Monkeys, of One Type or Another...

Day 13

We had an overnight night train back Bangalore later Thursday night, so we had the day to kill.  We had already seen a good amount of Hampi’s famous ruins, so we decided to hang out at the Guest House until late afternoon.  We sat under the outdoor canopied restaurant and played some games (Bananagrams), played cards (UNO and Go Fish, mostly), and read.  Gagan and R bet each other a “lemon nana” juice for the winner of their final Bananagrams game.  Even though I tried to help R, Gagan won.  They shared the lovely lemon-mint juice together.  Later, they went for a walk through the rice paddy.

When we got off the boat that took us across the river, Patrick, the auto driver that took us around the ruins the day before, was waiting for us.  He told us his business name was Patrick, but we heard his buddies call him Mudhu. He told us he worked for 3 years without sleeping so that he could buy his own autorickshaw.  He also installed a fancy music system, but one of his speakers was stolen recently.  When we asked him if he is married with kids, he told us he was 21 and had four more years before marriage.  He is now working to save up to buy a house, where he will have extra rooms to rent to tourists.  Very focused entrepreneur, I'd say.

We went to a restaurant in Hospet for dinner, where they served the hottest daal and muttar paneer I have ever had in my whole life.  My mouth felt like it was on fire, really.  The waiters explained the chef was from Andra Pradesh, and very spicy food was the style of the food from this region.  I felt this was unfair, as there were none of those red fiery chilli peppers next to item on the menu to indicate it was going to be so hot!

We ended up waiting at the train station for a good hour, as our train was late.  The kids were so excited to be on a train again, they were climbing up and down like monkeys; and I had to send them to bed.  We set up our bed sheets and blankets on the beds and then hunkered down for some shut eye.