India -

giant must have made it – a giant modernist sculptor. How else did these enormous piles of finely-formed boulders come to rest in such decorous patterns?

Nothing can quite prepare you for Hampi's surreal landscape. As you start down the road from the nearby railway town of Hospet, the prospect is rural and routine. Then suddenly the scenery erupts into eerie spectacle. Everywhere, gargantuan rocks perch precariously upon each other as if frozen in the act of tumbling. All is arid and astounding. Then you dip down into a lush green vale of banana plantations and coconut groves. Equally abruptly, there looms a kind of Hindu acropolis where finely sculpted temples cling to a huge, rounded outcrop of smooth granite, complete with monkeys scampering across it.

Hampi has enough mystery to satisfy the most adventurous of travellers. And one of the biggest mysteries is why so few of them have made it to this wonderful place. Think of ancient ruins in grand settings, like Petra, Machu Picchu, Pompeii, Angkor. Hampi firmly belongs in that company, and yet few people know it.

Perhaps it's because India is so chockablock with ancient monuments that Hampi is pretty much off the tourist map. Or perhaps it's just because it's in the middle of nowhere, and can barely muster a two-star hotel.

In truth, it hasn't been totally ignored. An easy train ride from Goa, it's been on the hippie trail for decades. The place where local buses terminate, Hampi Bazaar is a village of narrow alleys and low, flat-roofed buildings – now mostly guest houses, restaurants, travel agents and souvenir shops – clustered beside an ancient temple. The towering step-gabled gateway, or gopura, of Virupaksha Temple has welcomed pilgrims for almost a millennium.

In that time, this village grew into the greatest city in all India and one of the grandest and most powerful imperial capitals in the whole world: Vijayanagara, the City of Victory. And then it collapsed back into an obscure rural settlement. It's a salutary story for the Ozymandiases of this world.

Vijayanagara was founded in the mid-14th century as the capital of a new dynasty of Hindu kings, who rose to power by expelling the Muslim invaders of south India and uniting the region's disparate chiefs. Quickly, the capital expanded into a huge fortified city extending over 26 square kilometres with three rings of mighty fortifications protecting it.

From here the Vijayanagara kings soon controlled southern India and commanded enormous wealth and power. The abundant local stone was fashioned into palaces, temples, forts, marketplaces, pavilions, elephant stables, barracks, baths and every possible amenity, creating a fabulous metropolis where possibly half a million people lived and thrived.

All who visited Vijayanagara in its 15th and 16th century heyday were overwhelmed by what they found. Italians, Persians, Portuguese and Russians, none of them strangers to opulence, believed it to be the richest city in all India, perhaps in all the East – on a par with Rome, Constantinople, Cairo or Peking. As well as a wealthy stronghold, they found a religious centre and an international trading point for rubies, diamonds, pearls, coral, elephants, horses, camphor, pepper, sandalwood and musk.

But Vijayanagara's success irked and threatened the sultans of the Muslim realms to the north. Finally, they laid aside their rivalries and joined together to destroy it. In 1565, despite formidable defences, the Vijayanagara forces succumbed to the sultans' coalition army, and the capital was abandoned and sacked. The wrecking and pillaging went on for five months. Fabulous Vijayanagara was ruined, never to recover.

A historian has graphically described the end. "The enemy had come to destroy, and they carried out their object relentlessly.... Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city; teeming with a wealthy and industrious population in the full plenitude of prosperity one day, and on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description."

Though worship continued in some of the Hindu shrines, most notably in the pilgrimage temple of Virupaksha, most of the site became a wilderness of dilapidated and partly buried structures, ransacked over the years by treasure seekers and turned over by farmers. Only in the twentieth century did recovery and restoration bring back some of the historical glory, under the aegis of the Archaeological Survey of India. In particular, the Hindu temples were carefully restored and the whole area became protected as a World Heritage Site. This is what we discover today.

There are two ways to see Hampi-Vijayanagara: you can make up an itinerary of ruins and methodically visit them, or you can just ramble over the extraordinary landscape at will. I mixed it, using a combination of motorbike and footwork, and some handy maps and guides.

For a wilderness experience, start from the south. Here the terrain is cactus-strewn scrubland rising to boulder pyramids, interspersed with some tilled fields. Following tracks or riding cross-country, you come upon the old royal enclosure where the foundations of palaces lie unearthed. The massive royal reviewing platform stands out with its lively sculpted walls featuring hunters, dancers and trading caravans of elephants and horses, superbly evoking the vanished culture.

Turning to the northeast you enter a walled compound with the exquisite Lotus Mahal, an Islamic-style multi-arched pavilion in pink stone with nine pyramidal towers. Further on, through an archway in a great wall of huge granite blocks, appears a long building composed of eleven large halls capped by domes – the royal elephant stables.

A mountain rises in the distance, its jumble of Henry Moore boulders inviting exploration and admiration. Clambering upward, you reach a magnificent vantage point where the whole ancient city comes into view. A series of green irrigated valleys is separated by chains of boulder-mountains. Towered temple complexes and colonnaded marketplaces rise up in the midst of rural tranquillity.

Scrambling back down to earth, remounting the bike and heading north, you cruise past a flock of goats into the banana plantations. Feel the cool air from the gurgling irrigation channels, wind your way along the farmers' dirt road, and hang a left along the remains of a colonnaded street all the way to Vitthala Temple, the architectural climax.

Past the towering gopura in the paved courtyard stands the iconic image of Hampi, the stone Garuda shrine in the form of a four-wheeled ceremonial chariot. The open-sided mandapa entrance hall is a forest of exquisitely carved columns. The sun beats down fiercely, baking the fine details. From here, head west toward the cooling waters of the Tungabhadra River.

The Tungabhadra was Vijayanagara's lifeblood and is still crucial to local agriculture. Considering it a holy river, pilgrims bathe here before worshipping at the temples and shrines. Boulders next to the water are carved with sacred images such as Vishnu as Anantashayana, asleep on the cosmic serpent. People do their laundry in the river too, and coracles are a popular form of transport.

Running along the bank is a wide, stone path leading to the many riverside shrines. Stroll in the company of Hindu pilgrims, herdsmen and cattle, holy men and fellow tourists all the way back to Hampi Bazaar, passing the happy saddhu with the twinkling eyes, who tends his cement linga and yoni, and then, on the steps beneath a great rock pile, the sad saddhu with the penetrating stare. It is your holy duty to give a few rupees to each.

Waiting for you back in the village are delicious curries, banana pancakes and mango shakes, an Ayurvedic massage and possibly an intoxicant. Though Hampi is officially dry, at least a beer can usually be acquired. If not, stunningly exotic magicians in technicolour robes wielding weird implements will spellbind you, which is even better.

That's just one day's roaming, hitting some major sights. The richness and variety of the historical remains and the natural environment is such that this World Heritage Site can occupy you for a week if you like relaxed wandering, or indeed a lifetime if you're an archaeologist.

Obscure for so long, preserve of the cognoscenti and the clued-in backpacker, Hampi will be hitting a world audience this year in Jackie Chan's new movie, The Myth. It's ok – Jackie didn't ruin the ruins. He even plays an archaeologist. But it remains to be seen whether the plot of the movie can upstage its mythic location.