Blogs from Gokarna, Karnataka, India, Asia - page 7

Gokarna Gokarna is another lovely beach area on the west coast, just south of Goa. There are half a dozen different beaches which you can hike to from the main beach. We had an interesting trip to Gokarna from Kochi... and overnight bus got us to Mangalore where we were supposed to have a few hours before our bus to Gokarna. Unfortunately that bus never arrived despite us asking every single person who worked there at least three times and they assured us that it was coming. Finally after 8 hours of waiting they said, oh no, it's not coming, you should take this bus to Kumta. It was a state bus and the roads were horrific... it took us 8 hours to go 150 miles (240 km) and then we had to hire a rickshaw ... read more

Trip to gokarna was only for close to a day . Took a bus from panjim to Karwar, which went through south goa (was tempted to get down at palolem). Karwar(though we did not visit ) looked gorgeous too, speacilly the island(devbagh, I think). People looked fairly conservative(change from shorts to full cargoes). There are buses going from karwar to gokarna every half hour. Reached at 8 pm and stayed at gokarna internatioal( big rooms, have balconies, leaking walls,and eerie feeling).I was desperately waiting for the night to pass quickly.Got up the next morning and went to the gokarna village. Small alleys, lots of cows and cow shit. Felt like a village still in an ancient time period. Looked like a tight knit religious community, mostly brahmin dominated. You could still find people staying in wooden ... read more

Uggh... I just wrote for at least 20 min. - and I just lost the whole thing. Sorry if the last entry was hard to follow - I was just alittle tipsy. SO I had booked an overnight train ticket from Mumbai to Madgao - planning to catch a locall bus for 2hrs. from there straigh to Gokarna. But theat's not what happened. I met a girl on the train from England (living in Australia) who didn't have a place to sleep. She had bought a general class ticket (seat only), hoping to upgrade, but the train was more than full. So she sat with me and we stayed up late talking (got hushed by the conductor a couple of times). Then she spent the rest of the night moving around trying to find a spot ... read more

We're still baffled as to why people queued to hurl bananas at the gigantic chariots but nevertheless we dutifully joined in the religiuous fervour. Surely there was some deeply symbolic significance to the bananas but the real reason eluded us and the process appeared to resemble a cross between target practice and a food fight. The great wooden chariot (see pic from our last blog) had now been adorned in red and white flags, covering every inch of the wooden framing. Men stood in front of the massive chariot armed with banana missiles and aimed at the heart of the chariot in an attempt to land a banana through the door, or in some cases blatantly targetting the children inside. The kids responded by turfing the bananas back into the crowd - the ensuing result was ... read more

After a small backtrack south we find ourselves at Om beach, over the hill from the holy city of Gokarna and a world away from everything else. It's a laid back idyllic spot far removed from the hussle and bussle of the beaches of Varkala, Palolem and Patnem and by far the penultimate of the beach experiences so far. Cows meander along the sand nudging bare bodies with their noses, local boys frolic in the waves and travellers settle in and make the picture perfect beach home. At night bonfires dot the beach, and new friends are made over a deep conversation or a game of cards - Yarniff is the game of the moment and we've learnt some crazy new rules from the Israelis. There's no rickshaws, no cars, no motorbikes - the only noises ... read more