I have been wanting to go to Hampi for a long time, and it was well worth the wait. These sprawling city ruins, from palaces to temples, watchtowers, markets and elephant houses are incredible. Work is underway across the sites to preserve them, given their world heritage status but the highlight was climbing the 575 steps up to the temple marking the site where Hanuman was born. Luckily at the beginning an Indian woman gave me her stick, as she had descended. So I braved the heat and my vertigo to head up the hill, up ever increasingly steep steps to get to the temple. Well worth the climb, the views were amazing, seeing across the bolder strewn landscape littered with ruins. In the 15th century this was the second largest city, beaten by Beijing, and traders came from Europe, Persia and China to buy gold, diamonds etc.
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