Gokarna

After a nightmare journey across Mumbai, we caught our southward-bound train to Gokarna with 10 minutes to spare.

If a level crossing hadn’t opened just as our tuk-tuk raced towards it, we wouldn’t have made it in time.

We made ourselves comfortable for a 15-hour journey in a  cockroach-infested sleeper class carriage.

But if it was good enough for our fellow passenger 79-year-old Helen of Aberdeen. Then who am I to complain?

It’s hard not to be inspired by her story. A grandmother-of-many, she has spent her winters in India for at least the last 30 years (she’s lost count) as it costs less to travel here, than the bill to heat her home. She gives her remaining money to Indian charities, but only after she’s given them the once-over herself.

I later found out she needed 3 days of bed rest following the exertion of the journey.

India has at times tried my patience and not-insignificant determination. Helen has these qualities by the sporran-full.

Gokarna itself is a pretty village where a scoop of homemade ice cream costs 10p, a masala dosa is 20p an for under 50p you can eat a bottomless fish thali (I mean it was refillable, not a no-arsed sea-dweller.

Further along the coast lies a series of increasingly secluded and untouched beaches.

We stayed on Kudle Beach, a heady hippy hangover from the seventies It’s a super-chilled-out place where pot is as readily available as sand. And where people (men and women) who are far too old to have dreadlocks and wear thongs can have dreadlocks and wear thongs and not be judged for it. In fact, it was so non-conformist that I felt positively non-conformist for being a conformist, if that makes any sense at all.

Once you get used to sharing the shore with stray dogs and cows, the pace of life becomes very easy. The 2 nights we planned to stay quickly turned into 8. It’s certainly somewhere that I’d like to return to.

We hired mopeds for a day and explored inland a while. We also visited Om Beach and the appropriately-named Paradise Beach.

Excluding go-karts, Legoland and a ride-on lawnmower, this was the first time in my life I’d taken control of a motorized vehicle.

Needless to say, Dave, new-buddy Jay and I wasted no time in being very silly boys and maxing out the bikes until they hit 100kmph on the speedo. It was quite brilliant fun and I now understand what I missed out on aged 16. I think I’ll get a scooter when I return to the UK.

Close your eyes when you read this Mum, but in my vest and football shorts, there was a lot of exposed flesh at the mercy of the ill-kept gravel roads. Fortunately the only damage done to me was sunburn.

This compounded my ‘wanker’ t-shirt tan with an additional layer of vest tan. I was curiously mixed race or ‘tanning by numbers’.

 How can you improve beach paradise?

In an act of fantastic generousity, Jay gave me a Game Boy along with Pokemon Red. Truly, at the time, there was probably no better present I could have asked for.

It more than made up for the loss of my CASIDO watch, which I had picked up a month prior in Pushkar. I inadvertently wore it into the sea at Paradise Beach and it turned out its waterproof credentials were as counterfeit as its brand name.

With a heavy heart and sunburnt shoulders, we said goodbye to Gokarna and headed for Hampi.