… gokarna, a lotus by any other name would taste as sweet
Late march, around the 23rd, arrived at Gokarna. The dream of a relaxed sit by a beach with a sunset over the ocean was coming closer. It was a near thing … made the morning train from Mangalore with plenty of time to spare, and then fluffed around watching the world go by … watching every station because I had no idea how long the journey to Gokarna road station would be. At one point, I decided to relax, and order a (slightly runny) ice cream from one of the walk through vendors. This of course was two seconds before arrival at Gokarna station (on the opposite side of the train). After wondering why we had stopped for 2 minutes, then across and seeing “Gokarna road railway station” signposted right where I didn’t expect it, hurling my day pack, backpack, and icecream over my shoulder, I landed on the station with 30 seconds to spare.
The promised bus in the corner of the small isolated station looked full, and I was starting to get harrassed by auto drivers trying to convince me that there was no bus ever or not for hours. I wandered over anyway, and though the minibus was full, people started shoving baggage and people around to make room. I had a luxury spot in the front seat, and somehow there was room for four other backpackers.
Reach central Gokarna through its one meandering main road. A short walk down the road there is the chariot to end all chariots. Unfortunately, I’ve missed Mahashivarastri and the Hindu New Year, which would have seen this improbable machine move down the main street of the village with barely a metre on either side. Certainly wouldn’t be an insurance assessor for one of these affairs.
Gokarna village itself is peaceful and kind of reassuring … a bit touristy, but not in an aggressive sense. Everything is just a bit small … houses, people, cars (a few four wheel drives break the pattern), hotels, even cows ….it gives the place a fairy tale feel … timeless in a very indian sense. One of the temples (one closed to non hindus) has what looks like a giant lotus coming from its roof … this is the guiding symbol of the town.
I avoid a couple of touts and auto drivers, and rather than head back up the road to one of the guide-reccomended lodges, I head towards the sea. On the way, I get pulled into one small lodging and check out the room … minimal, cheap, fan, but wait … no outlet. Fifty metres further down the road, I find a small place, Mahalaxmi, with balconies and private loo for about 150Rs. This seems like a place to stop for the night while I make plans.
I head around the village, past the temple towards the famous Om beach. A dodgy trail becomes a very shaky goat track through the hills … there has to be an easier path than this, which I find eventually. The hills are barren, the beach is off in the distance, light blue soft surf, a few signs of habitation … some monkeys, and an ominous warning about muggings. A few more habitations, some rock cut steps, and I’m on the beach (Kudle). This is lush … quiet beach, some fishing boats, some huts … I have entered the tourist fairyland. I sit on the beach, let the wave ripple up, and drain away my stress. I melt into it, throw on my shorts, and hit the beach. Waves are mellow, but there’s an occaisional set through that is passable body surfing. I almost instantly decide to stop here. I check out a few of the huts behind beachside cafes, meet up with a few crew who were travelling in a group from Goa, and then head back to town (about 20 minutes this time the easy path). Steven, a Brit traveller I’d met in the hotel in Mangalore, points me to a hotel that does luggage storage, and confirms my theory about which restaurant will be the only one in town to serve proper Indian food (Pai Restaurant!). I had a brief meeting with Clive (ex Broadlands) who suggested a place he was not quite staying at for storage …
That night I have an encounter with a ‘tour guide’ who rushes me around the temple barely a second for an Omnamoshivaya betweem each feature, no light so all a bit pointless, and eventually come to the hit. Ok I can spare 20Rs so that Brahman kids can learn sanskrit.
Next day, I check out Clive’s hit, and find the place after a rumble through the dunes … they’d never heard of clive though the description fitted, and I wasn’t in the mood to sort through the confusion. I put the big backpack in storage, and go for a walk back to Kudle with the laptop bag stuffed with essentials toothbrush, about 5000 assorted electrical bits, laptop, the clothes on my back, my sax. This is a lesson in itself. This is pretty much all I need, and there’s still room to spare. Minimalism is bliss after lugging the big pack (full of tools, spare pants, and winter clothes). I buy a pair of light shorts to replace the soggy antiques that fall down in the serf, and a small run of malas (yes! Hippy Beads). I head out down the path, starting at the middle and then far end of Kudle, and strike gold at the Shantika Uma. This isone of about 10 similar cafe/hut parks … there is one very small and dodgy International Hotel, which is very avoidable. But here I have a 50Rs concrete hut with thatch roof and power most of the time. The cafe guest hut places feel so shanti shanti. Maybe like a seaside resort with training wheels still on. I slowly melt into bliss, and lapse into lotus eating.
That day I continue my expedition on to the famous and infamous Om beach. Okay it’s shaped like an Om, but the vibe is not so shanti … it’s easier to get to by rickshaw, so it gets a lot of Indian day trippers … mainly groups of young single guys with friends. They are friendly, but almost too friendly … it can get annoying, but also avoidable. Om beach is sheltered, a bit cleaner than Kutle, and there are a lot more yound Euro’s and Israeli’s. Not a big party scene. Conservatism of the current Indian government is the problem, as well as imagining what the groups of indian guys on tour would be like in that kind of context. … but very social, people meeting each other in different cafe’s. Facilities are a bit less developed than at Kudle, thought the crowd is slightly larger.
I continue on to Paradise, get as far as Half Moon, a lush walk through seaside forest. Half moon is small, less well developed again, but peaceful. Very sheltered beach though. There, I meet a dude from Oregon who has done an epic on one of the Indian push bikes … a Hercules, and has ridden around the coast to Mangalore from Chennai. Very much off the guide books with no paddle and a very heavy bike (no gears, and rod style handbrakes). He had travelled around the Tamil Nadu coast through Kerala, avoiding most big hills, and taken about six weeks. If I was wearing a hat it would most certainly be off to him. After my bike samsara in Chennai, I reckon it would be an absolute hoot of a way to see coastal south India.
Back to Kudle, with a bit of a run against the setting sun. I take the warnings about muggings seriously, though have heard no rumours. I also want to make it back to catch a sunset. First night is laid back … I follow up a lead, and pick up a small amout of charis to last for a couple of days. My second blatant lapse into lotus eating. It is divine to sit back with chai, smoking a hash joint in good company listening to the waves and watching the sun go down.
The scene here is a bubble. Though there are signs of a much more hard nosed tourism here, there is something very beautiful and eternal in this small scale low budget scene. There are a few of the older retiree set, coming down from Goa, hippies, long term travellers, young euros and israelis, and more and more Indian tourists. We are now at the tail end of the season, so the places are starting to run at a more basic level. Many are only serving European/Israeli food (packaged food with high margins). Apart from fish curry, and rice-dahl, proper Indian food is a walk into town.
Subsequent days have fallen into a routine of lotus eating, clarinet playing, eating, and swimming. I have taken up a little bit of coding on Qua (my sequencer project), and am making headway there … starting to write tracks within it. These last two days I have resolved not to go into town at all, and though food options are minimal here, I’m making do, and enjoying the time of shanti shanti manana. Some time for creative fiddling, though at a liesurely pace. Time to watch the shadows of the palm trees get longer and shorter …
A few more days of lotus eating, my one thol of charis (400Rs worth) run out quickly, and a thol of grass (150Rs) replaces it. These are good prices, at more major tourist centres, Goa etc, we would be talking probably double the price for marginal better quality.
I finally make it to paradise, and it is indeed worth the walk, at least midweek off season. This is the most distant beach from town, 15 minutes from Half Moon, 15 minutes from Om, 15 minutes from Kutle. Half moon is tiny, isolated and blissful, a small crew of people in hammocks thrown between palm trees, one cafe. It is barely a beach or a bay, maybe about 10m of sand. From there I receive instructions to find fresh spring water … by an odd coincidence, this is where the legendary Clive has camped but I don’t discover this until I run into Clive in town as I’m leaving. I’d heard that Gokarna’s spring water was safe, and I am not dissapointed by it. It has a strong calcium taste, and the spring it comes from is clean and green, water flowing in gentle stream from over a green leaf. Next spring on the path has a good sized frog poplulation. Paradise has a wonderful vibe, and yes! real Thalli’s. There must have been a good shipment of food bits in, though they must now be coming towards the end.
Next day feels a tad wistful, but inevitable, it’s time to leave … cafe owners on Kutle are running low on supplies, Shantika Uma is starting to get into maintenance mode, a snake tears out of the vacated hit next to mine. I am getting slightly bored, both missing and dreading the ‘real’ India, especially the in your face Bangalore which will be my next port of call. I swim as much as possible, till I think I’ve explored all the permutations of sun ocean body and sand.
These places always feel bittersweet. A bit sad to leave. Strongest wish is that the winds of change that blow a booming ugly Goa-esque resort town this way hold off, and that the small cafe hut owners, fisherman, and brahmans of Gokarna enjoy their shanti town in a bubble for a long time to come.
Back in town, I have a good tip for a nice homestay just up the path from the Kutle beach turnoff to the tank. This gives me an opportunity to explore the tank, many pujas. Their are more Brahman here per square metre than your average Indian town. This is devotional rather than cultural. I am note sure what quirk of history has created this town so well endowed with priestly Brahman, but the air it lends to the town is very very pure India, a far more shanti India than that of the megacities and movie houses, timeless. I take a soft option, and find a cheap room in the hotel where I have stashed the big backpack.
Next morning, I am torn between staying and going, then get picked up again by my original Brahmin tour operator. This time he takes me to a small cave shrine. This is old … maybe most of the bits are new, but the culture and ritual of the particular shrine have been around for some time. This is apparently “the cows ear” … Gokarna means “cows ear” and I’ve only just found out that Shiva made himself small enough to be born from a cow’s ear. So Indian myth is more than a little strange. There seems to be no good reason for Shiva to have been born in this way other than it gives a reason for this town and shrine to be called. Oddities aside, this is rare and special, and he is even showing some due diligence, and a little more breath for Omnamoshivayas. We run around a few more temples, another couple of prayers, and fortunately my wallet is nearly empty. I give hime 10Rs for his time, and point out that he’d stung me a week before for a very dodgy show at twice the price.
Run into Clive that day, between meals of Dosa (they had been a rarity on the beach). Confirm a few things, get the vibe that Gokarna is shutting up shop within a week (at least the beachside Cafe/Huts), contemplate Goa, Hampi, and Bangalore. But if I’m going to be taking my reasons for India seriously, it’s time for a top up on music lessons. Night coach to Bangalore it is.
