Eat. Pray. Love. At Gokarna.

Go

Fly

Roam

Travel

Voyage

Explore

Journey

Discover

Adventure

With my daily humdrum life in Bangalore, the closest I could come to nirvana, was Gokarna. A small sleepy temple town on the Western coast of India, is by far my best bet to go to if one wants to unwind in every sense of the word. The place is so relaxed that is will make you want to shut your brain down even if you don’t want to! With this massively enticing thought in mind we boarded our night bus from Bangalore to Gokarna.

Usual sights at Kudle beach

Now Gokarna is known for its religious attractions (which we decided to put for the later part of the trip) and its multitude of beaches. The most famous one of course is the Om Beach, which is well as the name suggests shaped like an Om! Being the most famous, it also is the most crowded of them all. Especially if you end up going on a weekend (which most people do) the beach is thronged by families and kids running all over and ladies washing their scarves, sarees et all in the waters.

So for a quite stay the best bet would be to go to Kudle beach. It is a little more deserted and quiet and mostly has foreign tourists who don’t want to give a damn about the world! You can wake up early in the morning, chill on the beach and do some yoga with cows and dogs for company, get some delicious omelettes and pancakes at one of the few shacks for breakfast and repeat this for as many days as you can!

The shame is however, that not many people go to any of the other beaches beyond Om and Kudle. Om is the most accessible and as we move further to Kudle, Half Moon and the Paradise beaches, the ease of accessibility reduces tremendously.

For Kudle we had to do a small trek down a hill, but the most fun was the Half Moon beach trek. It’s through a jungle, over a hill, the path is barely two feet wide (I’d wonder if you could even call it a path) and it precariously overlooks the steep fall to the sea. Definitely not the best way to take if you’re scared of heights or water or both! The only other way to access the other beaches is by boats which again are not all that frequent.

But that trek which brings your heart to your mouth is well worth it! Imagine after that freaky trek arriving at a beach where you are the only person till as far as the eyes can see! These beaches I had heard were secluded but no one ever mentioned that secluded meant your own private beach with no one else around!!

 

The "path" to Half Moon beach

The seclusion is worth the trek

So next time your souls yearn for peace and to forget the world, without thinking much pack those bags to Gokarna!

Sravanabelagola, Halebid, Belur: Solo Indian Woman Tripping V2.0

"I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be. So, I guess I'm on my back home."

A few months after my first solo trip, the 'travel alone' bug started gnawing at me again. So this time, after recommendations from fellow travelers and a couple of guide books I zeroed in on Sravanabelagola, Belur and Halebid for my next trip. But this time as I was planning I remembered the stares from my last trip alone, the questions about where my family was and why I was travelling alone and did I not know how unsafe it could get? So I kept postponing this one as the thoughts kept popping in and out of my head, till one Saturday I woke up and thought well that’s what people do right? Question! That’s what humans do. Why should I give into others’ concerns? So I just packed a couple of items and set out early that morning to the Majestic bus stop to catch the next local to Hassan.

With a few hours of a wonderful early morning ride on a not so wonderful rickety bus I got off at Hassan, my base camp for the weekend. Thankfully, the bus stopped very close to (I believe) the only liveable hotel around and as I entered the building, thus began my series of questions and answers for the weekend.

After satiating my hungry stomach and some astonished locals’ curiosity I set out on my first sight for the weekend; Sravanabelagola. It is around forty-five minutes away from Hassan by bus and then when you reach there, the walk up the Vindhyagiri Hill takes another twenty minutes (but it feels like someone has been pumping oxygen out of your lungs for hours at a stretch!!). The town is centered around a white tank (bela kola) which gives it the name. The Vindhya Hill to the south of the tank houses the over 17m high statue of Gomatesvara, which is believed to be highest monolithic statue in Asia. The huffing and panting up the 650 steps is made worth it when you see the statue and the expression of peace on his face. 

                                     

The impressive Gomateshwara statue

                                      

                                      

Murals on the temple walls

Tank around which the town is centered

The other hill, Chandragiri which is the smaller of the two has more areas of interest from a historical point of view. There are 576 inscriptions on the rock, which is the most on a single site in India and they date from the 6^th to the 19^th century speaking of a dozen different dynasties.

Chandragiri Hill

                                   

Next up on the itinerary were the Yadava temples at Belur and the Hoysala temples at Halebid. Both are around thirty minutes away from Hassan, but it is advisable to check out Belur first and then Halebid as there are more frequent buses from the latter back to Hassan.

The most famous site in Belur is the Chenna Kesava temple. Though the entire temple and the sanctum is not in very good shape but it’s good enough to study the intricate carvings for hours.

Chenna Kesava Temple, Belur

Halebid on the other hand is in almost pristine and untouched condition even after a thousand years behind it. The best part is the finely carved temples which are so intricate and precisely done. One can just sit at the courtyard for hours and try to read the stories that the carvings tell. And when the sun gets too much to bear just go inside the temple and the latticework allows just the right amount of air and light to let you continue your contemplatives, unperturbed.

Intricacies at Halebid

After Hampi, this was another wonderful weekend going back in time and being alone just lets you soak in all the history even deeper.

Hampi: The Lost Empire

“A people’s relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother.” – John Henrik Clarke

When I first shifted to Bangalore more than a year ago, Hampi was never close to being on my list of must visit places. But then of course all that went out of the window courtesy my travel freak of a boyfriend!

So on the last weekend of November 2013 we decided it was time for some lessons into Indian history and heritage!

Hampi is an overnight bus journey away from Bangalore. The closest “town” is Hospet which is around 11km from Hampi, but with more potholes than roads the distance takes close to 45 minutes to cover! We didn’t book any accommodation before hand, so we just went relying on luck and the goodness of mankind! And as luck would have it, we did find a room in Pushpa Guest House, bang in the middle of Hampi. (Travel Tip # 1: Try not booking accommodation in advance to avoid paying more than necessary and also to not miss out on wonderful opportunities to meet new people during your stay!)

With a dozen or more sites to visit and just about as much time in our hands, we set off with our auto-wallah to take us on a tour across the now-ruined-once-glorious-empire. (Travel Tip # 2: Keep in mind the weather, the number of sites to visit and the roads (or lack of it!), so even if cycling or walking around seems tempting, an auto would be more viable)

And so began our journey through our past and back to present. From the Sister Stones to the Ugranarsimha, from the intricately carved walls of the Krishna temple to the forlornly desolate and intriguing Hampi Bazaar, every site still clearly had signs of the magnificence they once bore.

Ugranarsimha Temple

Lotus Mahal

Some of the more interesting sites are:

1.      Underground Shiva Temple: this underground temple was excavated quite recently and being completely underground the entire sanctum and most parts of the temple are under water.

2.      Virupaksha Temple: the oldest and the principal temple of Hampi, is located on the banks of river Tungabhadra. With the resident elephant blessing devotees or being given a shower in public for show or the natural pin hole camera inside the shrine showing inverted images of the main gopuram, this one is a must visit and even better at non-aarti times.

Virupaksha Temple as seen from the Hemkuta Hill

3.    Vittala Temple: this is by far the most extravagant sites of them all! The temple is in the centre of a sprawling campus with several halls and temples in the compound.

4. Matunga Hill: a trip to Hampi is incomplete if one hasn’t huffed and puffed one’s way up the Matunga Hill in pitch darkness at 4am only to catch the most magnificent sight of the sun rising and illuminating the old and new, the ruins and the flourishing at the same time. It is the highest point in Hampi and gives brilliant aerial views of the town. On the way down one can check out the Achutaraya Temple complex. (Travel Tip # 3: Carry a pocket torch as the path is not well it, and the steps though almost intact, however are as old as the Vijayanagar kingdom so high chances of slipping and hurting oneself)

Sunrise at Matunga Hill

Apart from these, one can take a coracle ride across the Tungabhadra, cycle for 2km and then climb another

100 stairs of so to reach the Hamuman Temple on the other side of the river. Or just watch the sun set from the

Hemkuta Hill, have some good food at Mango Tree or just relax in the gardens of the Lotus Mahal and watch an

era long forgotten interplay with your present.

Elephant Stables

Sunset at Hemkuta Hill

Coracle ride across Tungabhadra river

Achutaraya Temple