Gokarna

It started with Ashish’s birthday. We all got together (Ashish, Sukanya, Soham, Arnab and Me) and at the end of the meeting we were ready to go to Gokarna. Within 4days bus tickets and hotel were booked.

Gokarna is situated in Karanataka. It is 600+ kilometres away from Pune.  The beaches are as beautiful as they are in Goa but the beauty of this place is it is less commercialised and less crowded. We were very excited about this trip.

That is us (From left: Ashish, Sukanya, Soham, Me and Arnab):

On 25th November, 2016 we met at Chandni Chowk, Pune at 10pm. We booked tickets of Canara Pinto travels and as usual it was delayed. We were hungry so the first Dhaba we saw on the road we entered.
Happy Singh Da Dhaba was not ready to accept cards and Paytm and we were low on cash (I had Rs.350 with me). As we were genius enough, we ordered food from Foodpanda while sitting there.
The bus arrived at 11 pm and our journey started.
We slept like dead bodies. In the morning, once I could open my eyes for 4-5 seconds and what I saw was I have never seen before. The sun was rising and we were going by the woods. The black outlines of the trees could be seen from the beautiful red background. I was too sleepy to click pictures.

In the morning I woke up when the bus halted for freshening.
At 9am we reached at our hotel, Sanskruti Resort. Here is a picture of the resort:

We took breakfast there which was overpriced (Rs.250/- per plate). We had Dosa, Idli, Alu paratha and Bread toast as options. Here are some pictures of the room:

After changing clothes we jumped into the pool.

We got ready to explore at 3pm towards Gokarna beach.
3 scooties were rented at the rate of Rs.300 per day. Here is one warning. There was some feud going on between the owners of the scooties and the autowalas at that time. So it was reported that if scooties were unattended for a long time, sugar cubes were used to stop the engine from working. We saw one case of this.
We had lunch in one of the small shops on Gokarna beach. It is not advisable but we have restricted options. The beach was a bit crowded. The water was not clear.

We spent 10-15 minutes there and went to the main attraction, Om beach.
It is situated 5-6kms away from Gokarna beach. The name of the beach justifies the shape of it. It is in the shape of “Om”.

On the way we got a glance of Kudle beach. The water was shimmering like countless diamonds.

I have always enjoyed sunset at the beach. The view we experienced there was priceless. It seemed the sun was exploding its colours in the sky.

The sea was reflecting the reddish attire of the sky. The cool breeze was touching us. We could see that boats were sailing in the glittering water. One can easily fall for these moments. We lost the track of time there.

As we did not have proper food in a while, we all were hungry. We went to the nearby Namaste Cafe. It was situated on the beach.  We got the best food of this place here. We ordered: Prawn in Hot Garlic Sauce with Rice, Chicken Steak, Butter Chicken, Butter Roti, Fish Finger, Masala Crab, Prawn in Butter Garlic Sauce. When we saw the bill it was overwhelming. All these things costed only Rs. 1759/-. If you are coming to Gokarna, go to Namaste cafe for dinner. We are all fan of seafood and the seafood preparations were heavenly. One can enjoy the view of the beautiful seashore while having food here.

I wanted to have a little walk after ordering. Arnab accompanied me. Dusk was falling at the background. The only light one could see was the light of the boats. I was lying down on sands while the water was touching my feet. Up above the stars were glittering. Apart from the stars, the white waves and the lights of the boats everything was dark. The nature was talking through the waves only. I have often felt that in this kind of serenity and darkness, life touches me. It was soulful.

We had fear of the mishap with the scooties. After having dinner we came back to the hotel. Gokarna is a place where one can easily find temples in every corner of the road. There was some holy celebration going on that night. We saw local people were standing in the queue in front of a temple. While returning I looked back  and found out that the path we left behind got decorated by fireworks.
Although we had plans but we were tired to jump into the pool. So instead of doing that, Arnab, Soham and I planned to chat till middle of the night beside the pool.
The next morning we woke up at 6 in the morning to go to Kudle beach. It was near Om beach. This beach was not as calm as the beaches we explored earlier.

There waves were huge and fierce. They were running towards the rocks to crush them. On could hear the roar of the waves from a distance. This one was less crowded. The beauty of this beach was wilder than the others.

We had a gala time there. After a while we went to have tea at a nearby teashop. We paid Rs.30/- there and it was not worth it.

 

We came back to visit Mahabaleswar temple. We could not take pictures there. Here are some rules to follow in the temple:

1. Take bath before going there.
2. Prefer Indian clothes.
3. The guys have to remove clothes of their upper body. They are very strict about it.

Remember, Gokarna is a very religious place.

On the way we saw the following temple chariot:

After visiting the temple, we went to have breakfast at “Pai restaurant”. This was a pocket friendly restaurant with good food. We ordered Puri bhaji and it costed us Rs. 30/-per plate. Then we came back to hotel to pack our bags. Our bus was in the evening. We planned it this way that we would checkout at 12 am and would keep our bags in the hotel. We would take our scooties which we booked for 1 and half days and would roam around.
We stuck to the plan. First we headed towards Om Beach. We had plans to go to Halfmoon beach via boat from there.
After bargaining we got the boat for 5(of us) and one other couple at a price of Rs.2000/-. We were dropped at the seashore.

Halfmoon beach was not crowded at all. The water was clear. We spent half an hour there.
While coming back they took a slight different way and whoa! We saw a group of dolphins. It was awesome.

We came back at the Om beach to have our lunch at Namaste cafe.

If you really want to get attached to a place, you need to visit its random paths. We wanted to see the regular life of Gokarna. While coming back from there, we started to roam around. We followed the first way we saw and kept going until evening touched us.

It was already 5.30pm and we needed to buy some things from Gokarna. We went to a shop near Gokarna beach. I bought a handmade diary. We returned our vehicles at the hotel and collected out belongings. When we left the hotel the clock was ticking at 6pm. We had a bus to catch at 7pm.
We knew we were creating unforgettable memories. We knew we might not be coming back here ever again. We felt every moment spent there. We enjoyed nature’s raw beauty. We could not afford to miss a single chance to live the beauty of the ocean. Given a chance any day I would like to come back here if the place remains same.

The bus dropped us at 4am at Katraj.

Here are some information that may be useful:

Bus:- Canara Pinto Travels Price: Rs.1270/- each

Hotel:-Sanskruti Resort (Try to book cottages). We booked 2 cottages. Price: Rs. 2680/-+ Rs. 3380/-+Rs. 1200/- (For extra bed)

Recommendations for food:-Namaste Café (If you want to have good food at a reasonable price).

Pai Restaurant (Near Gokarna. It is very pocket friendly).

So this is Soham, the photographer who clicked most of these awesome pictures.

That is me. I just could not stop showing off.