The end is near

The day had to come. I knew it even when I was planning the trip three months ago and even when I was packing my bags 15 days ago. This day had to come—the last day of the vacation.

So we survived the night quite peacefully. SKT and Frooti slept early as usual. I, as usual, was up. I saw Ponyo, a movie recommended by Sweater. I will trust Sweater’s choice even more now. Needless to say I loved the film. Then I read a love-story on Twitter. I slept at around 1 am imagining what the holiday would have been like if I had travelled with someone I was in love with. I guess this was just an aftermath of reading a love-story.

There is something about this cottage. The three of us again slept like logs. We woke up at around 8:30 am that too after Frooti warned us that we would miss the sightseeing if we continued to roam about in dreamland. Gokarna is a sleepy town. It is slow and that is the beauty of the place. Life is worth living and every minute becomes worth savoring here. Our tea and breakfast were served at a leisurely pace and we were not in the mood to complain. The dosas were delicious.

A bumpy autorickshaw ride took us to the main temple complex where we offered our prayers to Lord Ganesha , Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. The temple complex is located just a short walk away from the Main Beach. When we reached the beach the sand was as hot as burning coal. However, the sight of a blue sea welcomed us and made us forget about our burning feet. I have never before seen such blue waters. We walked quite a bit in the hot sun. Then we rushed to the vendor selling coconut water. I still felt hot so decided to indulge in an ice-cream. We boarded the auto and braved another bumpy ride back to the cottage. We opted for the simple but delicious meal prepared at the cottage. We lazed around in the afternoon. SKT read her book, Frooti wrote, while I read links I had favorited on Twitter since the last week. SKT and I then called Titu and spoke to him after what seemed like ages.

At around 4, when the sun was not too strong, we took the treacherous path that we had abandoned last evening, and went to Kudle Beach. The Kudle Beach is the beautifulest of them all, as Jaspinder put it. It is a shingle beach. I had first read about a shingle beach when I was in class eight. My teacher had explained, ‘A shingle beach is a beach which has several rocks and boulders strewn all over. The waves come and crash against the rocks creating a sound which touches the soul if a listener listens carefully enough.’ I had wanted to go to a shingle beach ever since. The visit to the beach was everything I had imagined and more. I heard the waves crashing. They spoke to me. Had I been alone, I might have spent some more time sitting on the boulders and thinking about life and such. Then would have walked some more in the crystal clear water. Would have spent some more time talking to the couple who had made a beautiful sand sculpture of Lord Ganesha. However, by a unanimous vote it was decided that it was time to walk to Om Beach.

The track that leads to Om Beach is also a very difficult one. People with no weight issues might not find it too difficult but I was ready to give up on the idea of going to the beach after climbing the steep stairs. I decided to take an auto for the rest of the way. SKT and Frooti were keen to walk the entire distance but decided to accompany me in the auto since they were not in favor of me going alone. So we reached Om Beach. Om Beach is named such because the coast of the beach and the boulders on the coast form the shape of Om. Watching the sun set behind the boulders leaving a red hue across the horizon was an experience to cherish for a long, long time. A very thin sliver of moon rose in the sky next to the pole star while we walked on the wet sand and the waves created music. It was a setting perfect for a song written by Gulzar Sa’ab. We sat on a rock for sometime, listening to the crashing waves, looking at the millions of stars that were twinkling just for us.

We went to the famed Namaste Café. Had a scrumptious meal. I topped off the night with a sliver of banoffee pie. The ride back to the cottage was another adventurous one. The road that leads to the cottage is steep and is a mud-road, not a concrete one. The darkness added to the drama. Thankfully, we reached unhurt.

Now that the vacation is almost over, I can confess that every time I think of how wonderful this break has been, I say a thank you to Jaspinder for helping me plan this trip/itinerary; Loofah for encouraging me to go solo; Sangy for ensuring that no fear ever crept my mind; Sweater for well being entertaining; and last but obviously not the least, mom for saying repeatedly, just be happy and enjoy and ensuring that all my reservations and bookings were done. I am glad SKT and Frooti ‘piled on’ (their words not mine!) on the last leg of the holiday so that my transition back to humanity and my world will be relatively easy.

I am now packed and ready to leave for Goa tomorrow morning. A taxi has been booked to take me to Goa station, which is a four-hour drive. I’ll be taking a train to Delhi from Goa. The 40-hour journey back home will be one where I’ll be revisiting each and every moment of my vacation, not necessarily in that order.

Interesting times

To a discerning eye the way I spent the first day of the year might seem boring. However, people who would fall in this category would be wrong. We began the day with a Bigg Boss experience. There was an early-morning eviction and we were asked to vacate our room by 6:30 am. We packed our bags, got ready, and then slept till 7:40 am. That’s when the caretaker came to ask us to leave the room immediately. Then we shifted our luggage and ourselves to the dining hall of the Holiday Home. The driver was called and asked to come by 9 am so that we could leave for Gokarna.



The drive through the Western Ghats was most scenic. Verdant forests on one side and a deep blue sea on the other kept us company while our driver for the ride, Dheeraj, ensured that we stayed alert throughout the journey because of his abysmal driving skills. The upside to his fast driving was that we made good time and were in Paradise Holiday Cottages, Kudle Beach by 1 pm.



SKT, Frooti and I were jumping with joy after seeing the wooden cottage that is to be our home for the next couple of nights. The Flintstone’s bathroom made me really happy. It has stone walls, a showering hole in the center of the floor, and a big window with a curtain which allows natural light to fill in the bathroom but keeps ones modesty intact (or so I hope). The room is on the first floor. It is a big wooden hall with a queen size bed, a fan which is off-center ensuring that you feel cool if your are closer to it and warmer as you go further away, and two CFL bulbs which are connected to the same switch so that either you survive in pitch black darkness or feel like you are sitting on the Railway platform. The view from the balcony is to die for. Huge black boulders are spread across the landscape. Different shades of green cover the vicinity and the trees house a variety of birds which give a continuous background music that compliments the sound of waves of the Arabian sea that lies at the foothill of the hilltop where our cottage rests.



So taken were we with the view that we sat outside to have lunch. Unfortunately, my heart and skin don’t compliment each other. While the heart loves the sun, the skin does not appreciate the heat at all. So while sitting in the sun warms my heart, my skin becomes red, itches and forms scales that are akin to the scales on the body of a baby crocodile. However, little things like acute skin burn do not deter me. I sat with SKT and Frooti in the sun, had lunch, and then we spoke for several minutes. I decided that the self-preservation mode needs to kick in and therefore decided to head back to the room and take a nap instead of going down to the beach. While I was sleeping like a log in the wooden cottage, SKT and Frooti were soaking in the sun. I have no idea when they came to the room and decided to take a nap as well. I woke up a few minutes before sunset, clicked photos of the dipping sun and sent the photos to Mom, Jaspinder, and Sweater in an attempt to make them jealous.



Then the three of us decided to start the New Year on an ambitious note. We decided to go to the beach almost 15 minutes after sunset. Now the route to the beach from the cottage is treacherous to say the least. SKT and Frooti did fraandship with a kitten on the way. The scary-poo that I am, I stayed 10 steps ahead of them to avoid tripping on the kitten. We were almost at the last leg of the ‘dangerous way’, as the manager of the cottage put it, when one of us just about managed to avoid a fall. Better sense prevailed and we climbed the hill back to the cottage. We sat outside, under a canopy build with hay, drank tea/coffee, and sat sharing stories with each other. It was an hour well spent.



We ordered dinner and had a traditional thaali meal sitting down on the floor, sharing more stories and laughter. When prodded repeatedly, the caretaker said that monkeys might visit the cottage early morning. When questioned further, he said that bears also come in the vicinity, ‘only sometimes’.



Let’s hope this does not turn into a wildlife holiday!



See you tomorrow!