The Gokarna trip had been pend­ing for a while. There were about a dozen folks who were absolutely sure they wanted to go. And of course, as we approached the day of depar­ture, quite a few backed out. Fever, work, sud­den loss of inter­est : there were all kinds of expla­na­tions as usual. A pre­dictable trend amongst peo­ple who are very enthu­si­as­tic to start off with! “Let’s go,” “Gokarna, I would love to go!” “Count me in!” Alas, when the time comes to actu­ally pack up and go, it’s a hand­ful who remain.

So it was eight of us who finally boarded the bus for the long 12 hour jour­ney to Gokarna on Fri­day evening : Tony, Chris, Kavitha, Kripa, Anshul, Apra, Annette and yours truly. I’d been for treks and trips with all of them prior, except for Chris, who was a col­league of Tony’s.

The jour­ney
We nearly missed the bus! Bangalore’s traf­fic and a slightly late start had us in a flut­ter as we made our way to Majes­tic. I had a small heart attack on the way. Since we had the tick­ets, there were a few fran­tic calls from the rest of the gang wait­ing patiently for us at the bus stop.
9 pm. Just in time!

A long jour­ney. It’s Chris’ first long bus jour­ney in India and he doesn’t sleep a wink. The rest of us man­age to catch some shut eye.

Day 1: The arrival
At 8.30 am in the morn­ing, we are deposited at Gokarna bus stop.

When we touch down at Gokarna, we are pre­pared for slightly bad weather. I had been both­er­ing Arjun the prior week, ask­ing him about the weather on the West­ern coast and kept get­ting the same answer, “gloomy and over­cast”. Not a good sign.

A man, who was dressed in decid­edly holy attire began to accost us almost imme­di­ately ask­ing us if we wanted accom­mo­da­tion (cheap rooms, only 100 Rs). Ignor­ing him, we started to make our way to find some much needed nourishment.

It began rain­ing just as we were dig­ging into our hot idlis and dosas at a small place called Prema Restau­rant on Gokarna beach. The town itself is filled with pil­grims and the beach is lit­tered with plas­tic. Rather sad that peo­ple come for holy pur­poses and con­ve­niently lit­ter and dirty the beach with­out a sec­ond thought.

The owner of the restau­rant tells us the way to get to Om beach. Feel­ing nour­ished and sat­is­fied, we are off on our small hike.

Mag­i­cally, the rain stops and the sun is out again. It looked like it was going to be a beau­ti­ful day. The road goes up and down and then we climb up a steep set of stairs through a tem­ple near the beach. A few cows walk faster than us but they seem to have had a lot of practice!

The stairs take us to the top of a small hill and the track is through a green val­ley. A few min­utes down the track and we come across a few friendly peo­ple who pointed in the gen­eral direc­tion of Om beach.

Mis­taken iden­tity
We come to a clear­ing and from our point, we can see the beach stretch­ing out in the dis­tance. “That’s Om beach, see,” exclaims Apra enthu­si­as­ti­cally. Another kilo­me­ter or so down­hill and we descend into the first beach.

After some scout­ing around, we set­tle for a place called Sun­set Café right on the water. It even boasts of a Ger­man Bak­ery but that only bakes good­ies in win­ter, Tony finds out after a spot of inves­ti­ga­tion! They have a few shacks avail­able. All they have on offer are very hard mat­tresses (good back ther­apy, I am told) : but we’re all pre­pared with sleep­ing bags.

A small scare
Lunch is a huge affair. The bus jour­ney seems to have increased everyone’s appetites. The rain has stopped by now. Chris declares that he’s going swim­ming. He doesn’t real­ize how strong the cur­rents are, when he loses con­trol out in the sea and another guy on the beach called Tim notices him wav­ing and brings him back to shore. It’s a rather scary expe­ri­ence as we get a first hand glimpse of the pow­er­ful cur­rents. After that, we’re all care­ful about get­ting far into the water.

There’s hardly any­one around. A few for­eign­ers : Bel­gians, Israelis, Ger­mans, Aus­tralians : scat­tered here and there. But that’s about it. In the evening, we also real­ize that we are not in Om, but in Kudle beach.

Om sweet Om!
After that faux pas, we decide to go find the real Om in the evening. At the end of Kudle beach is a nar­row path lead­ing up to the hills. We fol­low this path for a while until it comes to a clear­ing and an open space and we’re on top of a hill over­look­ing miles and miles of sea. From here, you get a nearly 180 degree view of the ocean : and what a beau­ti­ful sight it is : we drink in the view for a while and then descend into Om.

The beach has two main long rock strewn necks jut­ting out and is shaped like an Om : there­fore the name. It is much rock­ier than Kudle beach and the water seems deeper. A few adven­tur­ous folks are in the water brav­ing the cur­rent. A cou­ple are sit­ting on the beach med­i­tat­ing. A rather long way to come to med­i­tate, I think, but to each his own!

We walk along the length of the beach : it’s about a 15 minute walk and then watch the sun­set. Except for fish­er­folk who are busy try­ing to get their catch of the day, it’s rather quiet around Om.

Moon­rise
As the sun sets, on the other side the moon makes an appear­ance. As if say­ing, hey, “look at me, I’m pret­tier.” And she sure is. We’re also near­ing full moon night so we’re in for a treat. We sit at Namaste Café drink­ing in the beauty of the sur­round­ings and the waters shin­ing in the moon­light enjoy­ing sin­ful delights like masala omlettes, French fries and hot choco­late. C’est la vie!

After that sat­is­fy­ing evening snack, in the moon­light, we trek back to Kudle beach. The weather is gor­geous and the views from the hill at night is mag­nif­i­cent. All you can see around you is the water and all you hear are the waves lap­ping against the sands.

Din­ner is another long drawn affair as we bite into siz­zlers, piz­zas, prawn curry, pasta, hash browns (it’s amaz­ing how much stuff these small places can serve up!) and other such culi­nary delights. Anshul decides to make the beer bot­tle his best friend and is rarely seen with­out one in his hands thereafter.

Day 2: Eat­ing for two (or three!)
Now I know, why it’s called break­fast. Not only did we break our fast, we also ate enough for a few other meals. Choco­late and honey pan­cakes, omlettes, scram­bled eggs, hash browns, fin­ger chips (did we really eat so much?!). Appar­ently, the ocean does some­thing to the appetite.

After that, we trek back to Om beach. From there, we take another nar­row road wind­ing up. There are a few help­ful arrows on the rocks. Soon we are walk­ing through a small path that had been carved out of the hill­side. On the left is the hill face and imme­di­ately to the right is a steep incline and all you can see below is the furi­ous waters lash­ing against the rocks. One place I don’t want to land up in a hurry.

The view is bril­liant to say the least. And a lit­tle scary out there on the side of the hill, espe­cially if you’re scared of heights. But we couldn’t help but stop every few min­utes to drink in all the beauty. Palm trees fringed the whole path and for miles and miles of blue-green ocean beckon, dark­ened only by shad­ows of pass­ing clouds.

Full moon? No, it’s half moon!
And then the stretches of sand in the dis­tance : the coast­line stretches before us like a lazy snake. We make our way down another nar­row path, and then catch sight of the next beach — Half Moon. A really small beach, and it is absolutely deserted.

How­ever, in a few min­utes we get in the form of a dog, an old woman (who sold us water for 20 bucks per bot­tle) and 2 other adven­tur­ous souls. We decide not to ven­ture fur­ther into Par­adise beach, which the old woman tells us is another 5 kilo­me­ters away. We have the hike back so we decide to stay there and enjoy the cool waters for a while.

Lunch is back at Namaste again. Another 2 hour affair. I love these long indul­gent lunches on hol­i­day : pity we only have two days. I could have got­ten used to this style of eat­ing. Not good on the calorific front, but what bliss!

Adieu
After lunch, it is time to trudge back to Kudle again. A few more rounds of beer and snacks get con­sumed. After laz­ing around for a while, it is now time to leave Kudle and bid good bye to Sun­set Café. Was it just yes­ter­day when we arrived? All of us take some extra time to pack and say our final farewell.

We climb back up the hill just as the sun is set­ting and about 20 min­utes later, we are back at the bus stop wait­ing for yet another bus to take us back home. These trips always seem to go by so fast. Gokarna def­i­nitely deserves more than two days. But beg­gars can’t be choosers as they say. At least we could steal away from the hus­tle bus­tle of life. In a few days it will become yet another pre­cious mem­ory tucked in some cor­ner of my mind. But pre­cious mem­o­ries are what makes life so much more worth­while. Mean­while, I need to go hatch my next travel plan :)

Get­ting there: KSRTC buses go to Gokarna town from Ban­ga­lore. It is a 12 hour jour­ney so be pre­pared. There are also trains that pass by Gokarna or another town close by. If you can plan in advance, this is a bet­ter way of trav­el­ing. From the town you can walk to Kudle beach or take an auto. If you want to head directly to Om, they ask for about 100 bucks. I’d rec­om­mend the walk!

Things to do: Walk around the beaches. Just going from one beach to another is an adven­ture! The hills are very close to the coast­line so you get some gor­geous views. Eat. Drink. And gen­er­ally be merry.

Place to stay: Hotels in Gokarna town. But if you want to stay on the beach, the accom­mo­da­tion is basic. Carry sleep­ing bags. You might get mat­tresses if you are lucky.

Eat: At any of the cafes on the beach.

Links:

- My Album
– Anshul
– Kavitha: Pics | Words
– Tony