Personal website of Mithun Divakaran, a guy you may or may not know -- or like.
Okay, I know about Japan’s Morning Musume but from the guys who brought you Super Junior – the 13-member boy band(!), here’s K-pop’s biggest girl band: Girls’ Generation a.k.a So Nyuh Shi Dae.
If Nicole Schezhoweveryousayherlastname was in this group, she wouldn’t allow any of them to sing!
Disclaimer: Yes, I find this song catchy.
Date: 1st March, 2010
Since this was my last day in Gokarna, and since I was all by myself, I decided to do things at my own pace.
Woke up at around 10am, did my business in the common restrooms, paid for my room/hut and then checked out. Stocked up on water and said my goodbyes to the staff at Sunset Cafe.
My second post has photos of Sunset Cafe but if you want to call for reservations, the numbers mentioned on the card they gave me are: (0) 94485 26270 & (0) 93410 79315. They have huts and rooms with prices starting from Rs. 250 onwards.
I thought I’d be of service to my readers and friends by checking out a few other hotel options that looked like decent places to stay on Kudle beach.
By far the most expensive hotel on Kudle Beach is Hotel Gokarna International.
And by ‘expensive,’ I mean this is the only proper hotel on Kudle beach. Just about everything else offers simple huts and small bricked rooms. Rates here range from Rs. 1200 ($26/€19) to Rs. 1500 ($33/€24) for double rooms. Not all rooms face the sea — so you can imagine which ones cost more. Hotel Gokarna International has a bar and a restaurant serving both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. And don’t worry, no shared bathrooms here.
Next up is a funky little place called Jazzmin Cafe & German Bakery. They were fairly accommodating and asked me to take as many photos as I wanted. So I did.
When I questioned them on prices, they told me it’s best I e-mail them with my “requirements” (e-mail: jazzmincafe@yahoo.com).
At the other extreme end of Kudle beach is Ganga Cafe, which looked like a pretty decent place too but I couldn’t have been bothered to walk all the way there with all my bags in the hot sun. Sorry.
UPDATE: A reader who visited in December 2017 was kind enough to share some numbers of places to stay on Kudle beach:
So with all my bags in tow, I made my way up the rabbit hole for the last time.
I took it slow as with a laptop on my back, a camera bag on the left shoulder and a tripod on the other — it was literally back-breaking.
I then took the same path over the hill to Om Beach, which is where I decided I’d spend the day before heading back to town. The reason I opted to stay back one more day was to take a lot of videos on my camera (Canon 7D). Of course, I did take photos in between.
It was already past noon by the time I reached Om Beach so I decided to have an early lunch. I walked into Namaste Cafe, by far the most popular joint on Om Beach and a preferred stay for many who tend to book rooms in advance.
Their restaurant was quite busy as well.
Namaste Cafe has a variety of rooms from basic huts to air-conditioned rooms and prices start from Rs. 200 upwards. For more information, call (08386) 257141/ (0) 94481 53643.
Om Beach attracted bus loads of people that day, guessing because some people got holidays for the festival of Holi.
After a long & lazy lunch, I decided to walk up Om Beach and climb up the path to Half-Moon beach. So I asked my waiter if I could leave my laptop bag at a safe location at the restaurant itself. After doing so, with my tripod and camera bag, I set off once again.
I had to wear socks this time as my feet were getting blisters and scratches from my floaters and from walking barefoot on the sand.
I took the same path we took the day before.
I stopped at the point from where if you were to take a left turn, you would be on the path to Half-Moon beach.
As it was nearing 5pm, I decided to head back to Om beach.
Back at Namaste Cafe, I collected my laptop bag, washed up, cooled off with a lime soda and then made my way up to the auto stand.
Got into one, and saw the beautiful coastlines of Gokarna one last time while I made my way back into town.
Since I had some time to kill before my boarding the bus, I went to the Gokarna beach area for some photographs.
By this point, my camera battery was dying from all the video I recorded during the day. But I couldn’t help but click these posters.
I don’t know what the play was about but I would’ve loved to have found out. Going by their faces I’m guessing it involves killing the make-up artist.
After this, I switched off my camera and made my way to bus. The VRL buses begin at the same spot they drop you in the morning coming from Bangalore. By 6:45pm, it makes it’s way to the town office where it picks up the remaining passengers.
I took this opportunity to go out and grab some grub. I had a sudden yearning to have some ice cream but some stores ran out. Others pointed me to an old rustic coffee shop up the road.
As I patiently waited for the old man at the counter to finish tabulating his bills, I asked for “ice cream”. And then he ran down the list of flavours he had. Going by what he listed, I realized this was home-made ice cream and not the usual mass-produced artificially-flavoured stuff.
I opted for a scoop of mango and he packed one up in a generic ice cream cup with a lid and spoon. All this for how much? Rs. 6 ($0.13).
In many ways, Gokarna feels like it’s stuck in time. A time and a place where you can get a cup of ice cream for just Rs. 6, where ATMs aren’t available in every nook & corner and amenities are basic at best.
The very same reasons I seemed to love Gokarna. It may not remain like this forever, that’s for sure, but I’m sure about one thing — I’m definitely coming back!
Book Gokarna hotels at Booking.com
Previous posts in this series:
Gokarna 2010: Day 2 – Gokarna town, Kudle Beach and Sunset Cafe
Gokarna 2010: Day 1 – Trekking from Kudle -> Om -> Half Moon -> Paradise beach
Date: 28th February, 2010
The next day, we woke up and checked out of our rooms as we were going to be out & about until lunch. We took another small hut at Sea Rock cafe (but slightly better than the Rs. 100 one) to dump our bags — & I needed one for myself as I was going to be spending one more night here. This one cost Rs. 200 ($4). We paid the lady and then headed to town.
We took an auto (cost us Rs. 150) but we couldn’t call the guy who took us yesterday as there is no mobile network coverage on Kudle beach (Airtel and Vodafone — don’t know about the rest).
Gokarna town is a stark contrast from the popular beaches of Gokarna. Conservative, religious, predominantly-Brahmin, laid back. And lots of cows.
We got dropped near the main temple and since it didn’t look like anything we hadn’t seen before, we didn’t bother going in.
So we just walked around it and headed to the beach.
You’ll find small stores selling jewelry, beads, fashion accessories and godly merchandise among a few restaurants en route to the beach.
This is the main beach in Gokarna and it’s quite a big stretch. It’s where the locals throng and visiting pilgrims frequent the most.
And because of that, it’s also the most trashed and crowded beach in Gokarna. We didn’t bother checking it out or walking down the stretch as it really didn’t offer anything special. So we headed back.
We had plans to rent bikes and head for Murudeshwar, which was 80kms from Gokarna but we dropped it in case we were late in getting back. All except I were returning to Bangalore that day and the bus was at 7:15pm. In case you wanted to know, the bikes cost Rs. 300 and above, depending on the kind of bike you want (or at least that’s what the renters told me.)
We roamed around town in search of ATMs.
After withdrawing money from the State Bank of India (there was also a Karnataka Bank ATM), we headed back to Kudle beach for lunch. You won’t find restaurants selling the kind of food you get at Om, Kudle, etc. in Gokarna town. Most eateries are strictly vegetarian.
Once we got back to our room, we checked out again. Why?
Well, there’s an old guy at Sea Rock Cafe who is always drunk and high. The previous night he was chasing a young couple and hurling abuses at them in Kannada. He chased them walking but when they stopped, the old man stopped. Basically he was drunk and was causing a ruckus. But fell short of actually hurting anyone.
Well, he did it again in the afternoon. First joking and then again hurling abuses at everyone. Then he turned his attention to us. He never touched us but we were getting very annoyed. Finally our Kannadiga friend had enough and went to complain to the lady who basically runs the place.
Instead of doing something about their old man, she instead gave our money back and told us if we wanted to leave, we could. So we did.
And then we went next door. We asked Sunset Cafe if they had a room for just me and they showed me a Rs. 250 hut. It was sooooo much better that we didn’t hesitate. We took it, dumped our bags in there and then sat at the cafe for lunch.
It was 4pm and we had plenty of time until my friends had to leave to catch their bus. So we began our long (and lazy) lunch.
As the sun moved towards us, we moved a table away from it.
Come 6 ‘o’ clock, it was time for my friends to collect their bags and head for their buses. So I walked with them until the end of the stretch.
I guess what I liked about Gokarna best were the beaches but also, the kind of people who thronged this place. Take for example these Swiss hippies. One of them was playing a instrument called Hang. It was a unique sound produced on a steel vessel-like instrument. Check it out:
I liked it so much, I even bought the guy’s CD.
After we said our goodbyes and I walked back.
After sun set, I took bath in the common washrooms (as most huts don’t have an attached toilet) and watched the movie ‘City of God‘ on my laptop. (Very good movie by the way)
After that, I attempted night photography.
Sunset Cafe is a much better deal than Sea Rock Cafe and I’m glad we shifted. I can recommend this place over Sea Rock any day!
I enjoyed my sleep a tad better than last night‘s.
Book Gokarna hotels at Booking.com
Next post in this series:
Gokarna 2010: Day 3 – Where to stay on Kudle and Om Beach
Previous post in this series:
Gokarna 2010: Day 1 – Trekking from Kudle -> Om -> Half Moon -> Paradise beach
