The land of Jordan

Let us write about a land today - A biblical land, a land where the seas of Yore – the Dead sea and the Red sea flow, a land where Roman ruins and Bedouin life exist together in an impossible necropolis. A land where you can watch in awe the architecture of Crusader castles of the Middle Ages and Islamic architecture in tandem. A land where you can sit under the stars in the lonely desserts and watch the moon light up the mountains. A land where Time stands still, as you can stand at the precipice of Mount Nebo, and look as Moses did at the Promised Land in the Horizon. There is sometime permanent about this place, something that promises to go on but hold on to its beautiful past, to make us feel humbled that what we know as life is not about decades or a hundred years, it is a multitude of several hundreds of years - where civilizations have stood, risen and fallen; Where man has been tested with the calamities of nature, and in the impossibility of the adversities and mountains, there once stood a rose city, Welcome to Jordan.

Arriving in Jordan - Amman:

This is an account of my backpacking trip to Jordan, just towards the end of tourist season. Arriving in Amman and immigration is a quick and easy affair. For passport holders having Visa on arrival, there is apparently a requirement to have USD 1000 per person hard cash. While we weren’t asked to ‘show’ currency, it is a good idea to have this on you. The Jordan pass is an excellent money saver if you are in Jordan for two nights and more, and visiting Petra. A Jordan pass costs JD 70, covers VISA fee (Otherise this is JD 40), and complementary entries to many landmarks – Petra (JD 50 / 90), Gerash, Madaba Museum, Amman Citadel, Wadi Rum and a host of other interesting places. You need to buy the Jordan Pass online before arrival (you will get a listing of covered places when you buy the pass online).

We landed in the evening and headed to Jordan Tower Hotel, where we had booked two beds in the Dorm. A highly recommended place for backpackers, this lives up to its standards. With complimentary breakfast, clean dorms, an active backpacker community and day trip options, you cant go wrong with Jordan Tower Hotel. The front desk manager – Jihad is a friendly guy and lets you settle in well (We reached the hotel at 11pm and after some dinner took time till 2am to eventually decide our next day’s plan!). JD 8 per person per night – book in advance!

The airport shuttle bus takes you from just outside the airport (there is a small stand). This leaves every 1 hr or so. It isn’t a proper bus, rather a mini bus. The bus goes to two main landmarks – the seventh circle and the fifth circle. They may bunch you into separate buses depending on which point you are heeded. Once you reach either of the places – you can either take a taxi, or a share taxi. Importantly if you take a share taxi – they don’t drop you to your location, but to specific drop points. We preferred to take a taxi as this was our first visit. You have to negotiate hard with the taxi at the points, especially when the taxi drivers know you are a tourist. The fare we started off with was 10 JD for a 15 mins drive, and finally closed at 6 JD (which we came to know later was still high). Irony, that we saw the same guy when we returned. Be cautious with the taxi folks when you pay them, count the change, you will hear a long story about the hotel you are visiting etc - the standard tourist traps apply – Achtung!

Downtown Amman (where Jordan Tower Hotel is located), is a vibrant district with small shops lining the street selling trinkets, brass and copper items, sweet meat shops, frankincense and daily use items. Do visit the two shops just on the street 50 metres behind the hostel (the hostel is in a fork, this shop is towards your left if you face entrance to the hostel). You can get some old currency notes, and Saddam playing cards and a selection of garage items. The owner is an Arabic speaking lovely humorous and energetic old gentlemen, who was a loyal Indira Gandhi fan! (those are rare!).

Within 2 km from the hostel, you will find Hashem restaurant – one of the most well know Hummus and Ful eateries in Amman. You must stop by Hashem to have a bowl of Hummus, sip in some sweet Lemon tea and watch the hustle bustle around (reminds me of India!). Closer to the hotel, there are few options – Al Kit Kat hotel, Jafra Hotel and a bunch of other. We visited Jagar, and it is one of the best restaurants in Amman. The locals love it, it has a wonderful sprightly vibe, with live Arabic music, everybody loving their Sheesha and happy conversations – Must visit! (Liquor is not freely available and only sold in some restaurants) There is a Hammam (Turkish Bath) on the ground floor of the building, we didn’t have time to visit – but seemed quite popular from the outside. After having had a longgg day, we retired for the night but made a quick pit-stop to the hostel’s terrace – a good view to the end the day!

Petra:

The next day, was the Petra day! We took the 7am JETT bus from Abdali bus station (10 minutes’ drive from the Hostel). A 2 / 3 JD fare should be enough for the taxi to get you to Abdali. You cant miss the JETT station, while most of the folks do an online reservation – we hadn’t made ours, so the lady at the counter put our name in the waiting list, and we easily got our tickets (JD 8) and were on the bus (2 hours). You can get personal / shared taxis from the hostel in case you need to be back in Amman the same day. A personal taxi could set you back by JD 100, while a shared trip – 3 pax will set up back by 40 – 50 JD (the hostel will source other tourists and let you know).

Heading to Petra, there is one pitstop at a restaurant come touristy junk mall. This is a major tourist trap, the products look really nice but their prices can be anywhere between 5 – 10 times what they can cost outside. Your best bet is to have a coffee / tea (there is a herb that is added in the lemon tea for flavouring) or if you are lucky like us be asked about Bollywood! (We realised that the best way to start a conversation with most Jordanians is by asking them about Bollywood – 9 out of 10 people watch Bollywood movies / Indian dramas.

Next stop – Petra (Wadi Musa is the name of the town). The JETT buss drops you just outside the PETRA site entrance. A good travel tip is to carry prints Google maps of your hotel with some landmarks on it (easier to locate).  We had booked ourselves in Petra Gate Hostel. It is run by a pair of cousins, our host for the evening for a cherubic chap who had lived in UAE and in many places in the Middle East. He knew phrases in Hindi, Tamil, Arabic, Farsi and a bunch of other languages! A terrific guy to have a conversation with. We had booked ourselves in a dorm but were given a complementary upgrade to a room! The hostel is a steep 15 minute walk to the Petra site entrance. The hostel is located in a busy area around the Shaheed roundabout and within a 300 metres radius has - restaurants, currency exchange shops and your regular daily use shops. We refuelled ourselves at the Al-Fandi restaurant, just on the roundabout. The adjacent restaurant (AL XXX) looked busy. The standard fare is Shawarma, and if you are a veg, you ain’t got much to choose apart from Hummus and Ful :) Petra is a straight 2 km walk downhill from Shaheed roundabout. Do carry 1-1.5 litre water packs with you. Water will be your closest friend in Petra – there is practically no tree cover.

If you don’t have a Jordan Pass on you, the ticket is 50 JD if you are staying in Jordan for a night or more, and 90 JD otherwise (many Israeli group tours do a day trip to Petra). As you enter Petra, you walk by 1 km of the approach road with donkey stations on one side. Apparently the donkeys are part of the pass, but for some reason I suspect that. As you walk towards to the entrance of the Siq, you will notice various Djinn formations, the most impressive what I found was the dam that the Nabateans built to divert water from flooding through the Siq. The Nabateans were not only skilled architects but also very good at engineering. The dam diverted the water to the Nymphaeum, fountains and for public usage through a series of underground tunnels. These tunnels reduced the speed of the water and acted as cisterns. At the entrance of the Siq you can see the remains of an arch that once heralded the entrance to the Petra necropolis. Walking through the Siq can seem endless, but the geography of the rocks, the natural formation of this narrow passage, and the dams built at regular intervals by the Nabateans will hold you spell bound. Don’t be surprised to see mules zipping tourists back to the entrance, this is a funny sight for both the passengers and onlookers alike.

This cryptic Siq finally gives way to a spectacular entry to the city that is Petra, and its guardian tomb that is visible at the end of Siq is - the Khazanah (Treasury). This tomb is built right into the rock, and was created over 2000 years back – it still stands! Such is the spectacular masonry of the Nabateans. The tomb was attacked at different points in the history as there was a legend that a treasure was kept here (And so you can see holes created in the rocks to ascend upwards). Nothing of value has been reportedly found here (LINK TO PETRA). The façade, Royal Tombs, the amphitheatre, the High place of sacrifice, the monastery, the Roman street, a free standing temple are fascinating sights to see. The high place of sacrifice and Monastery is a medium – difficult trek depending on your fitness levels, and lasting for 30 minutes one way. Watching the sunset from the high place of sacrifice can be a pleasant way to end the Petra day. We started out around 12pm and were through all the sights by around 7pm – we had walked 25 kms this day, and had trekked up mountains in some cases. If you have a few hours to make it, visit the Treasury, the façade, the Royal Tombs and if you have time, the Roman street. Apparently, Petra is still being explored and new sites are being found here. It is a fascinating piece of archaeological importance that shows how beautifully people lived over 2 millennia ago.

You can buy souvenirs from many of the shops here – especially the sand glass bottles with your name / message on it. Most of the locals selling their wares are not well to do, so we tried to purchase some trinkets from a few of them. Many Bedouin kids like speaking with tourists and you will see a radiating smile on their faces if you offer them some chocolates, they are wonderful people!

While the High place of sacrifice and the Monastery offer excellent views – these will set your clock down by 1.5 hours each. After 25 kms of walking in the heat, we boarded the mules (JD 15 for both of us) to be our guardians till the entrance of the Siq. From the Siq, we took a cab to our hostel and crashed that night. An interesting fare negotiation that we did at Petra entrance was with a cab driver – he asked for 5 JD to drop us to the hostel, he happily settled at 1 JD – that shows how much room you have to bargain with cabbies here :)

Wadi Rum:

For the next day, we had booked ourselves in a Bedouin run camp under the moonlight and stars of Wadi Rum – 40 JD each (dinner and breakfast included) with 5 JD each for transport from Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is a place like no other. What you see in the morning transforms into something totally surreal at night. The barren landscape speaks to your soul and as Lawrence said, the desert does something to you.

Your Jordan pass once again comes handy – else you need to shell JD 30 each. A quick pitstop to the visitors centre, your Jordan pass stamped / tickets purchased, the minibus will drop you to your pickup up (sometimes at the Visitors centre itself). Wadi Rum is best seen in the early morning (starting 8am) and in the early evening. Don’t even attempt of seeing Wadi Rum in the afternoon – with a lifeless landscape the Sun will gleam down on you like no other, you won’t be able to really experience the place well. An early evening (4pm onwards) is the best option. We were taken on a 4X4 and drove around some of the rock structures – Small Bridge, Big Bridge, Red Dunes hill, Lawrence’s house, the seven pillars of wisdom hill. A significant part of the shooting of Lawrence of Arabia amongst many other movies was done in Wadi Rum. Many Martian movies are shot here due to the red sand dunes and the unique topography. Our trip was on a Saturday, and Sunday being a working day, there weren’t many tourists around, lucky us - we got the 4X4 all to ourselves!

The red sand dunes are quite interesting, and we collected some in our bottles for keepsakes. At some of the pit stops – Bedouins sell an amalgam of stuff – Kohl for the eyes, waxed pieces musk and other fragrances to apply, the Arabs are well known for their love of fragrances. We purchased a keffiyah (Arab head gear), adding to my collection of arab wear :) What I loved about their hospitality is that the Bedouins are very hospitable, they never relent from offering you a cup of sweet lemon tea, all in good faith with no expectations. I read somewhere that they do so as they believe you would also do the same if they came knocking in your place.

Watching the sun set between the canyons is a sight that you cannot miss if in Wadi Rum, the sun setting between these ancient canyons – you wonder how many millions years has this gone by? After the sunset, we were taken to desert camp – a fairly decent tent. I was delighted to have a hot water bath after the long day in the desert. When the night is in full bloom, looking at the mountains in the distance and the moon glistening by – the experience is no less than magical. You can hear aeroplanes flying high above, echo in the mountains.

There is a Bedouin village where most of the locals working in the tourist sector stay, which is basically town with concrete homes with ACs, and not really ‘a true desert village’ as you might think. The people as always of Bedouins are wonderful, inviting and soft spoken. We waited the day out in the home of our host (can’t remember his name!), with an afternoon siesta in the sitting room, and bit of village walking. The young Bedouin guides are a fun lot to strike a conversation with – our guide for the day was Abdullah – a young chap of 17-20 yrs and followed Bollywood quite well.

Aqaba:

The next day we boarded the village bus for a trip to Aqaba (the Red Sea port) – 1.5 JD a piece – a steal considering we paid 5 JD for a similar distance trip from Petra. Aqaba is well known for diving, people from all over the world visit this part of Jordan to dive and explore the Red Sea. Unfortunately, we had 4 hrs to spend in Aqaba and lounged with some Sheesha by the local beach (which has clear waters). If you look into the distance you can see the port of Eilat (the Israeli’s side) and a huge Israeli flag. As you would expect at similar borders, to counter the flag Jordan has its tallest flag post at Aqaba – an eye for an eye I guess. There are many tourist shops along the promenade and in the nearby souq – however if you are looking for a good bargain, memorabilia from Aqaba tends to be slightly pricey. There is nothing you get here, that you won’t get in downtown Amman.

Madaba:

There are JETT buses that ply between Aqaba and Amman, however we had to make a pitstop at Petra where we had kept our bags (a detour for a few hours). Back at Amman via the 7^th circle, through some serious traffic jams we reached the Hostel late in the evening, a quick dinner at the YY restaurant to the long awaited comfort of a bed. We had planned a trip to the Dead Sea, Madaba and Mount Nebo the next day (JD 40 each), and were once again lucky to have the taxi to ourselves. The hostel offers various options depending on your preferences (e.g. we chose to skip Bethany beyond the Jordan and decided to spend more time in Madaba). Madaba is a lovely town, and highly underated. For some reason, I felt this town similar to Siena in Italy, a beautiful vibe – narrow streets and beautiful architecture around. The Saint George at Madaba contains a 6^th century Mosaic map from of the Holy lands. Its depiction is quite accurate from a cartography standpoint. The Mosaics from medieval homes and the museum are a must see. It is intriguing that these mosaic still stand the test of time and are as lively in their natural stone colours. You must purchase Mosaics from Madaba (the tree of Life), these are made from the old technique and the new technique. The old technique produces more intricately made mosaics, the new technique produces faster mosaics (stones are glued to a plastic mesh) albeit with larger stones. It is anyone’s guess which is prettier! I visited a boutique at the corner of the entrance to the Visitor centre, and bought my tree of life Mosaic from this wonderful lady – Mariam who was really sweet and motherly :). A tip – don’t bargain too much at the shops, these are painstakingly made by hand. If you have a larger budget you can get large Mosaic table custom made for you, and delivered to your home country.

Mount Nebo:

The Next stop for the day was Mount Nebo – where Moses saw the Promised Land. There is a church maintained by monks of the Franciscan order. The church was being reconstructed, and visitors weren’t allowed inside. You can take in the views from the edge of the cliff with the horizon giving way to the ancient city of Jericho, the biblical Jordan valley and mountains in the distance. A few olive leaves from the sacred site in my pocket and with a wish and a prayer, we set off for our next and final stop for the day – The Dead Sea.  Oh don’t visit the ‘museum’ if your cabbie takes you there – it is essentially a mall and they make you feel nice etc, and then lead you to the store to buy – and it is not government owned or supported by Jordanian Queen Rania as almost all such highway shops / museums will tell you.

The Dead Sea:

Unlike how you would imagine a sea – this is no sea – it is a giant lake and is fed by the Jordan River (not any more) and by underwater springs that bring in multiple salts into the Dead Sea. The Dead sea is shared by Jordan on one side, and Palestine and Israel on the other. Due to the high salt and mineral content, the southern part of the dead sea is full of factories making creams, bath products and salts – a bit unfortunate considering the Sea isn’t getting any bigger, the Dead sea is declining a few centimetres every year due to the lack of water flowing in the from the Jordan river, however it is the underwater springs that keep the water levels from depleting fast. You can’t take a skinny dip in the sea from anywhere, as you will need a shower and other facilities. There are a few expensive resorts around, but the budget one (where you will find day tippers) is the Amman beach resort. For a fee of JD 20 (excluding lunch), you can use the resort’s facilities and their beachhead. Well for first – you can’t swim in the Dead Sea, the only way is to float on your back, if you swim with your chest facing down, the buoyancy lifts you up so much that you will end up with your face submerged in the water, which is really not a nice thing in the Dead Sea! The water is incredible salty and heavy to touch, if you have any cuts and bruises on you from your trip – wherever they are, they will ring out loud! If the water touches your eyes, head back and wash it quickly – this ain’t no ordinary beach and that salt ain’t no ordinary salt – it tastes like a cocktail of unknown drinks put together! The salt is so intense that at the beach there are layers of salt and salt rocks – that are large in size but can be chipped away with your fingers.

We took the ‘been there and done it’ floating pictures and applied some Dead Sea mud on ourselves (3 JD each). We let the mud dry and washed it off in the sea – aha – Dead Sea check :).

Avoid buying the Dead Sea products from the resort – they are stratospherically expensive. Buy everything and anything from Amman.

The last day:

The next day we spent time in the Roman city of Jerash and the Islamic fort in Ajloun. Both can be easily done in a day trip with time to spare on the way back to Amman, and a quick visit to the Amman Citadel – all in a day. With that we ended our Jordan trip, and with a heavy back, sleepy eyes, the wonderful land and people in our mind, and a pent up of homesickness – we headed back to the Hostel to freshen up and take a cab to the airport.

Overall this was a splendid trip and with an interesting perspective of Jordanians, who are forward looking Arabs, and wonderfully marry both western thought with Arab values. Men are politically aware and open to conversations of the state of economic affairs, and the women are elegantly dressed with their Abaya sporting spring flowers and beautiful colours. From my experiences across the Middle East, I found the country a progressive Arab country offering equal rights for both men and women. There is broad feeling that Jordan is unsafe and may harbour ISIS and extremist militia, from my experience there wasn’t much truth to that. The only restive area of Jordan is north of Irbid where there is a shared border with Syria. Apart from that, the cities and towns were just like any towns you would visit.

Shukran Jordan!

What to carry and expect: 

A recent lonely planet Jordan guide, a Jordan Pass, lot of sun block and lip balm, bottles of water, sunglasses and a cap, and a yearning to understand and do what the locals do. The local economy is going through a tough phase, the cabbies and vendors may sound persistent in selling their products, but if you say no they respect that. Bargaining is fine, just don't over do it.

Saint George's Church Madaba

Mosaic of the Holy Land - Madaba

Dead Sea - Salt at the Beach

Jafra - Downtown Amman

Jafra - Downtown Amman

Sands of Time 

The Siq at Petra

The high place of sacrifice - Petra

Yoga at The Royal Tombs

The Royal Tombs - Petra

The 7 pillars of wisdom - Wadi Rum 

The Monastery - Petra

Sweet Lemon tea 

The desert shadows - Wadi Rum

The port of Aqaba

Wadi Rum

Desert camp - Wadi Rum

Eilat - Isarel 

Amman - Roman theatre

Gokarna - From the Cow's ear!

A place where you can experience everything and nothing, where peace and a blizzard of noise co-exist, something at the turnstile that will always surprise you and bring a smile back to your face. So, drop your guard and let the colors take you over!

Gokarna is a beach town that's on the darshan circuit for devout hindus. However, the town in my mind is just like another religious town in India. I wouldn’t know about this temple but perhaps that might be different (Legend has it that Hanuman dropped a piece of the Sanjivani Parvat that he carried over the skies on his way back from the Himalayas to Lanka). However the true wonder of this town to the travel junkie lies in its beaches. This small town has 5 good beaches to soak in, each of them with a different character of its own!

To add to the wonder, each of these hemispherical beaches is located in a horse shoe mountain range that form part of the western Ghats. So, you can never see the next beach from your current beach and so the further you go the more remote and sparse the beaches get. To get to the next beach you need to trek across the edge of one horseshoe Mountain into another. It is due to this not so easy accessibility that the beaches are perhaps the last bastions of an ‘everything and nothing’ place (Paradise beach is at the extreme end). Where you can find random yoga enthusiasts practicing close to a bunch of saffron clothed hippies dancing to a melodious cacophony of absolutely unheard instruments! All as the local dogs play football with kids and Frisbees soar across passing fellows juggling circus devil sticks.To give Gokarna its rightful name (The cow’s ear), you have lazying happy cows across the beach in search for the next canopy and right spot to doze by. Where do you wish to fit in? choose your spot!

The 4 beaches (I’ll call them the 4 brothers!) in order of accessibility from one to the other are – Kudle Beach, Om Beach, Half Moon Beach and Paradise Beach (Gokarna Beach is the local beach just before Kudle Beach). Each beach is a good 20-30 mins walk from the previous and vastly different in character. We based ourselves at the Kudle beach which in ways along with Om beach is rightly sandwiched to make a trek to both sides of beaches easier. We planned to spend the New Year’s on the beach and reservations though many months in advance were hard to come by. I made a few calls to the beach shacks but they mostly asked me to call back in early December, which when I did only to discover that they were sold out! I frantically googled the other options on the beach and stumbled upon Sunset Café. Not entirely sure about the place but delighted they had an available room (I had initially shortlisted Namaste and Om Shree Ganesh on Om Beach), I made the advance payment and dug myself deep into bed hoping that they don’t end up canceling (due to the peak season, there is no shortage of tourists and you are perhaps only considered serious if you can pay 3x - 4x of the normal rentals. While some may call this extortion, I don’t mind it – if we get bonuses over and above our salaries / charge high fees if a client / customer wants something pronto isn’t it only fair for them to increase rentals during the peak season?

Ohh yes, how did we plan to reach there and head back home? – We booked our train tickets perfectly 2 months in advance exactly at 8:00am when IRCTC opens for reservations and we landed ourselves a WL 4/5 at 8:01 for a 3AC and as a back-up plan at 8:15 at a WL 23/24 for SL! Incredible but I hoped my train luck would not die on me this time. My learning – during festive season book your tickets immediately when the counters open. The train journey from Mangalore to Gokarna is a lovely 4 hour picturesque ride aboard the Matsayagandha Express, this stretch covers half of the Konkan railways and runs parallel to beaches and over the backwaters and through tunnels deep in the mountains.

Reaching Kudle beach (or Om Beach) in the night from the station makes you feel like you’ve come to a safari destination as the car snakes its way through the jungle with strong woody scents with a jungle dog crossing the road. I can’t imagine how people use two wheelers during the night time here (though they do!). Relieved that we had finally arrived at a place (the parking area for Kudle), we were told that the next 100 metres we would be on our own. Excited by having almost reached our destination but weary from the train journey we lifted our bags and made way for the clearing. With a torch in one hand and 2 bags in another, both of us trekked through the highly uneven, at times sandy and at times rocky path heading southwards to the beach. It isn’t at all a bad idea to take a pitstop 5-10 minutes into the descent, you’ll need it. As we walked further and finally reached the end of the path, Hola! there lay beach infront of us but where be Sunset Café? Walk ahead we did. Also, to better appreciate our predicament we had 2 large duffle bags and a large suitcase and beach sand to drag the suitcase by. Not the best of times to have luggage on you (rucksacks – the holy grail for travel!). Sunset café sits smack in the middle of the beach, once we reached the place Prasad (or ‘uncle’ as many call him) greeted us with a big grin and offered us some cold beverages seeing the sweat on our brows. There are only a few rooms here with attached washrooms so we had our fingers crossed on getting one. Uncle obliged and we rejoiced! He did mention that these rooms are quite in demand, I couldn’t appreciate this entirely till into a few days of our stay. For the bachelor or an overt beach junkie the thatched huts could very well be comfy but when you sprout white hair grey and a paunch seems to be the only constant in a sea of variables, some comfort even though basic is bliss in the near wild. Without taking anything away from the rooms, you do need to shed many inhibitions as you stay in any shacks by the beach. This doesn’t have to do with hygiene but with a choice, you can either stay in the duveted hotels overlooking the beach close to the parking area, or stay at the nicey looking Kudle Beach International, or the wayyy pricey Namaste Yoga farm with balconies overlooking the sea, or Jungle Lodges at Om beach, whichever ways we were delighted with our choice of a mud hut at Sunset Café. With lovely country and jazz music humming in the café, rooms where you can hear the roar of the waves and where the first thing in the morning you can see as you open the door is the beach, why would you choose any other place? J

Fresh from a shower and dazzled that we got acco during the season, we were set to have dinner at the Café. I was pleasantly surprised to see a fairly large spread in the Menu – Israeli, Spanish, continental, pizza, pastas and a variety of the season’s catch! A cold beer to down the diner, a day long train journey and the gentle breeze of the sea sent to me to my next destination – the bed! The thing about shacks is that you’re lucky there’s acco by the beach so everything you expect in a hotel is slightly upside down, and as I said before it’s a choice J With a mosquito net over the bed, I think a safe night’s sleep is fairly assured if you have good neighbors! The construct of the shacks give way to inter-room communication at all times of the day and at all places!

Day I:

830 am, the sun in its rise, arms stretched, combed and a spring in our steps we stepped out after some hearty breakfast (the breakfast fares are excellent options for a full meal). As Sunset Café is smack in the middle of the beach, you get to see a lot of action including the local fisherfolk getting their nets out. They lay their nets sometime in the evening and every morning around 8, they start actually ‘pulling’ the nets ashore. It’s akin to a tug of war! With help from the people around the beach the tug of war goes on for almost 45 minutes till the entire net is onshore. They start the pulling from the centre and to avoid getting the nets entangled they have lay the nets by the beach, only to end up with the fish net at the corner of the beach. As the nets reach the beach, there’s an explosion of curious onlookers - some clicking pictures, some enquiring about the catch and some looking for fish and crabs that they can still be sent back to the sea. Here are a few pics including one where a sting ray is sent back to sea.

Since it was Goood morning time, you will also see folks exercising on the beach, stretching, doing calisthenics, push-ups, crunches, Yoga and people like us lazying around.

Walking through the beach with waves crashes at ankle depth, you will be amazed to see the wonderful little sea creatures brushing by the beach close to your feet, tiny crabs in shells, starfishes and other tiny sea fauna, the early bird is bound to get its catch, literally!

As you walk towards the end of the beach, Bougain Villa, Sea Rock Café, Little Paradise Café, the German Bakery, the Old Pizzeria Place, The Spanish Place, Ayurveda Café, Ganga Café will pass you by. To my mind most of the shacks are variants of one another but for the odd looking hotel – Gokarna International smack next to the shacks. There’s a vibe, an energy, a certain still comfortable laziness that sweeps you by when you stay in a beach shack. Apparently, Sunset Café at Kudle beach, Namaste Café at Om beach and another shack on Paradise beach are owned by three brothers, we met with one of them – Gopala, a happy BJP supporting enthusiast who was delighted that we were perhaps the first folks his shack had welcomed from Gujarat. They mostly get weekend backpackers 

from Bangalore and some folk from Mumbai.

If you decide to explore the other beaches as we did, there are a few travel options (1) Trekking (2) Rickshaw and (3) a boat ride. I strongly recommend the trek, a Rickshaw ride is a faux way to get the next Beach – Om Beach (you have to go uphill to get a rickshaw and once the rickshaw reaches you have to go downhill again – completely not worth the time).  If you plan to make the climb to Om Beach, some wisdom to the parched throat is a coconut seller just as the rocky path begins. Sip in some cool coconut water (pricey!) as you gaze the beach and on your left see some Yoga enthusiasts in exotic postures! One that we saw a few times was a man lying on his back with his legs raised up from the waist. Gradually a lady began to push herself up and settled striking a delicate balance on the man’s soles of his feet!

The trek leads you through a parking stretch, through a mound, an almost visible path and finally over a garden. To know you have arrived, there a fence that has a turnstile type opening and once you reach the end of the garden you have to jimmy yourself through the gate. You will meet hippies, travelers and shack caretakers shuttling crates of booze and drinks between the two beaches.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, Om Beach is a busy beach and expect crowds at the entrance. For some reason people gather at the edges of beaches in India (or is it everywhere?), perhaps that’s because they have walked so much and once you see the beach, you want to let down your worries and drop then & there! J Namasate Café (highly recommended) set at the start of the beach is a good pitstop to down a cold beer and some chips after the trek. There’s a small shop going at Namaste that’s perhaps your best ‘shopping’ bet across the beaches. A must buy is the khadi (hemp) kurtas and multi colored PJs. There are also a few beach hawkers selling beads, khadi clothes and such. But if you plan to shop – you can count on this place for variety. There’s also place next to Ganga Café on Kudle but is much smaller.

The first bit of the beach is slightly uninteresting and you must walk to the second half to get into the action! With folks playing volleyball, guys flying the Frisbee and catching them on a finger to a backhand catch and through the legs to flinging it back, this place is Frisbee country and how! We saw a bunch of folks digging a 10 metre ditch downhill from one of the shacks and opening into the sea, when someone asked around – one of them said – ‘this is to let the water flow’, now while you may wonder which side gravity works but do consider the effect of herbs on these gentlemen and then you will see the answer isn’t one to be reasoned with :)

We then decided to sit on the beach taking in the Sun and watching the waves chase each other. A few minutes into our sojourn, there was a gentle nudge on my knee. As I turned, there was a beach dog tapping a friendly paw on my knee! Not sure how to react, we shooed the dog away only to see that he went a few steps back only to be welcomed by a bunch of hippies sitting behind us, the dog was joined by another and they both spent time socializing with beach folks. I exclaimed to my wife, WOW those canines can communicate! As you will see later in this write-up, the animals on the beach seem to float around in an alternative state of blissfulness by the beach.

Once you have taken in the sights and sounds of Om, and luckily have the Sun on your side it is time to pack-up and move to the next beach – Half Moon beach. This is by far the most interesting of the treks across the beaches. The trek takes a good 30 minutes as you find your way between a tad confusing path in the thicket. A 100 metre stretch in the trek has a splendid view of the Arabian sea as you tread through a narrow muddy path on the edge of the cliff ( you need to be careful and must avoid this path during the rains). You will reach a crossroad during the journey, one of which goes into the woods and the other path leads you to the beach. It’s definitely a good idea to ask fellow travelers for the right turn and yeah do confirm the path once more as well (as we did only to know that we took a wrong ‘advised’ turn!).

Reaching the beach, one gets a sense of ‘Is that it’? But there is a certain quiet charm that Halph moon has! (as a hippie pronounced it).  There are only 2 shacks on this beach but maybe its good that way! As this small hangout is tranquil and a good place to sit on the rocks and watch the crabs have their time in the sun as the waves hit the rocks. There’s a display of some shark / whale skeleton that’s an interesting photo-op. Yes, we saw this hippie reach the peak of a large monolith that sits in the middle of the beach, he sat there for nearly an hour, squatting in the same position (@ high noon, another hour and I thought parts of him might begin to evaporate!). There is a corner shack that provides a good view of the beach, the view is its claim to fame, the food slightly avoidable and pricey. The shack sports some huts for accommodation that sit close to the rocks facing away from the beach, almost all of them have a solitary and spectacular view. A long wait on its benches and you are bound to encounter travelers asking you the way to Paradise, and we like pros said, yes that way. Now, in our day-to-day jobs you don’t really get people asking you the way to Paradise, but hey this is as close to how you get literally speakingJ. Due to the trek, folks who come here are definitely the better accomplished explorers, with a good sun absorption capacity. 

Alas, for us this was the end of our trek with Kudle seeming a good 2 hours away. After downing a cooler, emptying our tanks (courtesy the beer, water and a cooler) we set back to Om and then finally to Kudle. Mid way between Om Beach and Half moon, we accidentally took a path towards the cliff and ended up in a clearing where a couple of backpackers had pitched in a tent, with a campfire going on one side and a lazy hammock flung between two branches by the other! What I love about the trek, is that you bump into a variety of folks, each recognizing the distance the other has walked and sharing notes on how long the trek is and voila! An instant camaraderie is established! This along with the sights and woody scent on the trek makes a worn-out trekker spring back into life at the next twist and bend. We reached back at Sunset café just in time to catch the ‘sunset’ and to take forty winks before heading out for the evening.

There are fairly good dinner options at the Café (and the beach), most have large potions. We settled for a Pizza, noodles and a Banofi pie for dessert at cafe itself (must try). Booze options on the beach are a tad dry – there apparently is some issue with selling hard liquor on the beach, and you need to settle between beer and the standard cocktails. Don’t expect some bomber shots, tequila shots etc.

Walking late in the night on the beach is fairly safe as there are quite a few people taking a stroll and you do have a few cops doing their rounds by just to ensure the odd over the top chap isn’t making a scene.

Sleep – this is something I had a challenge with! you need to be lucky to get the right neighbors. We weren’t and were privy to a saas bahu sounding serial / movie, commentary from a cricket match and to top it off - some unheard really slow music (I’m a music lover – but at 1130pm when you are about to hit the sack, this generally isn’t a favorite). Surprisingly there was no talk – only these strange serials etc at a shack by the beach at midnight (get a life!!!) As travelers, wherever we travel, we make a conscious attempt to be cognizant about the peace of our neighbors at night, and am sure they in turn can avoid the movie and serials for a few nights especially when the tin roof and sound padding is friendly to noise and voice exchange! J

Day II:

We spent the next day lazying at the beach by sipping some coffee. The most interesting hour was watching a couple pitching a tent (Sand bags that hold a large sheet at its corners, the sea breeze keeps the sheet up and the sand bags keep the sheet from flying away). What started as sun bathing as they read turned into a cacophony of sorts. Within a few minutes of setting up the tent, a dog settled into the shade and decided to take a nap. Within some minutes of this, the hawkers decided to squat here in hope that the couple buys some gear. And to top it all and not miss the action, a cow lingering nearby thought to walk by and join this herd. So, with the cow at one corner, a dog at another, hawkers at the fore and the couple in the middle – this became an interesting flock! Finally, the couple decided to pack-up and call it a day, not after giving passersby some moments of laughter. There are many characters you can see around – some that caught my eye - a Noah like looking dude with a large stick and a lady heavily dressed in black flowing robes.

We decided to take a long walk in the evening for one last time, somewhere in-between we saw a lone traveler and a beach dog playing football together. The guy would kick the ball towards the dog and the dog brought it back and so-on. Kids joined in the fun and the dog kept them company. When another canine thought to join in, the football dog spared and turned him away. This is surely the first time we saw such engaging football. As if this were a scene from a long past book, close by a bunch of hippies settled down and played their musical instruments and chanted a song they had written, they were gradually joined by many passersby into what eventually became a large disarranged diaspora knit together with music, sand, peace and the odd herbs J.

To sum up our experience the Beatles number 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds’perfectly describes the beaches of Gokarna– a place where everyone does their own thing, where you breathe in the song of the place, where you let go of your city inhibitions, a place where you might just meet a friendly stranger and a place where you can experience everything and nothing!

What we couldn’t do – Take a boat hopping trip from Kudle to Om to Half Moon to Paradise and back. Take the trek from Half moon beach to Paradise beach (a 30 minutes walk, we heard the beach is worth the trek)

What you should do – Get loads of Sun block if your skin is sensitive to the overhead sun.

So Gooookarna, and have a blast :) :) :)

When you believe the future could be bright when people collide, then please take your right!

While crossing corridors, pavements, getting in and out of the loos, there are those short pangs of silent uncomfortable moments of what I call the ‘left problem’.  In narrow gulleys, walkways or at a door when you and the other person are moving towards a collision projectile, you move to your left to let the other guy through but as it isn’t entirely possible to configure your minds on a possible quick game theory to decipher who will move left or right, well he moves to his right simultaneously and aha no one moves. Flummoxed, he moves to his left so that you both can rush to do each of your businesses but you as the ever courteous dude, move to your right simultaneously, and now when you two are stuck again it’s now your turn to flaunt asterisks! Giving up both of you simultaneously decide to let the other move only to realize, heck he’s not moving!!! With a disgruntled smirk somehow you two manage to find your lefts and rights finally.

In absence of perfect knowledge, these instances of momentary orbital blockage in our paths, repeat themselves only to irritate further. From my past years of these scratchy experiences, I have noted that in case there is a wall on one side both you and the other collision particle tend to stay on the side of the wall and many a times not venture on the open side. Similarly while walking on the pavement; both people tend to stick to the side where the pavement bars are. But all this just adds to the dilemma of the ‘left problem’ as there should be one simple fit it all rule we can apply.

Some of us wouldn't mind these moments, in case the other person were one of those interesting ones you have been lately spotting in the neighborhood / office and generously looking at his / her facebook profile, but if you had a disgruntled boss of yours or say someone you really have been wanting to avoid, then these occurrences slowly tend to enhance pre-decimal points (left hand side of the decimal!) to your already achieved degree of frustration!

Or is the left problem even more deep rooted in our psyche, say the case of overtaking on our roads, the rule is to overtake from the left, ohhhh overtake from the right? – that’s just for those non street smart folks. Take the instance of our roads, having a white line dividing the lanes. My left is clear and so is his, but he chooses to come on the side of my left because, his left in an unseasoned patch. At such instances I reminiscence and wonder if tying a friendship band on my brakes would make them work promisingly slightly better.

Is there an answer to fundamentally solve this collision confusion? – say always give a right of way to the lady?, but that poses another challenge, what if two women face each other is a ‘pheley aap’ standoff? If they were sisters in arms, then it would amicable solved, but if they were slightly on the darker side of each other’s mental cortex, the first set of carbon based life forms who would interact with either woman should be advised to buy a bucket of popcorn well in advance for the upcoming monologue with the 'pehley aap' confrontation only being the introduction, what would follow is almost certainly perhaps a life history of the combatant, and finally resulting into you deciding why our dearest Chidu is still not too bad, in comparison!

If they were guys, after probably attempts to solve this big waste of time, splitting a few mouthfuls of profane words and large eyeball popping glances the two would pass! Don’t tell me you haven’t encountered this on our roads.

But is there any amicable respite to this mentally saturating but simple irritant?

Yes! Perhaps a device or an app that hurls abuses when you waiver from your true left or rewards you with mushy words when you have walked the right path, all closely ingrained to (a) our promotions, (b) our credit scores, (c) bank balances and (d) love life!

Till such an app is invented and installed, pray we remember ‘your left is your fundamental ‘right’' and and so is mine’. 

It is only when you believe the future could be bright when people collide, then please take your right!

Cheers