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The Make Believe Land

Gokarna - 

Day 1:
After an 11 hour bus journey from Bangalore to Gokarna via Honnavur & Kumta, I reached the White elephant cottage along with 3 of my cousins. I hoped we had booked a decent room; we got more than what we wished for. A whole cottage to ourselves with an eagle’s eye view of the Kudle beach. When we stepped out of the room a few minutes later, we saw a lady in a white cotton sari doing Bharatnatyam and another meditating beside her under a large hall. We were joined by 3 more cousins traveling from Mumbai who took a train till Karwar after which they changed two buses to reach Gokarna (Karwar - Ankola - Gokarna); although the shorter way around time-wise would be taking a cab from Karwar to Gokarna.
The Kudle Beach was a 5 minute walk from our cottage. We decked up in our beach dresses and headed to the waters. The beach is a large stretch and isn’t overly crowded on a weekday so everyone gets their own space to relax. The vibe here is extremely chilled out. You can see foreigners doing yoga and playing live music by the beach.
We had lunch at the White elephant restaurant and I particularly liked the Jeera rice and dal fry. For dinner, we ate at the Sunset cafe where the food was extremely bland because of lack of salt (No, the saltiness of the sea didn’t help add taste to the food).

Day 2:
Woke up at 7:30am and I head to the large hall next door. White elephant has interesting amenities like yoga mats and an Ayurvedic massage centre. I picked the former and did Surya namaskar, out in the fresh air. For breakfast we went down to Ganga cafe by the Kudle Beach which serves really good coffee. We had booked a car to get to Vibhooti falls which is an hour’s ride away from Kudle Beach. The car was parked at a distance from the falls and you have to do a short 10 minute trek to reach the falls so I suggest wearing comfortable shoes! The gates to the falls are shut at 6:30pm so if you would like to spend some time in the water, go early.

Day 3:
For the next two days of our stay, we moved to Sanskruti Quality Resort. A pro and con - the rooms have AC (much needed!) and the resort is far away from all the beaches so travel becomes an issue since the autos charge a bomb (literally; ₹150 for 4km and the price doubles post 8pm). The hotel was lovely though - swimming pools, gym, clubhouse and a Cranberry welcome drink! From here we went to Om Beach. The coastline has multiple beaches starting from Kudle Beach and you can do a beach trek to explore each beach. There is also a ferry that starts from Om which covers Half moon beach and Paradise beach. We chose the ferry option since it had the added benefit of spotting dolphins! Dolphin spotting is a rarity and I had heard that most times you are just left staring at the waters hoping to catch a glimpse. But lucky us, we spotted dolphins multiple times! The boat stopped for a few minutes at the Paradise beach and we watched the sunset here. On return to Om beach we decided to dine at the Namaste Cafe which serves some amazing Chicken pizza. Post dinner when we stepped out to the beach, we were beyond amazed at seeing the sky. What billions of stars means, we understood then. We star gazed sitting by the calming sound of the sea.

Day 4:
I usually keep the last day of my trips reserved for shopping and I did exactly that here as well. The temple road in the city has many local stores where bargaining is extremely important! This is mostly because majority of the shoppers are foreigners so the sellers price their goods at a higher rate. I bought myself a bandana and a crop top. Nestled away in one of the streets is a gallery with lovely artwork which you must visit! Also, warning - don’t rely completely on Google maps for directions to restaurants. We wasted around 15 minutes looking for a restaurant with “4 star reviews” only to find out that it didn’t exist! We ate dinner at the restaurant at Sanskruti where the Prawn biryani is a must must try. We then boarded a 9pm bus to return to our routine from this incredible vacation.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes scribbled on the walls of Gokarna -
There is no way to happiness, happiness is the only way
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