bouldering in hampi

it has been much too long since my last post so after arriving into bangalore this early a.m from hampi, i've decide to waste the day away in a swanky net cafe. this is my last day in india and i leave with a lightness of heart and joyous expectation of my return. i've spent the last few days in hampi, a small town made famous by the numerous ancient ruins and the amass of spectacular boulders. i remember seeing hampi in a chris sharma climbing video, pilgrimage, and i made a mental note to make it there some day.
i had originally planned to spend my final two weeks on the beach in goa and perhaps make a trip over to hampi for 2 or 3 days. i have been carrying my climbing shoes around for over two months and was hoping to put them into use at least once on this trip. after a week in goa, i was more than ready to leave. the beach and food were wonderful, some of the locals friendly, but the disrespectful westerners there made me nauseous. a rickshaw driver told me once that goa 'is not india' and i can see this now. it's been almost 30 years since the portuguese gave up their colonial rule over this small province and i was hard pressed to find any indian culture. its a 'package-tourist' kind of place (even though i was suppose to be on the 'idyllic' beach - lol) where most of the tourists i saw had no idea or regard to what was ok and not ok in india. i felt ashamed to be an all-consuming westerner once again and going to hampi and meeting some climbers was a welcome relief.
while in hampi, i met a woman named 'begum' who rented out huts, and all the gear needed for bouldering. sitting around the large table outside her simple house, i met several long-term climbers like hari (who has done up a topo for the place)and mathias. these guys come around oct/nov and stay till the 'hot' comes, about mid-feb. i spent quite a bit of time at begum's, drinking coffee and swapping stories with her about family, life and love. her stories particularly touched me, bringing me to tears at times, as i listened. when i asked her how she got into the climbing business, she explained to me that she had been married to a new zealand climber for 16 years and that they had two children. when i asked where he was, a veil of sadness clouded her eyes and she said that four years ago, he had went over to visit a friend and never came back. the police went looking for him a few days later and found his clothes scattered along the road side, his body buried under a pile of stones a day later. begum said several times that he was a good man, with good health, and that she thought someone had given him drugs. she was never given any other explanation for what happened to her husband and the police were no help. she brought me into her house to show me some of his paintings, scenic water colours, and the two canvases that were left unfinished. so sad.....
she went to tell me that 2002 was an especially bad year as a month after her husband disappeared, her 20 year brother was killed in a rickshaw accident and both her oldest brother and brother-in-law disappeared. the disappearances were the same stories; both were good, hard-working men who left their jobs for the day to return home but never made it there. there were no answers for why.
i was speechless. death and the loss of a loved-one is never easy to deal with but at least there is some finality to it. how can one possibly accept and move on with all the questions left? begum said these kinds of happenings were very common in india but mostly with children. parents take a chance by letting their kids go to school everyday, as many of them must travel hours by bus to reach the small village schools.
after her husband's death, hari, the aforementioned climber, designed the topo, had all the climbers donate their old shoes and pads, and got the word out on the net that begum was the one to see if you wanted info on the bouldering. hari was an interesting austrian guy. i didn't speak to him much as he deemed me 'not really a climber' after i didn't recognize all the trad route possibilities and hadn't ever climbed on sandstone before. he did give me some creditability though for carrying around my bouldering gear....just in case.


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