One unusually quiet evening we kind of realized that is wouldn’t be possible to go to Goa, cause some of us just couldn’t devote so many work days to a holiday at this point of time. We cursed out luck, called ourselves prudes without any sense of adventure, cursed the college, the world…. And everything beyond that too.
Then came Keshav, he stayed back at our flat chatting with us while Prateek was hunting for material for his seminar upstairs at varma's. We were still bitching to no end, telling him how fucked up our lives were, till he suggested that since Goa was out of the cards we should head to Gokarna. Hmmmm….. Gokarna….was the reaction. He told us it was better than nothing at all and said we’d end up having a good time cause we weren’t going sightseeing but actually taking a holiday. Someone googled the place and came up with a list of places where we could stay. With all our disappointment, we all prepared to head there, somewhere is better than nowhere was the general state of mind, and Gokarna sure sounded better than nothing.
Gokarna, was literally a shock, cause our driver blissfully unaware of the place took us directly to the Gokarna beach after taking some directions from the locals, in a language which was more than Greek to us, a mix of Konkani and Kannada, it was so weirdly mixed up that we could only spot a few words in the whole.
Gokarna beach was anything but what it had promised to be. Filthy to the core, it was a place which was worse than any beach I had ever seen. A few phone calls later we realized that it was not the place to be and headed off to Om beach.
Om beach, was exactly the opposite, one of the cleanest beaches I had ever been to, (and I have been to quite a few in India) it was fabulous. Deserted with only a few foreigners having breakfast, it was quite out of dream. We hunted for a place to stay, but we just couldn’t find any place where we could settle down. The shacks which had vacancy, were rather basic, more crude than anything else. We had a couple of girls traveling with us, and the general consensus was that it just wasn’t safe for them ( We erred in our judgement of the place greatly cause it was anything but unsafe). The only thing that peeved us off was the way people didn’t want Indians staying at some of the shacks. Probably they made more money with people from other countries but it felt strange being rejected as a second class citizen in your own country.
We kept traveling, hungry, sleepless and hung to Karwar where we reached sometime in the afternoon. An excellent lunch and a nap later we headed out to Devbaugh beach. Devbaugh is an excellent fisherman’s beach accessible only by a narrow road which reminds one of the roads in the interior of Kerala. The architecture was very similar, tiled overhangs and wooden pillars, as were the coconut tree shaded pathways in the area.
We spent the entire evening in Devbaugh, enjoying ourselves, frolicking in the water till it got dark and we headed back to our hotel.
The next stop, after a fabulous dinner, was the Tagore beach in Karwar, named after the great poet who had spent some time there and even written a poem about his experience there. We hung around in the dark for hours, enjoying the sea breeze and the occasional sparkle in the dark sky, as someone set of a fire cracker in the many resorts all around. The only bummer was that the memory card in my camera got fucked leaving us frustrated cause we had taken numerous beautiful snaps back in Gokarna. Back at the hotel we were in no shape to even talk, and ended up fast asleep in a matter of a few minutes.
The next morning we were back at Om beach. We headed off to the Paradise beach in the afternoon. The bloody boatman duped us by telling us that we could catch a good lunch at one of the shacks at the Half Moon beach which was really rather untrue. The only sign of life on Half Moon was a foreigner stiching his shirt and another guy who looked quite high. The other fellow told us that there was no food to be found there, and gave us no reason why.
Hunger was the sensation of the moment and we decided to trek to Paradise where he told us we were sure to find something to eat and off we went.
Paradise was true to its name. A secluded beach it had just one shack and the fellow who owned it was happy to cook for us. He made a simple lunch and showed us his massive stock of coke and beer which everyone raided to their hearts content. We spent hours in the water, lying in the sun or in the hammocks doing absolutely nothing.
The evening was spent on the Om beach. Sitting around watching the sun set behind the mountains was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. The setting sun, the smell of sea food all around, with all the little shacks whipping up something or the other for dinner, the smell of the sea and the clean beach, all added to the experience. We ended up having a massive dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach. We stayed there till late in the evening, sitting around on the beach till evening. The one thing that struck us, was the difference between the Indians and the foreigners there. While the guys from countries across the world seemed to be absolutely in tune with the ambience a couple of these yuppies from small towns who had landed up there ended up making sure that the atmosphere was marred by their shrill screams and stupid comments. It was rather obvious why they don’t let Indians stay there.
We didn’t even realize when it was all over from the beaches to the time we spent talking to each other in the car and the excellent food, it was really a beautiful experience, an experience of a lifetime. I know it’s a clichéd line, but they are the only words I can find to define it all…… clichéd but true.
