Our Many Moons of Honey: Last Stop: Gokarna

The coastline south of Gokarna

After our long stay in Goa we made the difficult decision and decided to make one final stop before leaving India. Gokarna in Karnataka (a neighbouring state to Goa) received mixed reviews from people we talked to but we chose to give it a chance as it was only a short bus trip away. Gokarna means cow’s ear as it is believed that Lord Shiva emerged from the ear of a cow here and it is also located at the cow shaped confluence of two rivers: Gangavali and Aghanashini. It is a Hindu pilgrimage site as well as a tourist destination for Indians and foreigners alike as it has five beaches in its vicinity. Gokarna beach forms the coast of the town and the other four beaches, Kudle, Om, Half Moon and Paradise, lie south along the coast. It is about a 25 minute walk from beach to beach along a hilly and beautiful coastline.

Kudle beach looking good

We made the mistake of making Kudle beach our home base as it was located close to town, was within walking distance to the other three beaches and had the most accommodation to offer. As soon as we stepped on the beach we realized that this wasn’t the right place for us: it was extremely crowded, dirty and smaller than the beaches we had enjoyed in Goa. To top it off it took us over an hour to find decent accommodation. They say that Gokarna is what Goa was like 15 years ago and we can see why: the place is full of hippies (though I don’t think these are the same hippies that frequented Goa in the 60’s and 70’s) and the accommodation is very basic. The majority is with a shared bathroom (which is fine) and then only a bed and a mosquito net. Most beds are a mattress on a dirt floor and the rooms look like windowless jail cells. To add to this these new age hippies have attitude - they are quite into themselves and definitely not friendly to us ‘common folk’. So much for the love movement in the 21st century.

what a pretty pair :)

That being said, once we got out and walked down the coast to the other beaches we understood the draw of Gokarna. The coast is absolutely beautiful as are the beaches along it. We loved Om beach which is so named because it is naturally shaped like the Om sign. It was clean and had nice white sand though it was quite narrow. It offered the same basic accommodation as at Kudle beach but had a nice cross section of people who were much friendlier … they actually returned our smiles. I mean seriously who couldn’t like us :). We really liked Paradise beach which was the most remote and quiet but if you are going to trek all the way there you should stay a while. We heard the auto-rickshaw will only go as far as Om beach but I hope we’re wrong on this walk isn’t the easiest even without a backpack … M even broke his flip flop but thankfully found a discarded one a few steps away!

Sadly, after a handful of days here, we made our way back to Mumbai and ended our stay in India :(. You’ll have to wait to see where our next stop was but we’ll give you a hint: it’s capital city rhymes with vanilla :).

For a few more pictures of our short stay in Gokarna click HERE (password: hippies).

Until next time. Same S&M time, same S&M channel. :)