

We left Sulthan Battery a little frustrated that we were not able to visit the wildlife park but we decided to see it as a positive as we are now a day ahead of schedule to get Ryan home. We spent the afternoon on a bus to arrive in Mysore in the early evening. It was time to make a tough decision.... see the palace there or stick out the travel and head overnight for Hampi. We chose the latter and I think all 3 of us are glad with the choice. The palace is supposed to be wonderful but we have made great time and given ourselves a little window of calm.

The overnight train was as expected, nothing luxury by any means. The booths have 9 bunks, 3 on each wall, and they are not overly comfortable! But we were able to catch a few hours kip before waking in time to disembark at our stop, they don't exactly announce the stations and we certainly didn't want to miss it.

The station is about 15mk from Hampi itself and we hopped in the slowest tuktuk in India and pootled on toward the town. We arrived and passed through the town to the river crossing. We are not staying in Hampi proper, but across the river on Hampi Island. It is much quieter here and just what we needed. We wandered down the road and found the Mowgli Guesthouse were we had opted to stay. We snagged ourselves a great little cabana looking over the rice paddies and banana plantations and some of the amazing rock formations. The scenery here is amazing, the rock formations and boulders appear to defy gravity as the river runs between them. We have spent the day lazing around, not doing anything and enjoying every minute of it! The only thing is that there is no meat or alcohol! I guess I will have to deal.

We are planning to stay another couple of nights here as we are enjoying it so much. Tomorrow we plan to do some exploring of the 500 odd temples here and see more of the phenomenal landscape. Hopefully we will also be able to get some more of our pics up too!