Also See part 1 and Gokarna Image Gallery

We arrived at Gokarna Road station around noon, walked to the main road and took a ‘tempo’ to Om Beach.

Near the train station…

Near the train station…

The gang had fairly good plans to spend the four days in Gokarna and there was plenty of moving around to do. But I had decided to take it as a more relaxed weekend, doing nothing much but wander around the beaches.

Arriving at Namaste

We arrived on Saturday morning and checked into the beach side accommodation at Namaste . Namaste resort is built right next to the famous Om Beach and it is a pleasure to sit on the restaurant which is right next to the sands. But the first thing that stuck me when we reached there was that it was an illegal construction built right on the beach. There are many such structures in Gokarna.

Vista of Om beach

We spent the first evening relaxing, walking around and exploring the beach. Like I do often these days, I left my camera behind and spent time watching the waves hit the rock. It was a pleasant evening spent till the hours of sunset, sitting on the rocks that were lashed by waves.

Rocks of Om Beach

A section of Om Beach

Most of the group left for Yana next morning but three of us stayed behind. We started the day late, but an overcast sky meant it did not matter what time of the day is it. We walked northwards to Gokarna town, along the sea shore passing through beautiful rocky shoreline. The seashore around Gokarna is covered with porous chocolate brown rocks inhabited crabs that make a quick run to nearest hiding on sighting anyone approaching. There was a lone fisherman with a long thread, the only human anywhere around us. He had not caught anything since morning, and it did not look like he was too bothered about it. We had lost our way while sticking to the shore and and after consulting the fisherman and some minor rock climbing later, we were back on the bridle path to Gokarna. But we were glad to move off the track, or we would have missed that beautiful rocky shoreline completely.

Rocky shoreline north of Om Beach

Walking along the shore, north of Om Beach

The lone fisherman

The path took us through Kudle beach, which is dirty, full of garbage and many seaside tourist accommodation. An otherwise pretty beach was now in a completely avoidable state. Another fifteen minutes of walk over the hill took us to Gokarna town, where we encountered a couple of temples and narrow streets.

A Woman of Halakki Tribe, She was all smiles

Gokarana is a temple town and a pilgrimage center with a well known temple of Shiva in the name of Mahabaleshwara. Our entry to the town happened through a narrow lane which is very typical of the towns in coastal Karnataka. The structures of the town have a distinct boundary, beyond which is an open space. The first thing we encountered in the town was a Ganapathi temple. The first sights of the town included a few priests walking around and Hallakki tribeswomen selling flowers(big, beautiful hibiscus) and other things of worship. We walked past them and headed towards a lane that was makred ‘to the beach’. Before we hit the beach, we encountered a restaurant which reminded that it was already beyond lunchtime.

Gokarna Beach..

Walking along the Gokarna Beach..

A long and lazy lunch meant we spend almost two hours killing time in the restaurant, till it was evening and a good time to hit the beach. And Gokarna beach turned out to be the best of all beaches, with fine sand, wide beach front which was many kilometers long, lasting as long as we could see. We took a lazy walk along the beach, made a failed attempt to play cricket with children for whom we were unwelcome guests, and eventually settled down somewhere till the hour of sunset. It was a pleasant and quiet evening at the beach.

Kids @ Gokarna Beach..

A girl @ Gokarna Beach..

It was dark when we walked back to Namaste and the gang that had gone to Yana had still not arrived. We had our dinner while waiting for them to come in, and hear their stories. They sure had a good trip and a good time as much as we did.

The centre of Om Beach

The next morning, everyone headed to Gokarna and rest of us again made other plans. We stayed back and walked around Om Beach in the morning hours. As the Sun climbed higher, a friend and I took a bike and started a two hour ride to Sirsi in pouring rains.

Though I am familiar with the landscapes of coastal Karnataka and the Sahayadris, had never ridden on these roads. It was a pleasure to ride on the open roads, and the rains added a lot of fun to it. As we entered the thick forests of Sahyadri, it started becoming cooler and pleasant and the rains also stopped. Two hours and three stops for tender coconut, chai and lunch, we reached Sirsi and settled down there for rest of the day. A hot bath, awesome weather and intermittent rains kept us in great mood. I took a bus from Sirsi back to Bangalore the same night, ending the three day journey along the beaches and hills.

Rest of the gang stayed back at Gokarna for another day and made it back to Bangalore the morning after.

Gokarna Information
Gokarna has been a temple town and well known pilgrimage center in the south for a long time, known for it’s temple of Shiva in the name of Mahabaleshwara. But in the last one decade, influx of foreign tourist looking for less explored destinations outside Goa has made Goakarna’s beaches famous. There are five well known beaches – Gokarna beach, Kudle, Om, Half moon and paradise beaches, ordered from North to South. Of the first three I have seen, Om is the most well known one but I personally found Gokarna beach more appealing. What really impressed me are not the beaches but the colourful rocky seashore north of Om Beach. One of the well known activities in Gokarna is to walk along these beaches in the night. But you also see many signs all over the place saying that walking in the night is dangerous. It is probably safe as long as you are not alone.

Gokarna is connected by single KSRTC bus and a couple of private buses from Bangalore. If you can’t find a place in that, consider travelling to any of the nearby towns – Karwar or Kumta and then change over to a bus to Gokarna. It is a long drive from Bangalore if you want to take the car(May be 500kms). You can choose one of the following routes:
1. Take NH4 to Tumkur, turn left and take NH206 for next 300kms till Honnavar. Then

take NH17 north and pass through Kumta town. You need to turn left after driving for 30 minutes from Kumta. You may not find any signs, so keep asking for directions beyond Kumta.
2. Take NH4 out of Bangalore and drive all the way to Hubli(400kms). Take Hubli-Ankola highway from Hubli till you hit NH17(approx 140km). Take NH17 towards south and ask for directions to Gokaran, which is a right turn from NH17.

There is a train station station 12km from Gokarna, called Gokarna Road Station. This is on the Konkan railway line between Mangalore and Goa; there are no direct trains from Bangalore.

Namaste on Om beach is the most well known accommodation for budget travellers. Kudle beach also has some acco, but nothing worth a mention. If you are on a pilgrimage, you can stay at budget hotels in the town.

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Related Posts

• Walks in India: Gokarna
• A Long Weekend @ Gokarna’s Beaches – I

Also see Part II and Gokarna image gallery

This was meant to be a one-post story but the journey to Gokarna had so much fun element in it, it deserves a full chapter in itself.

When a friend posted a Gokarna travel plan on an internet group of offline friends, she probably never knew what would be the outcome. May be 4 to 6 people is what she would have had in mind. But responses started pouring in and numbers kept growing. Two weeks of discussions and we had a group of more than 20 people!

Such a large group naturally called for elaborate planning and discussion threads ran into more than 100 posts. At the end of brainstorming, we decided to travel easy, take an overnight bus to Mangalore on Friday night and then experience a journey on Konkan Railway northwards to reach Gokarna.

Konkan Railway – train passes through a tunnel

9PM is when the bus was expected to leave for Mangalore, and we met at KSRTC bus stand a little before that. Though most people knew each other, not everyone knew everyone and a round of introductions followed. It looked like no one seemed to be keen to move out, as we were still at the platform at 9PM. Finally when we all were in the bus, we had to counter a grumbling conductor who was unhappy about us turning up late. It seems they even made an announcements for us but obviously there is very slim chance of anyone actually listening to those blaring and sonorous loudspeakers in the noisy crowded platform. As more than half the ticket holders in the bus had’t turned up, they naturally felt compelled to wait.

Once we were in the bus, it turned out to be a big job just to ensure that everyone who is supposed to be on the bus is present. Being an unorganized leaderless and yet a large group, we did not even have a list of names of people, and there was no way to tell if someone had not turned up. After matching the number of tickets in hand with the people, we were on our way to Mangalore, after a delay of may be fifteen minutes.

We had a situation in hand to address for the next morning. Out train was to leave Mangalore next morning at 6.50AM. We had booked a bus that was leaving early to ensure that we reach on time. But the road from Bangalore to Mangalore would easily qualify for one of the worst roads in the country. The driver said we would make it to Mangalore only around 7AM. We begged him to go faster.

We were noisy enough in the bus that probably no one got to sleep for most of the journey. As if that was not enough, we had a birthday girl and a ‘Happy Birthday to You..” erupted in the bus at midnigh! The end of the song was succeeded by angry remarks from the conductor – “Don’t you see there are other people in the bus? Do you think this is your private vehicle? You should know to let them sleep..”

Rest of the journey was uneventful but the pothole ridden ride ensured that no one managed to catch a shut eye. The bus moved slowly along the bad roads but we were still on track to make it on time for the train. But the larger forces governing the universe have always ensured that Murphy’s Law kicks in at the right place at the right moment! 30km short of Mangalore, a tyre burst came in as the first obstacle and forced us to contemplate on a Plan B. The driver insisted to continue driving but at a much slower pace now and we would never make it on time at that speed. The kind and helpful conductor made a few calls and arranged for a backup bus to come and take us, but it would still mean loosing some time waiting for the bus. In the meanwhile we made plans to get down at Kankanady – the station before Managalore, which would give us another 10 minutes before boarding the train.

Instead of waiting for the backup bus, we flagged the first bus that came on our way and started moving. Murphy’s law was still working on us, and as we reached near Kankanady, heavens opened up and it started pouring madly. We got down from the bus and ran the half a kilometer distance to the station in rain, but we were already 5 minutes late. As if the rains were only meant to play with us, it stopped raining as soon as we all reached the station!

As we entered the station, there was a train arriving and leaving just then from the next platform. We ran that way only to realize that it was not our train. There was a moment to relax after some anxious queries to check if our train had already left, and which platform is it expected to arrive it.

After all that drama and the moments of excitement, we found ourselves waiting at the station for the train that arrived an hour late!

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Related Posts

• Walks in India: Gokarna
• A Long Weekend @ Gokarna’s Beaches – II

Bandipur -> Wayanad -> Kozhikode -> Guruvayur -> Cochin -> Periyar

+Previous: Around Fort Kochi
+Next: A Tourist’s Eye View of Kerala
+Go to the beginning of the series

When we were planning a Kerala trip, the backwaters was something we had in our mind. The backwaters seem to be Kerala’s most prominent attraction, and I had heard every one who visited the backwaters raving a lot about it.

A bit of research revealed that the houseboats – fully equipped boats in which you can spend a day or two in the backwaters, are expensive and can leave a hole in the pocket. The next option was a much inexpensive day-long shared boat trip from Aleppey, but many reviews said it can get monotonous and boring after sometime. We looked around in Fort Kochi about our options and finally took a package that gave us a two hour chartered trip on a small boat, along with Ayurvedic massage and a special Kerala lunch.

The place where we would start our backwaters journey was a good thirty minutes drive from Kochi. As we drove, we noticed that we were driving through small, narrow landmasses surrounded by water all around. Ubiquitous coconut trees donned the landscapes. Occasionally we saw water bodies isolated from rest of the backwaters by mud barricades. Our driver told us that these are private properties barricaded to grow fish or prawn. We talked between us and wondered if a person’s value in Kerala is measured by how many acres of water does he own, like it is measured in acres of land elsewhere! The drive that took us amidst endless spread of water and coconut, and was very pretty.

Our journey on the backwaters started from a small channel of water intersecting one of the roads. The boat could take four travelers, a guide and the boatman. Water Hyacinth had conquered a good part of the channel, and the guide and the boatman had to struggle a bit to get through them to reach an open area.

Our guide was a friendly man who smiled often and talked as much as he can. He spoke broken but easy to understand English. And he had two versions of it – one which he used to converse with us and the other when he acted as a guide. When he spoke to us, it was more natural and casual. And when he switched himself to being a guide he became serious, seemed like a robot taught to repeat what had been taught, with no expressions or emotions whatsoever. He would once chat casually, then sit silent for a while and suddenly transform himself into the ‘guide’ mode:

“This backwater is having six months fresh water six months salt water. When rain is coming fresh water is coming.. when summer is coming, sea water is coming inside and it is becoming salty. The water is black but not dirty. The soil color is black, so water color is also becoming black. But clean.. not dirty.. This water hyacinth is growing in fresh water and dying when salt water is coming.. You see these are Chinese fishing nets.. they are putting this in the water and taking it out.. and fish is coming in the net when taking out.. you understanding..?”

It was great fun listening to his ‘guide accent, as he repeated with a machine like non-chalance the same thing that he would have been telling many travellers. But he was informative too, and knew well about all the information that a tourist would be interested in. We went through a wide ground(of water!) where snake boat races were held annually. We saw several Chinese Fishing Nets that were abandoned because they could not function effectively in dense Hyacinth population. He took took us to a place where they manufactured different products from coconut fiber(coir). Not that we wanted to visit one such place, but he said with this ‘guide’ accent -

“Now I will show you coir manufacturing.. understanding? Are you interested in seeing coir making…?”

and without waiting for our answer he jumped out of the boat and started moving on. We followed him mutely like sheep herded in a pre-planned route. We had started our backwaters trip around 4.30pm, spent the sunsets hours in the water and a good 30 minutes after that till it got really dark, and returned back. It was a worthy experience and an excellent introduction to Kerala’s most well known attraction.

The backwaters of Kerala, also called Vembanad lake, spread on a large area from Kumarakom and Aleppey in the south to Kochi in north. Though this region is primarily filled with water, has many landmasses in the middle of it. Boats are as much a means of commute as are the roads in this area. The lake will be filled with freshwater during the rainy season and a few months after that; and salt water comes in during summers. Water Hyacinth grows quickly and fills up the surface of the lake when there is freshwater, but they die when the water becomes salty.

Traditional economy of this area is fishing and coconut trees, but now backwater tourism contributes significantly to the economy. Aleppey is a hub for backwater tourism where you can hire houseboats or take day trips. Houseboats or Kettuvallam are generally expensive and start only at prices above Rs.2000 per night, but a day trip starts at as little as Rs.350. You may be able to find people offering shorter rides at lesser prices, as the one we took. A backwaters trip is one of the most important experiences of Kerala and is a definite must do.

To be continued..

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• At Thekkady – Periyar Tiger Reserve
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• A Tourist’s eye view of Kerala
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