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Return To Gokarna Road (Updated)

I was to start trekking from Honnavar this time, but due to some unforsen circumstances and improper travel arrangements the venue had been shifted to Gokarna ..from where I headed to Kudle beach,where I had not been before and the sole aim was to sleep on the beach and do some moonlight trekking ..which ultimately was done.

Starting with the trip.. as usual for a 5 30 start to the trip,I left office at 5 pm and reached Chennai Central to board the Shatabdi in the nick of time and cooled my heels in the cool confines of the train,after the whole plan was about to be cancelled due to the Bangalore protests and the death of veteran thespian Rajkumar. Thankfully No such violence was there en route..when I proceeded from Chennai,but the train seemed to be slow and was late by 45 minutes and instead of reaching at 10 30 pm, it arrived at 11 15 pm, the exact time when my bus from Bangalore was to start from Majestic station.But as all good adventure stories go,my sprint across the railway station via the subway to the bus stand helped as we managed to get the bus..which apparently was waiting for us.
The night’s journey was lovely with the route between Bangalore and Mangalore interspersed by long wooden trees all along the way.It was mildly interrupted by a small stopever in between where the driver took a break for dinner at 2 am.Our stomach’s were full from the endless food items that were offered on the shatabdi and we were more focused on ‘download ‘ rather than’upload’ to the stomach. After a rather pleasant journey ,sans the sprain in my neck…we reached Mangalore at 7 am and hung around for a while before discovering the route to the Railway station.The Railway station is a pretty small one and at the most has only 2-3 trains there..so we didn’t have muc difficulty spotting the Mangalore-Verna Passenger and found our seats.

The train surprisingly was half full…and we ahd enough space to have a separate reservation for my shoes,bags,walkman and myself….
The first stop in this journey was at a station inside the city called Kanakanadi,which is where the hungry souls,in the name of breakfast eat some half baked stuff., that is sold in the name of idli’s and vada’s.I avoided it knowing that ..from my previous experience 2 months back.


Though Mangalore is in Karnataka,its proximity to Mallu-Land(Kerala) sees a predominant Mallu influence in the houses there,given the fact that I saw some similar houses,in terms of stye of construction.



The train,slowly chugged out of Mangalore and went through some really sceninc villages interspersed between Coconut Lagoons emerging between stations.The stations were quaint,in a sense that even though they were small,there was this touch Of 'Malgudi' in every station that I crossed over.This railroute has a lot of Tunnels and some of these tunnels are easily 3-4 kilometers long.The best thing about the tunnels is the fact that it feels quite chill while the train is crossing the tunnel which is in stark contrast to the heat that you face outside the tunnel.

Our return journey tickets were wrongly booked..so we needed to re-book our tickets and for that we needed a reservation centre and to find it in this part of the woods,we had to travel upto Karwar to do the cancellation and Booking.The Karwar station is a pretty decent one,comparing all the other stations on that route,as you have a couple of shops and voila- Computers.... (in the reservation office that is ).One thing I found extremely funny was that a train bound to Mumbai from Karwar..had just started..and a holiday couple who were to travel in that train had not realised that their train had left..and when they did realize it,the lady seemed to abandon the husband and the luggage and ran across the tracks like a cheetah,holding her red sari..up to ask the train to stop.Luckily some passengers saw that and the message was passed on to the driver who stopped the vehicle.Gosh..I acn imagibne if the same was done to a bus,but not to a national train.The lady in,seeing the bliss of the train stopping had forgotten to put the sari back to cover her assets,which again evoked ogles from the men who stopped the train for her.


After this funny incident, we booked our return tickets and saw that the return train to Gokarna Road was only at 4 30 pm and it was just half past 1.So Rakesh and I decided to have our lunch and go around Karwar town to see the Rabindranath Tagore Beach,which is pretty similar to our Marina(as in a popular beach,with staues and lights and hawkers).The weather had eased out in the evening and the western coast seemed to have an overdose of Cumulo Nimbus Clouds...and the wind was pretty strong with the sweet smell of wet earth stimulating my Olfactory Modalities.I perched myself on the steps of the train(a.k.a footboard)..breathing the lovely moist air,and with music to add on via my walkman,this was a feeling of eternal bliss.


In Half an hour's time, We reached Gokarna Road,and walked from the station to the main road,when we came across this temple,from where the road to Gokarna Town starts ..At this place an Omni came our way and we decided to take the Maruti Omni at 50 bucks per person rather than wait for the Rickety once an hour Bus that would desposit travellers at the Bus stand.


We met 3 scantily dressed foerigners who seemed to be pretty relaxed with no such constraints on a holiday..just here to soak in to the sun and the beaches.Since we were with them,we also needed to undergo a small police identification verification check on the checkpost and that wait of half an hour left me infuriated as I would be missing the sunset as the clock as it is ticked to 6 pm.We reached the tow,bidding farewell to the phirangs and started our trek to Kudle Beach across the mountains,before it became too dark.This route is an excellent route that has steep steps over mountains to climb and plains on the mountain which needs to be crossed amidst forests that do house some wild animals...but luckily we were spared...as no nightwolf troubled us.After a rather exhausting 30 minutes of steep mountain trekking,darkness descended and all we could hear was the sound of the ocean ...and as the darkness increased the sounds o the ocean waves hitting the coast became even more conspicous.



We had trekked our way to Kudle beach and found a whole beach to ourseleves with about 7-8 shacks/resthouses spread wide apart from each other.6 of the shacks didnt admit us because we were INDIANS ...damn that left me infuriated...as the shack owners, mostly konkani,Kannadigas and Marathi...were only allowing the foreigners to stay,simply because they offered the shacks owwners lots of money for being private not being disturbed.

After some hut searching we finally found a place called the Sea View resort,which was much better than any of the shacks we had seen...and he charged us only 100 bucks for that.

Now when You find a place after a rather long day,all yo want to do is to gatecrash into the bed..but given the fact that its a lovely fullmoon night and some nice chill breeze is blowing amidst the glowing moonlight,sleeping is the last option you would want to invest your time.My friend and I check our room.It's liveable for the night..and we get down to changing our clothes into something clean after a rather long sweaty day.We order a couple of "Sprite's" and walk across 25 meters from the resort and lie down on the beach...siping away the chilled sprite...basking in the midly bathed moonlight filled Beach..which has only 6 sane souls near the ocean.2 of us were drinking sprite ...whilst the other 4 , 2 pairs were drinking with a more fat and shapeless bottle of Liqour.They looked down upon us like adults did to kids, as they felt we were intruding into their space. Not wanting to sit near them,my friend and I parted away in different directions with a sprite bottle to boot walking across the wet sands,even as the lashing waves hit us..making us completeloy wet as the waves were in full flow with the influence of the high tides.

After a while ...to scale up the excitement..we started to just lie on the wet sands waiting for the waves to come and walk over us ..as we lay there motionles just as a prisoner waited in the gallows for the lions to pounce over him.It was an awesome experience..for both of us...to soak into the rather salty waters of the Arabian Sea.

This photo gives u a glimpse of how the water looked like....(but this pic is a borrowed one )


Spending an hour like that in the lovely moonlight was awesome...and we head back to the resort...after we decided that we would interrupt our entertainment as our stomachs were'nt seeing eye to eye with our minds.So We decided to obey the stomach's orders and helped and belped ourselves to some butter chapattis and Naans ...

MORE UPDATES COMING UP.SORRY FOR THE BIT BY BIT UPDATE..HELD UP AT WORK... :-)