Visiting Gokarna

Gokarna is also known as Kashi of the south. This place, though located at an offside, not easily accessible by road (by which I obvisouly mean tar road) still sees throngs of tourists. The place is named thus based on the story that Lord shiva had emerged from cow’s ear. A walk through the main streets of the town would give you the opportunity to shop at the various local shops varying from clothing to pooja items.
After two days of car driving, we had decided to take it easy today. So, we got up in a lateback manner at about 9 am.We are staying at a place called Nimmu’s house – rent of the good rooms here is 1200 per day, checkout timing being 10 am, irrespective of your check in timings. The rooms are good, with amenities like TV provided. Hot water is available only between 8 to 10 am. The house is owned by a family so it does not give the restaurant feeling, but you can see the family going about their activities. There is a restaurant nearby to the house – called Mahalakshmi roof top restaurant. This is so far the best place to eat in Gokarna, with good food at a cheaper price. The only drawback is that it takes a little longer to get your food, so don’t come to this place when you are at the peak of your hunger. Come a little early, and enjoy the roof top view of the Gokarna beach, while muching your food or drinking your drink. A note to all – this restaurant is purely veg and does not serve any alcohol. If you fancy a beer or anything else, you would need to go to Hotel Gokarna International, which has a downtown restaurant & bar. If you have a family with you, it is better that you forsake that beer since the place looked a little shady to me to take your family along.
We started our morning by visiting the Gokarna beach, which was like 2 min walk from our guesthouse. The sun was scorhing hot and the sand hotter. The beach is good, and people interested can go for a swim. I, suddenly, remembered my childhood days and started collecting the shells washed ashore by the tide. Supratim watched me collect these and dump into his pocket, wondering where would these shells end up in our house. We walked for sometime on the shore and when we could not bear the heat any longer, went into a nearby hut café to have a cool drink and soothe our throat.
By the time, we had finished with our drinks and had come out, the sand had grown hot, and was burning our feet, so we had to run towards the water where we could have the cool water laping at our feet. We came back to the guesthouse for a afternoon nap.
At 2.30 pm, we again went out for our next expedition – Om beach. This beach is around 6 kms from Gokarna police checkpost, if you wish to go by the road. There are also boats which leave from Gokarna beach towards Om beach, Kudle, Paradise and half moon beach. If you are going by road, take care that where you want to park your vehicle. As soon as you start seeing the 3 km sign, look out for the start of the parked vehicles. It is better if you keep your vehicle here and have a trek till the beach. If you make the mistake like us to park the car as close as possible to the beach, you would have a hard time coming back. The road is very narrow that 2 cars can pass each other barely. Now imagine one side of the road with parked vehicles – Yes, that is the only place from where you can come and go. So, it is possible that you reach close to the beach when you come, but while going back you would have a hard time to take a u-turn. Thanks to the Auto drivers here, who help out a lot by solving the traffic jam problem. I wish we had these people in Bangalore – it would make life so much easier. But alas, the same auto-drivers in Bangalore are the reason of most of the traffic jams.
Om beach is named so, due to its shape. If you can click a photo of the beach from above, you can see the shape of the beach which is like the “Om”. The beach is strewn across with rocks, mangroves providing a little of shade, and café serving food and drinks.
You can spend your evening here watching the sunset and the tides lapping at the shores.
Overall, it was a very relaxing day for us. Tommorrow, we would be off to Yana and Jog falls.