Hampi, March 28

Open your mind, no really open it. Forget all you ever learned, forget all your knowledge and prejudices. Look at the world again as a child does. Everything is new, strange and exciting. Tiring too. This is India. The place where you discovered yourself. And so the myth continues. One thing is surely true though. This place is, relative to all other parts of the world, extreme.

It is as if you perceive a glimpse of Lord Shiva in His manifestation of Rudra, the mover of the cosmos (in pictures, the just deity meanwhile destroys an evil dwarf - He has never been too keen on these). Yes, there is a cow there, in the middle of a highway. There are pigs too. Yes, these young men are so frustrated that they just need to grope and pinch a woman when they see one. Yes, these people are swimming in what is basically a sewer, and they believe it is holy. Yes, that temple is probably the most beautiful thing you ever saw. Yes, there are 3000 years of history to this place, although it is in fact more tradition than written history. Yes, the level at which they play this music is enough to make anyone completely deaf before reaching the age of 40. Yes, this truck really tried to overhaul us even though its driver was aware of those bikes.

It's warm here. I started having siesta breaks during the afternoon. The ventilator helps a little. I only wear the most light, spacious clothes I can find and take many cold showers every day (the guesthouse advertises them as showars). But let's start in Goa, where I left you 10 days ago.

I spent almost a week on the beach in Goa. True tropical bliss: palm trees, a bottle of cooled mango juice, and plenty of sun and sea. After asking around, I came to the conclusion that no one ever swam in the ocean with a turban before. So inevitably, it had to be done. This was, I admit, probably one of my less sensitive decisions. Unfortunately, a big wave took me by surprise and I felt the turban flowing off my head. I grasped at it in a reflex. Gotcha! However, emerging from the water victoriously, I suddenly found that my glasses were now missing.

I immediately raced to Panaji, the capital of Goa, where I hoped to find an optician. Scared about the cost of new glasses making a dent in my budget, I arrived the same day. The optician gave me a nice surprise though: not only could he make me new glasses in a couple of hours, they also didn't cost more than 900 rupies (12 euro). Equipped with my new 'Goan goggles', I then spent a day sightseeing in Panaji and nearby Goa Velha (old Goa), the former capital of the Portuguese colonial empire in the east.

Goa is really a little different from the rest of India. It is slightly more organized, less chaotic and cleaner. But only slightly. And it has a large Christian and Portuguese cultural heritage. From Panaji I took a night bus (small, uncomfortable beds infected with bugs - potholed road made the journey so bumpy I hardly slept) to Hampi, my current location. This place was the former capital of the Vijayanagara empire. Between the 14th and 16th centuries, Vijayanagara's rulers divided, ruled and conquered the Deccanese Muslim sultans until the guys decided they had enough and combined their forces. As a result Hampi was razed to the ground. The ruins are very impressive though. The local village consists entirely of guesthouses, souvenir shops and restaurants. Welcome to Backpackistan again!

But the south of India is now right in front of me and I have about one month to explore it all. Unfortunately, my small knowledge of Hindi is practically useless here. The local people speak Kannada, a Dravidian language unrelated to anything I ever encountered before. It comes with its own alphabet, so I can't read the signs either. But in Backpackistan, everything is written in English. And everything is made entirely according to the wishes of the Backpackistanis. O lord, you can have pizza here. Or falafel. Or pizza with falafel, if you so like. I feel it is time to get away from the tourist vibe again.