Kuddle beach - Pradise or Hell on Earth... You decide

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So, let me retrace my thought process.

The title of the last blog refers to the unseemly amount of draft dodging young Israelis here. They are everywhere and so unfriendly. Desperately trying hard to be hippies of a sort, they seem to spend their time getting stoned, comparing dreadlocks and ignoring anyone who doesn't have dreadlocks or cheesecloth clothing. Or else they are busy telling their friends back home or elsewhere just how "amazingly cosmic, dude" , this place is.

I have taken delight in making a loud buzzing sound, (like a hair shaver), whenerver they get on my nerves. This is done to remind them what will happen to those precious dreadloicks once the army officer gets to them when they have to return home for compulsory sign up!

I know it sounds a bit harsh but that's my reality.

Back to the journey.

So after the train we were met by Anath from Gokarn International Beach resort. He was wandering around the windswept station, ( containing only us four foreigners), looking for one "Willse Mannen."

The pronunciations and spellings of my name have been priceless. I have taken to answering that my name is "Purple Brown", whenever I am asked "Sir, What is your Good name?".
Believe me, that question is asked, with mind numbing frequency, every where you go in India.

Anath had over booked the rooms and our friends from SF had to stay somewhere else for one night. We were however, transported by auto rickshaw over steep, bumpy, dark mountain roads with one suitcase perched and bouncing atop the vehicle and one sharing our small seat in the back.

Being pitch black - the shed of stars our only light, the journey seemed to take for ever. And then it ended. Abruptly.

Luckily we had read in the Rough Guide that it was a bit of a trek to get to the hotel - otherwise it would have seemed like a roadside hold up.

Thoughts of ,"well this is where we get mugged" , etc were heightened when several head wrapped, teenagers appeared by torch light up a steep cliff side.

Three things stick in your mind at a time like this.
1) They have climbed up the rock face to meet you - they are not here by accident
2) If you survive the mugging - you have to climb down to sea lvevel somehow
3) You have no idea where you have been taken and no one knows you are here.

Trusting our host Anath, we watched as the youngsters threw our suitcases onto their heads and set off at a trot down the dark mountain side.

You will remember our combined luggage is 45kgs+, and every kilo of that weighs double when I try to lift it so am humbled by their dexterity.

The "path", a term used very lightly, continued along loose shale and boulders for ten, starlit, minutes, before hitting a bend and continuing for a dark, gloomy five minutes more.

Finally we hit a cow. On the beach.

She stood rock solid in our path, almost like a welcoming party. I was dying to see how she had spelled my name, but alas there was no note tied around her neck.

So with the sea lapping on our left side and just a few twinkling lights to our right we set off after our luggage ( still being head ported, even though we were to walk further along the level beach).

The night time temperaturew here is a balmy 27 degrees and the days can get to 37. Thankfully in the daytime, there is that infamous "thin wind"

The first thing we did in the morning was bump into our friends Mark and Sara who had been staying next door to our place for a few days. They gave us the low down on what was hot and what was not. They were right about one thing though, the hippies here are super unfriendly.

Having successfully negotiated a weekly rate for a brolly - couldn't possibly go through another brolly war like in Vakala -we lay down to catch some sun and also some well needed shade.

The beach is beautiful. Just a few small resorts and a couple of restaurants - it's just on the right side of "developed". It is fringed by palm trees and the water is chest deep and just perfect for swimming.

The human and animal co inhabitants of Kuddle beach include:

A herd of real Hippies
A gathering of Psuedo gap year / acountant style "hippies"
A herd of real cows
A pack of ferral dogs and some with collars - more later
A multitude of annoying Israeli wasters
Several sprawling trying to stay "cool" families
A few Sadhus (holy men)
About ten or twelve necklace and bongo drum salesmen

And a smaller gathering of us.

We are the enemy. The so called capitalists. We wear clothes bought in a shop and have recently had our hair cut. We, the few in number, regular independent travelers, with our sun brollies and sun factor 40 and need for hot water are, in the eyes of the hippies "The thin end of the wedge", as was told to our friends John and Judy while they stayed here.
They were informed that the beach would never be the same again now that "others" had started to arrive.
So much for peace and harmony and sharing the love. Seems to me that love and Peace is only handed out to dreadlocked "people of the safron cheesecloth robes".

These people need to smile more.

So the dog isue is a big problem here. While we were sitting reading our books and trying to ignore the sellers, these dogs were chasing and rampaging up and down the beach.
We went to lunch and thougt nothing of leaving our towels and brolly as they were.

I noticed that the leader of the pack, a rangy dark brute, had decided our brolly was the best shaded place to rest from his carousing.
As I carefully went to remove him he lunged for me all angry teeth and gums snarling and gnashing. He is the smae size of a thin Alsation.

I have no fear of dogs and have always been around them but this one terrified the life out of me.

Particularly as he was now clamped firmly to my knee.

I was wondering what to do - shirtless and wearing only thin shorts and flip flops, I was, at 6'3", easy pickings for this brute. I dont really know what happened but he was joined by a few of his dog friends and their frantic barking seemed to goad him on.

Now I was really frightened.

I was hoarse with the shouting and could not defend myself as I really wanted to stay upright -
if I hit the sand they would have really savaged me. The only weapon I had was my phisical size and my very loud voice. My flip flop , had I been able to get at it would have been shreadded in an instant, and would have beean as useful as if I had thrown a tissue to them.

Finally after what seemed like ages and with a growing crowd of "us" shouting and not "them" (the hippies being oblivous), the dogs retreated.
I fully expected to see blod streaming from my leg, and could imagine trying to get up that bloody cliff and then be bumped to a hospital, three hours away, for rabies shots.

Mercifully my very thin , very cheap, and now,very blessed shorts saved my leg from being punctured.
It was badly marked but miracously, no blood spilled.

The owners of the restaurants all apologized and said that the dogs would be "dealt" with. I will wait to see.

A cull of the feral dogs and tighter control of the owned ones awould certainly sort out the problem. As for the cows - that one is easy. Cattle should not exist on a diet of tourist books and handouts from fruit sellers. Put them in a pen and look after them properly. They can be quite threatening as they just lumber along the beach and nose up along side you. I have taken to bringing a dog/cow stick every day. Not the most relaxing way to spend the day.

Our friends John and Judy from UK and Shelly (who makes Fairy wings) have already shipped out of here as a direct result of the dogs on the beach. I have a feeling more will follow.

I'm on a roll; now....

The hawkers are really anoying too. Every day, at least twenty times, they will try to sell you some useless piece of crap jewellery and will be quite persistant until you do.

No one wants to spend their time swatting at dogs while they read their books.
Be warned that Kuddle Beach, Gokarna, is not an easy place to be.


Dogs and cattle are easy to deal with. People are a differend breed altogether and they talk. And the recomend places. For all its seeming paradis qualities, I could not recomend it.

Maybe that Hippy will get his way and people will stop coming to "his" beach.

I wonder who he will sell his "handmade seashore findings' jewellery to then?

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