Gokarna

Gokarna is amazing. It's as simple as that, and I could pretty much end it there, but I'll continue anyway. Yesterday I spent most of the day in Mangalore, an old port city that was replaced in popularity by Kochi in the 1500's. It was uninteresting at best. I thought I only had a few hours there, but then the train left almost 3 hours late for no apparent reason, so I was just hanging out at the train station for quite a while.

Anyway, I took the train to Gokarna and on the way saw one of the most stunning sunsets ever. The picture doesn't do it justice. My camera is nice, but it would have to be downright amazing to take a good picture of a sunset from a moving train.

So I got into Gokarna at about 7:30pm, then hiked over the hill in the dark to Kudlee Beach. It was interesting, just complete darkness and a 20 minute hike, but I made it somehow (I did have a flashlight but it's not exactly powerful. They LCD screen on my camera puts off about the same amount of light).

I couldn't really see much of the beach, it being dark and all, but I walked along until I found a fairly popular restaurant and ate there, then got a room there for $3. I woke up this morning, walked out to the restaurant and fully comprehended that this place is on the beach (as you can see in the picture). Like sand everywhere and the water a 10 second walk from the restaurant.

Breakfast at the restaurant was tasty; oatmeal with papaya, pineapple, grapes, pomegranate, apple, orange and banana. After that I went for a swim, which was amazing. It was before 9am, but warm outside and the water is fairly warm as well (downright hot compared to home, but feels cool compared to the weather outside here). I came into town after that and an Israeli that's been living here for a month took me to this local place that sells banana buns. They're these delicious, slightly sweet fried buns that they only make here. I'll be coming back for more.

So now I'm pretty much going to hang out. There aren't too many sights here, just gorgeous beaches. Of course it being India, they have cows on the beaches as well. I'm reminded of the "Happy

cows come from California" ad campaign, and I feel like these are the truly happy cows (you know, if cows are capable of emotions, which I'm not sure about). They're considered holy, no one with kill them, and they just hang out on the beach and graze in the forest nearby. That's a pretty sweet life for a cow.

I should mention that this is a holy city. There is some sort of holy statue or something that taking just a look at it (after a ritual bath in the ocean) will absolve you of 100 sins, including the murder of a Brahman (the highest caste), so there are a lot of Hindu pilgrims (although hopefully not to many absolving murders), although they tend to be centered here in town where the temple is, with the western tourists at the beaches.

I finished booking all of my trains, so it looks like I have about a week to spend at the beach. I may head up to Goa in a couple days. It's more commercialized, but I want to see it anyway. It was a part of Portugal until something like 40 years ago, so it has a whole different feel to it supposedly. After that it's off to Hampi, then a complicated set of 3 trains to see some caves, then back to Delhi (as I write this I realize I may have mentioned this before, but oh well, now it's booked).