Hampi, Karnataka: Foolishly we have chosen to sit at the back of the bus - the point of greatest agitation. As the bus bounces its way over the worst roads I have yet to encounter, we are given the free fairground ride of our lives. Ludo deals with it by taking a Valium and is oblivious.

The journey has all the cameos I expect by now. The overtaking maneuvers, street urchins thrusting their wares through the windows - roasted peanuts, samosas, pakoras, bananas, water, potato crisps - and the staring faces as we make our way through more remote areas.

We are the only tourists on the bus and, when we stop at the halfway point in Hubli, an excited, beaming crowd of children starts to gather around us. We smile back and induce giggles by pulling faces. Panic momentarily rips through the crowd when I pull a monster face and growl, before they fall back into the relief of laughter. The odd wink in the direction of the girls causes delighted uproar. As the bus pulls away, the children run after it, waving as they recede.

From Hospet, it's another mosquito-infested hour to Hampi. During the ride an Indian guy attempts to engage us in what sounds like a political debate. But it's difficult for us to understand him as he speaks with such a strong accent, and appears to have gleaned his vocabulary from a dictionary of law terms. In the end he gives up, turning back to his friends he shrugs his shoulders and says something, in all probability the likes of 'Bloody Englishman, and he is not even speaking his own language!' His friends enjoy the joke. We do too.

We hit Hampi as the last day of a festival draws to a close. There appear to be plays and religious services going on amid the ruins, and the place is throbbing with energy. We are too tired to explore (except for Ludo who has slept half the way) and trudge off with our backpacks to find digs. This accomplished I take a Pepsi in front of the TV. Guess what - it's cricket: World Champions Sri Lanka against India. Rahul, the landlord, seems to be impressed by some of the England team, the Holliokes in particular. I naturally inform him what a misguided fool he is.

There are no showerheads in this town. You fill up a bucket with water and then you pour it over yourself with a cup. I surprise myself by coming to terms with this very quickly. There is something very right and natural about it - and it saves water!

I have this thing about crowds at historical sites or places of outstanding natural beauty. Quite hypocritically, I feel that the laughing, chattering masses sully the spirit of the place, when I just want to contemplate the significance and spirit of the place. This is the nature of the travel industry. Is there anywhere we rich First-Worlders cannot go now, with our wealth, and with the fear of the unknown banished by a million travel writers before us?

We hire bicycles to see the sights. The ruins cover some 30 to 40 square kilometers. With all its covered walkways, temples, compounds and the squares surrounding the temple walls, it is easy to imagine it as a thriving, buzzing centre of activity, filled on market days, perhaps, with stalls selling foods, textiles, crafts, offering various services and so on. Not to mention the holy men and the soldiers. According to various contemporary reports, Vijayanagar's population peaked at about half a million, and is said to have had a mercenary army of more than one million. From atop the hills you can see much of the ruins. It makes for an eerie, abandoned landscape.

Next day, I encounter my first evidence of the 'backpacker trail' - of which one phenomenon is the fact that, even in a country as vast as this, you will keep bumping into the same faces. Here, we meet the two French guys, Pierre and Patrice, and Maria the Spanish girl, who were staying in the same guesthouse in Baga.

Many years ago I was travelling around Europe and, on the Ferry from Stockholm to Gdansk, met a guy called John from Essex. While we were looking for somewhere to stay in the Polish port town we went into a milk kitchen for dinner and he bumped into a girl he had traveled around India with the year before. We went to Krakow and later went our own ways but, about two weeks later, I was scaling the fortress walls in Prague and bumped into John again. It really is only a small world because we all visit the same places, many of us in roughly the same order.

I am too lazy to do any real exploring, and go with the Hampi flow. Between brief downpours I drink masala tea, read, play cricket with some kids, watch a cow eat a cardboard box, play chess and smoke some beedies. Nemo goes back to Goa as she's been ill.

Ludo and Gaille have befriended a charismatic lad called Siddha. He's straight out of Oliver - cheeky and persistent. This seems to be his survival ploy: befriend a group of tourists, offer them a guide service of sorts and get free Pepsi and meals all day. We ask him why he is not in school. He says that the school charges something like twenty pounds for the year, and besides, he can make a better living by doing what he's doing now. We are dubious about the school fees but the French offer to pay them anyway. Siddha says we can't and makes up a number of excuses. He is undoubtedly a smart kid but, we try to explain, what will happen when he is older and the tourists no longer find him cute and funny? It's a waste of time - he's only concerned where his next treat is to come from.

10th November, and Ludo and Gail head south to Kerala via Mysore. We arrange to meet on the 18th in Ernakulam, Kerala. I return to Goa on a sleeper bus. The bunk is too short for my six foot frame and the adjacent window continually slips open, exposing me throughout the night to the cold air (it is cooler up at this altitude) and exhaust fumes. Once again I stumble into town in a state of advanced exhaustion.