Travelogues : Gokarna

Gokarna was a place I had heard of only from archana, who had described her previous trip in her inimitable animated way. I had passed on the offer on a previous occasion but this time I was more than game. The number grew to 5 and for a change, we had decided the plan so much in advance that we had time to book a sleeper coach from Bangalore!

The adventure, if u can call it that, started even before we reached the place with only I making to the bus on time and others still stuck in one of the offices of the travel comp. After working a deal with the driver that he would drive the bus slow while the bus in which the other 4 are travelling catches up which finally happened after one hour into the journey at a Petrol Pump on the highway. I still remember one of the annoyed travellers asking me why I didn't tell them that the bus was being delayed for this reason and his reaction at my rather casual and terse "cse I dont need to". I'm sure he is justified in thinking of me as a spoilt young brat but in my defence I just meant that it was the driver's job to explain things to them.

After a rather smooth journey otherwise, we woke up to the our weekend and I, to the most beautiful place I've ever been to. Imagine a stretch of surprisingly clean beaches (3 of them) divided by some very treck-friendly hillocks full of greenery no doubt helped by the monsoons in between. Now, enhance that image 3 times. That is Gokarna for you. We had to cross two beaches and hillocks in between to reach to the famous 'OM' beach. Meanwhile, Sanoop lost a bet (deliberately, I doubt) and ended up treating everyone to some nice food.

Like typical backpackers, our stay was in the schacks by one of the beaches. Now, there is something about sitting on the huge rocks on a beach especially if they are some 35 feet into the sea. It was amazing how each of us found reasons and thoughts which made us sit on those rocks for hours together without speaking a word to each other. It has to be experienced to be believed. The two days were dominated by just lazing around on and around the beach, not to discount the treck on the paths so narrow that they would put to shame any size zero models' waist, at the edge of the hills over looking the sea from 50 feet above. Any person who sees those pics has without an exception thought it was some 'phoren' beach and that says a lot about it. We were so enamoured by the place that with in two days of returning to good old bangalore, we were thinking of travelling to that place again. Ofcourse that didn't work out, courtesy our conflicting schedules. May be the magic in the trip was that I never went there again. Will try to figure that at soon.

Some utterly useless trivia as a parting shot: the rock band lounge piranha's song 'Clear blue' was apparently inspired by their trips to Gokarna and the beauty of the place.

P.S.- Finally got some photos from my old flicker account. So now a litle more for your viewing