Gokarna

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March 2008. Sandhya, my batchmate from college paid the Bangalore gang a visit. The plan was to go for a road trip around Bangalore. She really wanted to go to Coorg, but since I was just back from Coorg I insisted we go somewhere else. I did feel bad, later on, about making her change her plans because of me. So the four of us and Rahul (Tipu) decided to head out for Gokarna. But we misplanned the trip and started only late in the evening. We werent able to appreciate the beautiful route to the beach town. But that was made up by the interesting conversations we had on our way.

We passed through curvy steep western ghats with dense forests. It would have been great if the journey had been in daytime. We reached Gokarna early in the morning.

The beach was just optimally crowded. There were several beaches separated by small hills. We could trek over the hills and go from one beach to the other. On the last beach in the row we hired a boat which took us to the beaches not easily accessible. We managed to spot some dolphins too in the ocean. The coast line at Gokarna was uniquely beautiful. We could see big mountains directly merging into the ocean. The beaches were surrounded by mountains on three sides and had ocean on the fourth. We ate and drank at a shack and sometime around 4 headed back for Bangalore.

Once again we ended up traveling in the dark and missed the beautiful part of the journey. It was raining heavily on the way back and our driver was drowsy too. We were happy to be back safe in Bangalore the next morning.

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