My train arrived about 30 minutes late only. I guess that’s good.
And then I realized that tuktuks in Badami are different from those in Mumbai, they have no counter. So I don’t even know how badly the guy cheated me, taking me to the hotel. He insisted to stay there and wait while I checked in, and wrote down his number should I want someone to drive me around the different temple sites. I nicely saved his number to make him leave…
Reception had a book with a few bus times to Aihole. Obviously nobody cared about or knew return times.
I originally wanted to see Aihole and Pattadakal today but was told it’s too late. So I saw Badami the first day and took the 7:15 am bus to Aihole the next day.
I ate my sandwiches, made by Aditya’s mum 🙂
and then walked first towards the museum and climbed up there. It was very quiet but I already heard the kids screaming from the caves on the other side. Oh well.. 😉
On the way to the caves, I ended up with a cow herd in front of me. In that little alley. I tried to just walk past them but obviously they didn’t like that and tried to attack 😛
Trying to overtake them by taking another way also didn’t work, either the way was too long or I was too slow. So I had to very slowly walk behind them. Far enough away not to annoy them.
At the caves, it was selfie-time again. One group of kids, surrounding me, mentioned Bijapur. Obviously they had seen me there the day before. And this morning they had already been to Aihole and Pattadakal and would, this evening, continue to Hampi. I guess I could just have gone with them.
Taking the bus was easy enough.. and some girls told me the right stop to get off 🙂
For the first 15 minutes I was alone there, then the first school class arrived..
of course they wanted to take photos.. so we did.. I asked where they’ll go next: Pattadakal! And because I didn’t know when the next public bus would go, I asked them if I could go with them 🙂
They laughed and said bye.. The teacher did the funny head shake, telling me I could go with them.. so I did 🙂
It was a very loud 10 km bus ride.. I think I prefer to take a slower, but quiet, public bus to Hampi.
After all the temples, I asked at what time the next bus to badami would stop here and was told 12:30. So I nicely waited from about 12:20 on.. for the bus that only came at 1:00 – according to plan. At least I didn’t miss it.
One woman sold me chapati while I was waiting.. and another one buttermilk.
All those reports on the internet saying there’s no food available at Aihole/Pattadakal are definitely wrong!
