Gokarna

I spent 2.5 weeks in Dharamkot. It's hard for me to stick to one place, so I learned some music (flute and table) and also some Hindi to keep my days busy. The weather was very wet, it rained most of the day. I made some thinking where to go next. September is supposed to be really beatiful for trekking in the north, the monsoons are just over, the air is clear and the views are amazing. The south is on low season now. I decided to go south. I loved the mountains of the north, and still I think these places are the most beatiful parts of land we've got, but I needed a break from them. I've got until end of October to hang in India, and I wanted sunshine, heat and ocean. I travelled on the night bus to Delhi and dropped most of my stuff there, and then a 2 days train down south. I got a sleeper ticket and it was a great journey. People were passing all the time, sellers of food, drinks, faked jewellery, magazines etc., and lots of beggars too, mostly children, sometimes cleaning the floor or doing acrobatic exercises in the narrow aisles, also old women and crippled people. If I got change, I gave them. The train crossed places I visited half a year ago on my way north, on the second day morning it entered Mumbai, in few hours it went through Goa and around midnight I got off in the south, a town named Karwar, in the northern edge of Karnataka state. I spent the night on the train station and went to Gokarna on the morning, switching buses on the way (luckily, very short rides). I was very excited and happy when I saw the ocean at least. The weather was beatiful, few people were around. First I was in Om beach, which is shaped like the Om symbol.


















It's a 3 km walk, sometimes in the jungle, to the town of Gokarna. Then I moved to Kutle beach, closer to the town and cheaper too. The town is quite religious, in the Hindu way. I saw many brahmins with white marks on their foreheads and their unique dressing. There was a festival the day I've arrived, dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant god. A procession of kids carrying flags, some men with drums and flutes were playing and others dancing, and 4 guys were carrying a statue of the god. They moved slowly along the street and stopped from time to time, so that more people would join the party. Finally they went to the beach and threw Ganesh to the ocean. Why like this?
Anyway the south is great, although it's low season, and maybe because of it. The water in the ocean is muddy, but it's very pleasant to swim. And they got all these tropical stuff: papayas, pineapples, coconut so I don't have to go far away to get some exotic shake.























Bom