gokarna II

many nice days in gokarna... walking around town, playing beach-cricket with the kids around sunset, enjoying the delicious masala dosas and shira at pai hotel, long internet sessions at my usual place... they were kind enough to stay open sometimes up to 11pm which is late in gokarna! i was the only one on the streets at this hour walking back to krishna farm house.

and then one day, i recognized a couple i had met at the gomera rainbow gathering in march. it was yanti and maike from germany. i saw them again at the musical instrument shop near pai hotel and greeted them there. the guys at the shop were also greeting me from time to time, and having a soft spot for instrument makers, i would stop by and hear their tales of poor sales due to lack of tourists. i said i would try to help as much as i could by recommending them to other travellers. then, when i left them on one occasion, i turned back and asked if they had any shakers. i had been looking for one and now was my chance to get one and help out these guys. and of course, they found me one cube shaped one made of rose-wood and coconut. it looked very nice. ok, i said, just give a price and i will pay it. no haggling. of course, they still asked me to give a price, but i repeated what i said. ok, he said, 400. 400. i thought a bit as i mechanically converted it to a currency i knew. it was a lot for a little shaker. but i had given them my word. ok, i said, when the shock subsided. i paid for it the next day, still a bit aggrieved that they hadn’t really given me a good price. “thank you for the good luck you brought”, he said as i left. so i was happy that his luck had turned, and happy again when i finally realised that the price of something doesn’t equate with the value of something. this guy was not just another anonymous salesman... he was a musician and instrument-maker with a young family to clothe and feed, far from his home-town of varanasi. that shaker has already proved itself to be priceless.

there was a jam session at zen cafe one night... julia had told me about it one evening and so we went along. yanti and maike also joined later. i got to do some more drumming, but the atmosphere was spoiled by some drunk foreigners. i decided to leave early and luckily krishna farm house was not far away. one day, julia tells me that yanti and maike were leaving for paradise beach by boat, and looking for people to join them to share the cost. i was also of thinking of going to paradise beach: i had met the ‘swami’, aka the panama maharaja, near the rama temple one time, and he asked me to help with the gathering as i had some experience of rainbow. it was he who was organising the rainbow gathering on the beach in order to clean up the place after the destruction of all the illegal guest-house/restaurants that had cropped up there over the years. of course i told him that i would help. i had thought of walking there again, but if yanti and maike were taking the boat, i would of course help to share the costs. as i left the spring to walk back to the main road, i passed mabla house and saw yanti and maike sitting there with some other guys. i asked if they were still going, and if they still needed more people to join. yes to both. so we agreed to meet at 9am the next morning.

i had asked the swami what the gathering was missing most, and he said a big pot. so that day, i went to look for one. eventually, i found one at the panda-wallah opposite pai hotel. the largest pot they had with handles. the panda-wallah went up to the ‘attic’ where the old stock was kept and pulled down one large pot. i thought about it a long time before i paid for it and also a big lid to go with it. altogether, it was the price of just over one and a half shakers. and again, it proved to be priceless!

the morning came and i said goodbye to the family. ravi was kind enough to give me a lift on his motorbike to near mabla house, with me hanging on precariously with my two packs, a big pot and lid. of course, no one at mabla house was ready at 8.30. the boatmen were there ready to transport us. eventually, one by one they came to join me on the beach, and at 10.30, i was haggling for a good price for the trip. already pissed off cos they made me wait 2 hours, i lost my temper with one of the guys who had the temerity to tell me to be “shanti shanti, this is india...” bla bla bla... be shanti shanti with your time, brother, not mine!! so already the omens were not good for this trip.

the walk from gokarna beach to paradise beach and back again

i started this walk one morning from my room in krishna farm house. walking along the beach till the headland at the end, i climbed up the rocks to the road leading to the rama temple. first thing you discover is a large square pit with steps leading down. a trench leads spring water into the pit at two places, one for showering and one for washing clothes etc. from here, there are steps that lead to the rama temple. outside is a shrine to sai baba of sirsi, and after this can be found the place to the spring itself.


there are some steps leading up to the spring, and at the top is a small circular enclosure. the water pours out of the mouth of a head of a fierce looking ceramic bull into the centre of the circular space. there are many also decorations of snakes carved into stone or sculptured from clay. i filled up my aluminium litre bottle with the water and proceeded to climb up the steps to the plateau. at the edge of this plateau sits a beautiful old temple, the bharateshwar temple. it is shaped in the form of a square with a dome on the top and stone-sculptured elephants at the four junctions to the dome.



i passed by and continued along the path across the plateau. there are cliffs on the seaward side, and reaching the rickshaw stand at the top of the steps leading to kudle beach, i asked one of the drivers where one path was leading to. ‘the sea’, he replied.


for sure it looked like it wasn’t on the way to anywhere, but i wondered if there was a more adventurous way along the coast to kudle. i took the path up to the edge of the cliff and found an unexpected surprise on the plateau there: a labyrinth made up of stones. i walked into the maze to get to the centre, and retraced my steps back out again.




walking back to the rickshaw stand and the main path to kudle beach, i tried to recollect the place where i used to stop off the last time i was here. a really cosy little chai shop. of course, i didn’t find this place. instead was a much bigger restaurant place, complete with accommodation to let, and the rickshaw stand outside. no cosiness to be found here.


i walked on down to kudle and along the beach, amazed to see just how many accommodation/restaurant places had sprung up. it seemed like that there was just one large place strung out along the entire beach! i quickly passed by and found the path towards om beach. at the top of the next plateau, i wasn’t sure where to go, but then i saw a couple of travellers coming the other way. ah yes, that’s the way. and sure enough, there was some signs painted onto the rocks along the route to om beach. the path got interrupted nearer the beach by a brand new development there. it looked at first sight like a gaudi-esque public rest area, as i trudged down the steps towards the top of the main steps leading down to the beach. a large road with another rickshaw stand. and a big sign proclaiming where i had arrived to: the fabled om beach.




from here, i glimpsed my first sight of this beach. it was still a breathtakingly beautiful sight. i walked down to the beach itself, and saw namaste restaurant... of course i didn’t recognise it.



i walked around the first part of the om to the centre and the rocks leading to the large rocky outcrop where i remember some brave guys diving into the sea from the top.


‘you have to wait until a few seconds before the wave reaches the cliff otherwise it will not be deep enough,’ i remember one of them saying. still, i was too scared to attempt it.


and then walking around the second part of the om, i looked at all the restaurant places trying to remember the name and location of the one i stayed at all those years ago. i didn’t stop but carried on till the end of the beach. again, many more new places, one even seeming right on the rocks at the very far end of the beach.




i found the path to half-moon and it was a journey back into time once more. at one point, the path winds its way right along the side of the hill with an amazing view of the sea and the distant headlands and hills.






and finally to half-moon beach. beautiful little beach with an even smaller patch amongst the rocks next to it.

the main restaurant area had morphed into a huge place with some more new places and huts around the back. i got told the way to paradise beach... ‘follow the arrows on the rocks’... and clambering around the rocks, found one guy filling a water bottle at a trickle of a spring. ‘yes, it’s just around the next rocks, already you can see it from there,’ he replied to my question. and as i thanked him and moved away, he suddenly said: ‘you know that there will be a rainbow gathering there?’ no, it was news to me, so he filled me in on the details. a cleaning up paradise beach gathering.

and for sure, paradise beach needs cleaning up. there was a lot of rubble and stuff left after the forestry officials tore down the illegal concrete structures there. it was an eye-sore, a blot on the otherwise idyllic beach setting.
i took a swim in front of where david and some israelis had their camp. i joined him and a couple of other paradisers on the walk back to half-moon beach. we took a snack at the main restaurant place, and i took another swim before heading back to om beach. there i met a friend who was staying there... she had been more interested in hanging out with her new found friend that she had met on the train down from the north when she finally got to gokarna. it had upset me a little at first, but then india just chilled me out and i left her to her fate. so when i saw her strolling along the beach, i was polite and showed her the ‘hidden’ path to kudle and gokarna beaches that she couldn’t find before.



i walked on towards kudle and again to the rama temple, filled up my water bottle again from the spring, and took a shower in the pit. and a well-deserved rest and coconut at my usual stopping place to and from gokarna town itself. then back to my usual place to watch the sun-set, the ‘throne’ ledge formed from the rock at the top of the cliff-face above the bharateshwar temple, with nothing below my dangling feet except a drop to the sloping cliff face and rocks of the coastline.