Well! To start off, I admit that I am writing the trip experience a little late (very late actually!), after a year to be precise. I cannot assure you with accurate details, but this trip had been close to my heart for multiple reasons and hence this blog! The main reason for its attachment is that I and my friends organized it completely without anyone’s help and second, it was a girls-only trip!
March 20, 2015, Friday:
The excitement was at its peak. Packed our luggage and headed to Majestic in an auto. Boarded our sophisticated KSRTC Airavat and got ourselves ready for the next 10 hour journey across the Western Ghats. It was a complete roller coaster ride as we went uphill and downhill throughout the journey. Finally we reached the Gokarna bus stand at 9 AM.
March 21, 2015, Saturday:
Hired an auto to Om Beach where our accommodation was booked. We got the glimpse of Kudle beach across the cliff on our way to Om beach. With all the excitement, we took our first steps into Namaste Café. We had booked a double bed room (800 Rs.) and 5 bed room (2500 Rs.) and the rooms were not bad as expected. While the 5 bed room had a concrete appearance, the double bed room was an individual thatched hut. Refreshed quickly and headed out for breakfast.
The hotel themselves owned an amazing restaurant with the best menu. Tired of idly and dosa, it was time for some English breakfast :P Ordered from a range of pancake varieties to omelettes to fruit juices. The café was also located at the right spot, overlooking the beach. Mash potatoes were too yum that we went for a second one. Chocolate pancakes, honey pancake, fruit pancake and they had a lot of varieties to try. After gulping as much as possible, we headed towards the beach.
As the weather was too hot (March and its heat!), we did not want to get into the water in the mid noon and get tanned. Bargained a lot with the boatman and reduced to 1000 Rs. for 6 people to travel from Om beach to Paradise beach. Into the blue environment, we surpassed Half Moon beach and reached the paradise. As the name rightly says, it was truly paradise. A silent uninhabited island with some countable foreigners (so called hippies), who camp for few days and move to the next paradise.
We could not spot even a single shop or house, it was a mini world, away from the human’s jail. We sat there silently looking at the waves and hearing to the nature’s music. A foreign lady woke up from her sleep and started singing to her guitar’s music. Then she went for a swim deep inside the ocean and rested a while reading her favourite book. She was just living her life in the process of discovering herself. I wished I could be like her, but think about our society and all your wishes would go into thin air!
Around 3 PM, we decided to leave the paradise and move to the next heaven. Initially, we thought of trekking to half-moon beach, but things didn’t work out as expected. Since it was the time around new moon, the water was too ferocious and splashed the rocks. We got an advice from a hippie that the trekking path would require extra efforts to swim across the ocean and cross huge rocks. At that very moment, we wished there were guys in our group who could have helped us cross the path. Still we didn’t give up, we tried walking but few in the group were scared. Having only girls in the group, we got to think about our safety as well and thus we ended up in the same boat which brought us to the paradise. Since there were other passengers too who wanted to move to the other side, we were lucky to get a glimpse of the Light House and God’s Own Beach. Yes! Indeed there are so many beaches around this place, which I am definitely visiting in the next trip.
Back to Om beach and our favourite Namaste Café, we had seafood platter.
As per the name, it had a huge variety of boiled fishes with French fries and boiled veggies. Even though the latter didn’t seem interesting, we finished all the fishes and then headed to Kudle beach. We took a small path opposite to the restaurant, which people told that it will lead us to Kudle. Trusting their words, we walked across plants and open grassland and finally ended in a crooked downhill to the beach.
First view of the beach and the sunset took us through the majestic beauty. We sat in a restaurant drinking juice and admired the sun. I wanted to head back to Om beach before it gets dark, while others wanted to stay back. After some rounds of convincing and photo shoots, we headed back to our home beach. Had fun time playing in the water. The dark fell and the water became ferocious and the crowd count started to reduce. Due to safety concerns, we headed back to room and refreshed. Finished our dinner with yummy desserts and made some nice conversations with my girls.
March 22, 2015, Sunday:
It was Sunday morning and who would wake up so early at 6 AM and the answer would be ME! :D
Being an early riser, I was super excited to take a walk across the beach in the early hours. In no time, I woke up the entire group and helped them to witness real happiness. As we walked across the beach with the sun rising behind us, there was silence everywhere other than the rhythmic sound of the waves. There was absolutely no one around and it looked like a private beach. We saw two foreigners doing their yoga and here we were doing nothing. After having some peaceful time, we headed back to the café and had our fancy breakfast.
While we were thinking what to do next, why not try the water sports? Remember that Gokarna is not like Goa! Finally after few calls, we got our water ride owner and negotiated a rate of 700 per head for 3 water activities – water scooter, bumper ride and banana ride.
Out of the three, I was super excited and eagerly waited to try the last one! Since it took some time for the crew to pump air into the banana, we thought we would finish riding our scooter into the ocean. It was mad! They let us ride our own scooters, with one guy behind us to assist in case of unforeseen situations. When we were almost nearing the shore, the guy behind us took control of the scooter and did some dangerous stunts, which was super thrilling and brought the fear out of us.
Meanwhile, the bumper ride was getting ready and this time, two people could travel together in a bumper boat. The boat was connected to a speed boat which dragged us in a crazy manner into the ocean. With a lot of bumps and getting hit in our bums, we headed back to the shore and got ready for the final big ride – Banana ride!
I got to know about the ride from the internet, but the rest haven’t seen what it is too. The ride got its name because the boat was in the shape of a banana. Again, this was also connected to a speed boat. We held our hands tight to the banana and set our expedition into the ocean. In no time, there was a sudden push and we didn’t know what happened. We were inside the water and our boat was lying in a corner. After spending some gala time singing and dancing in the middle of the ocean, reluctantly we got back to the banana and reached the shore. We had our second drop in the shore and we settled in the ocean.
I would say that the banana ride was a game between the people in the banana and the speed boat. We would have one person at the trail end of the banana from the speed boat’s crew, who will try to tilt the banana and push us into the water. But we should try to put our force in the other direction and control the tilt. While these are something that I learnt from the internet, just don’t follow the rules and do what you think at that moment but never hold your hands to the boat if you got dropped into the ocean! Life jackets are there to save you.
Had the best mid sun bath and got tanned crazily, but it was worth it! We lived our moments, forgot ourselves and had a mad time together. Since it was time for our check-out in the hotel, we got an extension of half day by paying extra 400. Refreshed and bid goodbye to the silent paradise. Took an auto and headed back to Gokarna for a nice fish meal at a small house. We got this information from a random blog and it was worth trying it. The fish was amazing and our stomachs were totally full. You do get veggie thali as well! We mentioned about the place to the auto driver and he took us to this house. After our meal time, we kept our baggage at their house and headed to Gokarna beach.
We wanted to visit the temple as well, but we did not have time. Did some random shopping and headed to the Gokarna beach for sunset. This beach was completely opposite from the rest of the beaches, it was over crowded and dirty. It was very similar to Marina beach. We headed back to the house quickly, bought some buns for dinner and reached the bus stand as our return bus was scheduled to leave at 7.30 PM (too early!) Bidding goodbye to an amazing weekend, we dozed off with lots of happy memories.
For others who are about to plan your next trip to this paradise, ensure that you have one extra day to visit the Murudeshwar temple and its amazing list of water sports activities. It is very close to Gokarna, but you need to spend one whole day there. Do not expect Gokarna to be like Goa! You cannot find liquor shops or pubs, yet you can buy alcohol if you pay some extra bucks. Vegetarians can also survive in Gokarna because we had grass eating people in our group and they loved their food. And yeah! If you are planning to do a girls only trip, do it right away, because we did it!
People who made this trip super amazing – Vj, Subi, Neha, Shalini, Priyanka and myself - Shamili
