Hampi is spectacular and the ruins are spread over a very large area. So wearing comfortable footwear and coming prepared to walk long and hard is important psychological preparation. There are no toilets at most sites and the one at the Queens Bath is closed most of the time. The ones at Virupaksha temple are very very dirty. They are a health risk so avoid them. You have to come prepared to go in the open. Also, there is no clean drinking water available for free at any of these sites. You can buy bottled water everywhere and tender coconut water. But carry a bottle with you. The choices for food are limited. There is Om Shakti khanavali which is a very unattractive and unhygienic. But the food is decent and we did not fall ill. Hotel Varshini is like any small restaurant in Bangalore. But crowded. It has a toilet which is a plus. Both these are at Kamplapur, on the outskirts of hampi. You can go there for food. Or to Mango Tree, which is in PrakashNagar. That is costlier, has lots of foreigners and pricier. The wait times are longer too. Better to pack your food as there are lovely places to picnic.
If you are set with water, food, good walking shoes and a camera, then you can easily spend days at hampi. There are many places to discover. They all have interesting stories. Try not to see the whole of hampi in 2 or 3 days and definitely not in 1.
There are not many choices for hotels. We stayed at the Royal Orchid near the Hospet Railway Station. It is a very good hotel in terms of facilities. The restaurant food too is very good. But the restaurant staff are quite rude, inconsiderate and generally insensitive. They do not seem to be well trained. Our two young children were with us and the restaurant staff seated grown up foreigners ahead of us, not one family but two even though we were ahead in the queue for a table.
They are extremely indifferent to serving food, do not care about placing cutlery, filling glasses with water, checking if customers are in any need. We heard complaints from customers all around us. Some were complaining that their orders weren’t on time, others that the wrong items were served, that cups had not been placed or water served, or that people had been waiting for over 15 minutes and no waiter had taken their order yet. Overall, go for this hotel but make sure you are first for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When there are fewer customers the staff are slightly better in serving.
We will go back to hampi many more times in the future. We hope that the options to stay will increase and the quality of customer service will also improve in the future.