And The Winner Is…

Let’s start with who the winner isn’t.

Greetings from Hampi, a mystical place of strange yet natural rock formations and ancient stone temples, the former seat of the Vijayanagara Empire, the largest Hindu realm ever to rule South India. The zenith of their power was in the 16th century, but eventually the Mughals swept down from Afghanistan and showed them what for.

Hampi is in the state of Karnataka, the capital of which is hi-tech Bangalore. But the two places may as well be in parallel universes. The Hampi region has perhaps the most crushing poverty I’ve seen so far in India. And for all its natural beauty and the structural wonders, the place is filthy and quite very much the one-horse town. The food is uniformly disappointing, to the point that I lost my appetite and only ate the minimum necessary not to starve. There is garbage everywhere, no shortage of skinny cows, mangy dogs and scraggly children. All varieties of animal droppings can be found at every step. It stinks in many places.

I promised myself to stay in India until I had achieved stimulus satiation. And truly, there could be no better place to end my sojourn in this enigmatic country than Hampi. It has all the wondrous beauty and the wretched third world underbelly in plain and unavoidable sight. I’ve had the least fun here (OK, I was also sick). I’m ready to go. I’ve had enough.

And of all the places I’ve been to, almost all brilliant adventures, the winner would have to be Kovalam, with MANAM, Nina and my birthdays, gin and tonic sunsets, the sun tanning competition, fabulous food, and happiness all around.

Now I return to Indonesia, to take the trip I never had the chance to take when I lived there in 1994-95. But first, a bit of the first world, in the form of Singapore, The Mall With a Government. Safety, order, the best food in Asia and nonstop shopping await Mikael and I. Stand back: I have a Gold Visa card, and I’m just crazy enough to use it!