Gokarna : The Land of Peace

Gokarna is a small Hindu temple town, 480 kms north-west of Bengalooru. Gokarna is famous for its Mahabaleswar temple, where the Shivling is beneath the sea-level. The Mahabaleshwar temple enshrines the Aatma Lingam of Lord Shiva. Legend has it that the holy Lingam was given by Shiva to King Ravana to make his kingdom an invincible fortress. Varuna and Ganesha tricked Ravana into placing the Lingam here and in spite of the might exerted by Ravana , the Lingam remained rooted to the ground. Apart from this, Gokarna is also famous for its idyllic beaches, mostly untouched by the commecrialisation so rampant in the beaches of Goa.

How to reach:

There are direct buses from Bangalore to Gokarna. KSRTC(Karnataka State Road transport Corporation) has a daily Sarige bus from Majestic at 2030 hours. Travelling by this bus is like an adventure in itself so much that one of my future blogs is going to be dedicated for this.
For the less-adventurous folks and comfort-seeking folks, VRL and Sugama buses run daily.
VRL bus is a sleeper bus and tickets can be booked online. It takes around 12-13 hours by bus, depending upon the route the bus takes.

There are no direct trains from Bangalore to Gokarna. Trains on Konkan railway have a halt for 2 minutes at Gokarna road station. Not all trains stop here though. However, some like Matsyagandha express(Mangalore-Mumbai via Madgaon) do stopover to provide much needed relief to wanderers like me who can't desist either goa or gokarna.

What to see:

Gokarna is a small Hindu religious town. However unlike most other famous temples, Mahabaleswar temple here seems to be devoid of touts lurking in large numbers.
Apart from this temple, there is one more Ganesh temple nearby. The small shops in the town sell religious items, pshychdellic T-shirts, Trace music CDs etc. The town is mostly centred around the KSRTC bus - stand. About a kilometer from the bus-stand , the Gokarna beach starts , forming the coast of the town. As you trudge along the narrow lanes of the town towards the beach(the lane is named 'Samudra Marg'), you will come across houses of priests where some religious talk will be going on or people invoking the Holy Lord with chants or somebody learning classical music.

The Gokarna beach is like a typical Indian family beach, where you will have the beach teemed with entire families from grand-pa/mom to chotu, motu and pinky-rinky. Young couples with clasped hands enjoying the breeze from the sea and fishermen going about their work i.e. venturing out into the sea, lying nets etc. are a few common sights in Gokarna beach. The extreme right end of the beach is a more quiet place for people seeking some solitude. Incidentally you will see many foreigners truding along towards further right from the end of the beach. Maybe some other beach like Honey or Honnibail beach might be there, as one local suggested. Gokarna beach has a few shacks, but most of them serve juice, puri's, samosas; not for guys like me who like to gorge on some continental stuff.

At the left end of the Gokarna beach, a narrow path goes up a hill, where you cross a temple en-route. After climbing up some stairs, you will find flat ground and some breath-taking views of Gokarna beach as you turn-around to see the distance you covered. As you move along, about 10 minutes walk from this place, the flat ground leads to a narrow lane, which goes down to Kudle beach, the second of Gokarna's beaches. This beach looks very unkempt, desolate and dirty in off-seasons. You will hardly find a soul here then. But come season time between November- February, this beach will be dotted with hippies. Very few Indians are sighted on this beach, and mostly day trippers. Sunset-Cafe , on Kudle beach, is heaven if you are lazy and like to dig yourself into a rice pudding(and dozing off in between). This cafe offers good food and suits my taste buds pretty well. French toast here is a must for foodies. This is one beach where one can know more about the female human anatomy than any biology class. In season time, quite a few shacks operate in Kudle beach. Most of them have rooms behind the restaurants. Rents are around 200 INR for a very basic and around 350-400INR for a little better room. The seabed here looks more shallow and inviting. Its very safe to get into water even for non-swimmers.

At the extreme end of the Kudle beach, a small meandering path leads up the hill and we came onto a well-laid pitched road. For the non-adventurous folks, a walk down this road will lead to the main road, which is about 500metres from OM beach. For the more adventurous, instead of taking the pitched road, you can go straight and walk across the small trees for around 15 minutes and directly get down at the starting point of the OM beach. For avid trekkers like us,
we took a route which goes in the opposite direction of the pitched road, made our way through the thorny bushes and went down onto the rocks on the shore. This is the rocky part of the OM beach. From here , it takes around 10 minutes, crossing the rocks and landing up directly on the OM beach.

OM beach is so named, because the shape is like that of the Hindu religious symbol "OM".
OM beachs is about a kilometer from the main Gokarna town and fully approachable by road, unlike Kudle. In fact out of the 5 beaches, only Gokarna and OM beach are approachable by road. For the other 3 beaches including Kudle, hiking or taking a boat ride are the two ways.

At the start of the OM beach is Namaste Cafe, by far the best shack in OM beach in terms of quality of rooms, beds and toilets. The food is good over here, but somehow I like the food in Ganesh cafe better than Namaste. Don't forget to try out Honey Pan Cake at Namaste. Apart from these two, there are innumerable other shacks during season time catering to tourists. But in off-season, these two were the only two shacks still open. Off season prices in Namaste are like 200 INR for single room, 400 INR for double-bed(with attached bathroom). Hippies abound in Gokarna, more so in OM beach. One can get good boat-rides from here to all other beaches and Gokarna town from OM beach. The sand here is like white-sand. Although season time, its great to visit OM beach; its the start-of-season time when monsoon is just over is the best time to be in OM beach. Watching the high-tides smashing into the rocks, sea gulls frolicking away , fishermen going about their jobs are a few sights which brighten up the soul.

At the end of the OM beach, we took another path going up the hill. here we have to get around a hillock(about 20-minutes walk) to reach Half-Moon beach. Half-moon beach is so named because the shape resembles that of a half-moon. During season, the path is pretty well laid out. But at start of season, look out for thorns in the bushes. They hurt!!! In between one can take a diversion and take some rest below a palm tree on the edge of a cliff, from where one can try to catch a glimpse of the horizon. There will be many zig-zags , but make sure that one gets around the hill rather than unnecessarily climb up the hill. Once one gets down to Half-moon beach, he or she can see the ure beauty of this beach. During season , a couple of shacks operate on this beach. This is no electric power on this beach. Hence its like totally cut off from civilization.
But its during off-season, when you will be the sole inhabitant of this beach without any shacks operational. When I set out on my first solo trip to gokarna, and I landed up on this beach, I spent one entire day here, doing absolutely nothing!!!.. Remined me of Cast-Away :-) The rooms on this beach are pretty basic. They set you back by around 150 INR per night. If you are going in-season , don't forget to try the corn-flakes with cold milk, fruits and honey. Gosh the foodie in me refuses to lie down!!!

At the end of the half-moon beach, a small trail leads to Paradise beach, also known as Full-moon beach. Its around 20 minutes walk from Half-moon beach. The thing to remember here is after crossing the first set of rocks, one should not try to climb the hill. Rather try getting around the hill. Its a much easier climb. The steep climb up the hill will take you to the next village, Bellekan. We did the trek from Half-Moon at night , and mistakenly took the way up the hill and landed up in this village. Had to cross some two hills. Anyways, after getting round the hill, one will come across Paradise beach. This is the last of the Gokarna beaches. Pretty much isolated from the crowd, Paradise, the name suits this beach well. Its an absolute paradise! Its a very rocky beach, with sand in between. Waves are very strong, and it is quite dangerous to go out very far into the sea. Evergreen cafe is the first shack on this beach, It has a few basic huts. Rooms on this beach are basically huts on the hillock. Toilet facilities are there, but sometimes water runs out. So, better to take a empty bottle, fill with sea-water, and then climb up the
hill :))

Apart from Evergreen, there are a few more shacks on this beach. A special mention for Anil Bhai, the guy who operated that shack. He is a gem of a person. He caters to numerous orders, sometime looses his cool , but all in good-nature. Anil Bhai - we bow to you. Hope to meet you again next season. Food is good in Evergren cafe. If you are a non-veggie, don't miss out on chicken steak with boiled vegetables.

The night we went to Paradise, there were no rooms to stay, and we slept on the beach. We looke at the constellations, and saw shooting stars. Some of my most memorable memories of 2008. Music from Shiva full moon, phsycedellic trance etc. were the icing on the cake that night. Lights from Ships, patrol boats are the ones you can see at far off distances. Generally, holy-men coming from far-off places in India, original hippies or people trying to find out more about themselves, land up on this beach. This beach can be reached either by trek, as I wrote above or by boat or by a bus to Bellekan village(its a 10 minute walk from there.) Buses run between Gokarna and Bellekan.

*This beach is strictly not recommended for people who want comforts*.

Phew, this is an exhaustive blog and seems to have covered everything.

Return trip:

Who wants to return from Gokarna? But somebody has to pay the bills...sigh..

There is a KSRTC sleeper bus at 1930 hours, VRL sleeper bus at 1900 hours from Gokarna.

Finally:

1. Don't litter the beaches.
2. Stay away from people who approach you with grass(you will find in plenty).
3. All orders take time here. So let time go at its own pace.
4. Happy Tripping.

Some Fotos:

1. Solo Backpacking in Gokarna during start-of-season:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solitary_harvester/sets/72157607067325168/

2. Gokarna as part of Great Indian Road trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solitary_harvester/sets/72157612093366902/

Back to Blogging

After a hiatus of more than a year, I have decided to pen down some of my thoughts lest I also get afflicted with something similar to 15-minute-back-to-amnesia , as typified in 'Ghajini'.

So here we go...