Go Gokarna Gone!

Alright, it has been a long time since I wrote anything here. I have a couple of blog posts in drafts, one on the Ramzan Food Walk in Bangalore and the other one on Top Bollywood Songs of 2013. These are now more like once in a year blog posts, similar to the one on top Bollywood songs of 2010 and the one on visiting different churches in Bangalore on Christmas eve. The blog post on visiting churches in Bangalore is just part one with the second part never seeing the light of the day. Suffices to say that I have been active enough with blogging. Earlier, things that I used to think about quite deeply at least used to turn into drafts, but that’s not even the case now. Sometimes they just turn into tweets or just get lost! Time to change things now.  While I still catch up on the day’s highlights, I’m not as active when it comes to posting on Twitter. Hopefully, I’ll get back to blogging more often over time. This is perhaps the 235th time I’m saying this, I hope I get 236th time lucky.

Anyway, I digress.  As always. August, September and October had been very hectic months with travel to Delhi (twice), Mumbai (so nice to visit Mumbai after a long time), Hyderabad, Pune, Dharwad and a bunch of other places. I don’t think I’ve been in Bangalore on two consecutive weekends over the last 3 months. Hectic thought it may have been, it’s always good to be back to traveling.

It’s been only a couple of years now, but every year one puts together a surprise trip for the wife. It’s a surprise trip in the sense that the wife doesn’t know which place we’re traveling to (until we reach the bus like it happened this time or till we actually got to the place like the last time!) and what we’re going to do there. All she knows is what kind of a place we’re traveling to, for how long and then we pack accordingly.  We traveled to Gudalur last year around the same time and it was great fun! Highly recommend visiting that place.

The next few months were going to crazy and Deepti’s vacations were on now, so one thought that it’s a good time to do a short getaway trip. Didn’t want to visit the usual suspects and also didn’t want to travel too far and hence chose Gokarna as the destination. Had returned from the Hyderabad trip on Thursday morning, looked up for places to visit and stay and booked tickets for Friday night departure from Bangalore and Sunday night departure from Gokarna. Deepti didn’t know where we were headed to and I wanted to keep the suspense till we actually got to that place.

The bus was to Gokarna was to pick us up from East End Circle at 7:30 PM. We reached there at 7:25 only to find that the bus had already left from there. I started arguing with the person from the travel agency and being the wise man he was, told me that there was no point in arguing and that I should take the bus standing there to get to the next stop so that we can get to our bus. Wiser words than that haven’t been ever said! But in all this, I let out that we were going to Gokarna! Good thing the suspense ended, because Deepti and I spent some time in the rest of journey looking up more information on Gokarna.

The journey was quite fine till we hit Gerusoppa the next morning and got into the Ghats.  We were on the upper seats in a sleeper bus and it was quite uncomfortable being tossed around! We were biding our time and eagerly waiting to reach Gokarna.

Borrowing Shrimati  J Lo’s lyrics from Waiting for Tonight – Tossing and turning, emotions were strong. I knew I had to hold on.

Yes, hold on to the window grill so that I don’t fall down from the seat!

There was some confusion on where would the bus end its journey and where we’d need to get down – Gokarna town or Gokarna Cross? Finally, the bus stopped at some place and the cleaner grandly announced that that was the last stop. The bus folks weren’t very helpful and we thought we’d figure out our way once we got down. We walked around quite a bit after getting down and realised that we were actually in the Gokarna town and we had got down at the Gokarna Checkpost.  One could go inside the town from there or go towards the beaches from there. We decided to head towards the beaches.

I had not booked any accommodation and thought we’ll explore the place and then stay where we find something comfortable. Now some basic things about the beaches in Gokarna – there are five beaches in all. One of them, the Gokarna Beach is close to the Mahabaleshwara Temple and isn’t really the kind of beach where you can stay for a vacation. It’s mostly visited by people who come to visit the temple. Of the remaining four beaches, Paradise Beach and the Half Moon Beach are now out of bounds. Om Beach and Kudle Beach are the ones where one can stay and find options for food etc. Since we had not decided on which beach to stay on, we decided to head to Om Beach and check that out.

One can take an auto from the Checkpost bus stop and get to Om Beach for Rs. 150. The auto drivers in Gokarna are among the nicest and the fairest I’ve come across and it was a very pleasant surprise. The fares are fixed and they work according to a queue system which means there’s no haggling and bargaining. The uphill ride to Om Beach is only about 4 km, but the road is quite steep and pothole ridden, so Rs. 150 appeared like a fair deal. The Tourism Department seems to have done quite a bit of work for the upkeep and promotion of Om Beach and you’ll find signboards with directions and information about Om Beach along the way.

It was very nice to interact with a friendly auto driver as compared to the ones in Bangalore. The roads however, didn’t make me miss Bangalore that much!

Some more travel up the hill and the helpful auto driver stopped so that we could look at this! This is the Kudle beach.

Very exciting indeed! We got to the Om Beach area in the next 10-15 minutes. The autos stop at a certain point and one has to walk down the steps to get to the beach. It was already 9 AM and we were looking to freshen up. There’s a toilet/bathroom complex near the auto stand which is built and maintained by the local administration. On reaching there, we were told that it opens only at 10 AM which made me wonder if people there feel like using the restrooms only after 10 AM!

We got to Namaste Cafe which is right at the beginning of Om Beach, freshened up and had some lemon tea (of which I drank a lot of glasses over next two days) and tea. 

After tea-ing off,  we decided look for options for stay and started with Namaste Cafe itself. Apparently, all the cottages were full and there were only rooms available. Now, one had to go round and round around the area to get to the rooms which means that neither were they close to the beach nor even facing the beach. Rs. 1,200 per day for such a room seemed too steep a price. We told the person that we’d come back in some time, to which we got a very rude reply that he couldn’t wait for us to come back. Although we weren’t considering staying there, that reply just helped us make a quick decision and we started walking along the beach.

It was quite nice to walk along the beach. It wasn’t very hot and there wasn’t a lot of crowd either.  Om Beach gets its name because its in the shape of Om. While Namaste Cafe is the only prominent cafe/guest house on the first half moon part of the Om shape, there are a lot of guest houses on the second half. The first half is quite crowded, while the second half isn’t very crowded and has a smoother beach.

A couple approached us while we were walking and asked us if we were also looking for a place to stay. They had checked most guest houses on the second half. While there was accommodation available in one of them, it didn’t have rooms with an attached bath which is what they were looking for. Good that they gave us an option which we could check out and in return we told them about the room we earlier saw at Namaste Cafe!

We went in to check Om Shree Ganesh Guest House (yes, that’s the name) and found that they had a room (a very basic one, with a mattress a raised platform with a mosquito net attached) and guests had to use a common toilet and bathroom (which were cleaned regularly and maintained well). The Manager  (Mr. Ganesh) and the Owner (Mr. Ganesh again, yes!) seemed like nice people and we decided to stay there.

It has this nice wooden bridge lit by heart-shaped lights in the night!

That’s the reception area with a restaurant in front of it and the cottages at the back.

We quickly freshened up, had our breakfast (Om Shree Ganesh makes really nice hash brown potatoes) and got ready to get on to the beach by around 11 AM. Didn’t want to get into the water yet and just wanted to walk around and get a feel of the place. Also, left the mobile behind to get some good time away from the ‘noise’ that the mobile brings.

We walked from one end of the beach to another, encountering an occasional cow (it’s Gokarna after all, Go is cow) , foreign tourists taking a dip in the beach or sunbathing, hawkers selling necklaces, bracelets and such wares and people offering boat rides to Paradise Beach and Half Moon Beach along with a possible Dolphin sighting. We decided to go for the boat ride and the boatman after much bargaining agreed to take us for a boat ride covering the beachers and the Dolphin sighting place for Rs. 800, having started with Rs. 1,500 earlier.  Moreover, it was just the two of us and thought it was quite worth the money we were spending.

The boat ride was a very good one. The other two beaches, Paradise Beach and the Half Moon Beach were very nice with some fantastic views. And we actually saw Dolphins! Not really large ones which jump completely out of water and dive back in, like they show on NGC or Discovery or in tourism ads of South East Asian countries. Nevertheless, more than the actual Dolphin sighting, it’s the anticipation and the lookout for the Dolphins is what’s more fun! It was quite nice of the boat guy to stop near the Dolphin sighting place for some more time.

We then hit the beach. The weather was quite nice, warm enough without being very hot and the waves were quite pleasant as well. The water was quite ok, perhaps wasn’t the cleanest (slightly muddy), but definitely not dirty to not get into the sea.

It was lunch time and we came back to the guest house.  We decided to try out some local specialty and Mr. Ganesh (the Manager) recommended that we try out the grilled Tuna fish and said it’d be enough for two people. While we like eating fish (realised now that it’s best consumed in the form of fish fingers and not the whole fish!), finishing the whole fish was quite a task! The fish curry was quite nice and went well along with rice and rotis. Having had lunch, it was time for some rest. While Deepti went to the cottage, I headed off to the beach with a book and some nice music for company. I settled down nicely on a rock and before I realised, I fell asleep. I woke up some time later only to realise that there were two dogs sitting next to me and I could hear their breathing! Suffices to say that I’m not too fond of dogs and when my efforts to shoo them away failed, I quickly got down from the rock and headed to the guest house.

Deepti and I went out for a walk in the beach in the evening.

We had an early dinner and retired to our cottage. It was quite comfortable for a night’s stay.

Some loud sound woke me up in the middle of the night and turned out that it was raining very heavily and it was the thunder that woke me up. Lightning and thunder through the night and the rain continued into the morning as well. It was a wet, but beautiful morning to wake up to.

We finished our breakfast and when the rain subsided a little, we again went out for walk on the beach.

Lunch was had and we stuck to our regular Indian fare of dal and roti. No fishing in troubled waters this time! Though it was quite chilly, I felt like getting into the waters one last time before we left and jumped in (well, not quite) rightaway while Deepti packed our stuff.

I came back to find a terribly scared Deepti. Rightly so, for she had found a scorpion among our clothes! Thankfully, no harm was done. When we told the guest house folks about it, a bunch of boys saw the scorpion and casually remarked that it must have come from the nearby forest area! Wasn’t so casual for us for sure! Scorpions are found in dry and hot areas and it’s quite unusual for a scorpion to be there. We thanked our stars that nothing untoward happened and set out for the Gokarna town to visit the temples and then reach the bus stop on time.

Some parting shots of the beach:

We then headed to the Gokarna town and visited the temples and just walked around the market area.

We got to the bus stop on time and the bus was ready. The staff were quite friendly and said we could expect to reach Bangalore latest by around 7 AM. We had dinner in Honnavar and slept thinking about the nice break gone by and the work lined up for Monday. But the nice break hadn’t completed it share of action yet! We were woken by a heated discussion at around 1 AM only to realise that we are stuck in the ghats because a truck ahead has broken down. While the police/NHAI didn’t move the truck, they added some mud to extend the road so that vehicles could pass by. But it had rained heavily and that patch of mud was now too dangerous to a carry buses full of passengers over.  We were stuck there for about 4 hours, until a crane arrive and moved the truck aside so that the vehicles could pass.

We were still in Tumkur by the time we were supposed to reach home in Bangalore. Even with that delay, we were hoping to reach Bangalore by at least 11 AM. But the traffic in Nelamangala, Yeshwanthpur and near Anand Rao Circle (because of some Janata Dal (Secular) event at Freedom Park) that we reached Jayanagar only at 1 PM, a delay by almost 6 hours! One quickly changed and headed off to office to salvage the rest of the day!

But all in all, it was a very adventurous, but an equally enjoyable trip! I’m also very happy that I sat down to write this blog post (it’s 3:25 AM now and I have to start early tomorrow!) and complete it.

Hope to keep the momentum going! NaNoWriMo anyone?