Hampi – Temples, Monuments, Ruins & Wildlife

Winter season being the best times for exploring birds and wildlife, we some how managed to pull off the 1st weekend this February and plan a quick 3 day trip to Hampi. As we were planning for a trip filled with architectures, monuments and landscapes; we soon found out about the unique and buzzing wildlife activity around Hampi – The globally threatened Yellow-throated Bulbul, the colourful Painted Spurfowl and Painted Sandgrouse, the mighty Indian Eagle Owl, the Sloth Bears…

For ease of categorisation, we have made two blog posts – this one is specific to the key Hampi Architecture and Monuments that we visited and the second one about Wildlife around Hampi which you can read here -> http://whistlingtrails.com/2017/01/wildlife-around-hampi/

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India located near Hospet town in the Karnataka, known for beautiful temples, ruins of palaces, ancient market streets, royal pavilions, bastions, and so on against vast stretches of boulder hills. With over 100s of locations to see, its a place where even a month long exploration won’t be enough..! Here are some of the key locations we managed to visit during our short stay – Virupaksha Temple, Queen’s Bath, Vitthala Temple Complex, Stepped Tank, Kadalekalu Ganesha, Achuta Raya Temple, Matunga hill, Octagonal Bath, Badavilinga Temple, Lakshmi Narasimha Temple, Hemakuta Hill, Mahanavami Dibba, Hazara Rama Temple, Elephant Stables, Bhima’s Gate, Tungabhadra river banks, Pattabhirma Temple, Malyavanta Ragunatha Temple, Kings Balance and few more.

Here are some of the key monuments we managed to capture 🙂

Along with these key monuments, we would also highly recommend visiting the Hampi museum near Matanga hill. This unique museum has images of Hampi monuments captured through the lens of by British army officer and photographer – Alexander J. Greenlaw way back in 1856 along side a matching set of images of same monuments captured in 1983 by Australian photographer – John Gollings and a recently captured matching set from 2000.

To sum it up, Hampi is a dream destination for any type of Photographer – wildlife to landscapes to architecture..! This place has it all. Our entire trip was designed and arranged by Pompayya Malemath sir, and everything was just top class. His knowledge on Sloth bears, birds and also about key monuments at Hampi is unmatched. As for the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary, we did come across few negative reviews and were almost wondering if we should do it or not. One does have to keep in mind that sighting of wild animals (many of which are nocturnal) like Sloth Bears is a matter of luck, similar to sighting tigers in national parks. Always enjoy the unique habitats these national parks, sanctuaries have to offer – from the wildlife and birds to the terrain and the trees, and Daroji does stand on its own with its unique habitat.

Signing off with the classic sunset of Hampi captured from the Hemakuta Hill.

Thanks for viewing. Let us know in-case of any queries, suggestions, critics and we will be happy to respond.

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– Rudraksha & Shraddha