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If anyone mentions they are going to India, I always give them the same advice – go to Hampi. I’ve been all over India and loved every minute, but Hampi has a special place in my heart.
Hampi is all rocks and stones, situated in the ruins of a once great city. I don’t remember there being too much to do there beyond adventuring along the river bank, climbing rocks and giving the saddhus a rupee so they’d blow their conches. I did get to take a coracle out for a spin (quite literally) which made me almost as happy as the first time I sat on the back of an elephant. Oh, it was a delightful time indeed!
The few people who lived on the tiny main street would sleep outside with their goats. A more fantastic site you couldn’t wish to see as you crept along in the evening and each family had laid blankets in front of their hovels and were asleep as one big family with their livestock. Marvellous!
So, apart from meeting a few good people, going in a coracle and loving the magic of the place, I had an amusing encounter with a local man from whom I’d gone to buy some weed. I can’t recall if Hampi is one of those places where pot is allowed, but I didn’t much care.
I found the man in his little shack and made it plain that I wanted to buy something to smoke. I showed him a fifty rupee note so he knew how much I wanted, and he went into the back for a minute before returning and placing a large handful of seedy, bone-dry weed onto an ancient scale.
“No, I only want a little,” I said, using my hands to indicate a small amount.
“Oh,” said the man, smiling, and then he called what sounded like “Mama”, and a toothless old lady appeared in the back and smiled to me. The man then went into the back again and came back and doubled the amount of weed on the scale.
I started laughing at the situation, and the man started to laugh too, and mama was smiling in the back. I tried again to explain that I only wanted a little, and for my efforts the man added yet more weed to the scale, smiling the whole time.
This went on for some time, and the amount of weed kept growing. When I tried to remove some from the scale the man was having none of it, so in the end I had to settle for way more than I’d bargained for. I happily gave the man my fifty rupees, he wrapped up my purchase and I went off to get stoned. I think I ended up giving most of it to my new friend as I hated to travel around with too much in my backpack.
This misunderstanding is one of my happiest memories of India, not because a kind man sold me lots of shitty weed for fifty rupees, but because it was yet another reminder of what fantastically kind people one can find in India, and of the many great people I met there.
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