Travel Diary - Yana/Gokarna

Nov 7th - The Day Before

I'm sitting at my desk, supposedly concentrating on winding up my work, but my head refuses to cooperate. My brains have decided to start their vacation a little early and are already out there exploring the sun, sand and surf. Another 14 hours before the rest of me can catch up! I constantly stare at the clock on my desktop in a vain effort to make time flow faster.

Just as I'm starting to go over the top, I'm taught a lesson in relativity by Gaurav's mail about the Anniv Ride. My head emerges from the vast blue oceans it was so blissfully immersed in, to go traipsing along rickety bridges with scenic backdrops. Not for the first time, I wonder if one lifetime will be enough to cover all the places I want to see.

As thoughts head back to my own little journey, I wonder if I made the right decision in starting a ride with a seized engine, and I pray the bike will hold up for the next 4 days. I also feel a slight pang of emotion...in all likelihood this will be my last ride on the bike. She may be a rusted old contraption that's quite literally falling apart at the seams, but she is also the first Enfield I've ever owned after a lifetime of wanting one. I hope she has it in her to pull through one last ride.

Tomorrow we leave – Destination Arambol, North Goa

Nov 8th – Bangalore – Shimoga – Sagar – Siddapur - Sirsi

It’s about 8.30pm on the night of Diwali. The night is pitch black with no moon to illuminate the surroundings. Alin and I are riding down a narrow country road, past Siddapur on our way to the small town of Sirsi, when Alin suddenly coasts to a halt and switches off his lights. I stare at him for a few seconds through the glare of my own lamp, when he urgently asks me to follow suit. As the headlight goes off, enveloping us in darkness, I am aware of a faint light in the sky and look up. The sight that I see is not easily described.

If I were a tycoon, I’d spend a million dollars to see that sight every night of my life, and it would still fall short.

If I were a painter, I’d spend a lifetime trying to capture that sight on canvas, and it would still fall short.

It’s like the Gods, in an ostentatious display of craftsmanship, have gathered together a billion bright lights and woven them together into the deep velvet fabric of the night sky, then cast it above us lowly mortals as a protective, comforting blanket.

Or perhaps, in a town that seemed strangely dull and lifeless to the festivities of Diwali, the heavens were giving us a gentle reminder of our culture with a celestial display of fireworks, revealing the stars of a million constellations that shimmered and shone in myriad patterns, seemingly trying to make up for the dreariness of life below.

It’s safe to say I’ve looked up at the sky thousands of times since I was born, and a hundred more times in my dreams, but I’ve never seen it this beautiful. But then again, I live in a big city, where we take pride in hiding the beauty of the heavens with our own shroud of dust and pollution.

Apart from these few precious moments, the rest of today’s ride has been fairly nondescript. We adopted an easy, relaxed pace right from the start, halting as often as we pleased for as long as we liked. We soon realized that doing Goa would be impossible if we carried on at this pace, so a COP was carried out. I’d always wanted to do Yana, so Alin suggested we reach Sirsi by nightfall, do Yana early the next day and then spend the third day in Honavar. We could explore some beaches and islands in the vicinity and head back to Bangalore on day four. I haven’t seen any of these places before, so I readily agree.

We spend some time watching the sky, and then move on to reach Sirsi. After some hunting around, we find a decent hotel that has an attached bar & restaurant. I’m fairly amused to see that all of the hotel staff, from the manager to the cleaning boys, are clustered around a single TV featuring the India-Pakistan cricket match and are oblivious to all else. It takes some effort to tear them away from the television long enough to serve us some food and beer. I want to go back to that spot to check the sky again, but we are both too bushed to ride back, so we decide to hit the sack.

Nov 9th – Sirsi – Yana – Gokarna

I wake up all fresh and eager, ready to hit the jungles of Yana. I’ve been reading Vishu’s account of the Yana anniv ride and hearing others talk about it for the past year and a half, so I can’t wait to experience it for myself.

The day starts off unlucky for me; what seem to be the only two cops in Sirsi have set up a check post at the exit road, and I have to pay the usual bribe because my bike’s insurance has expired.

The ride from Sirsi along the Kumta route is very scenic, with wide twisting roads set amidst thick green foliage. We soon arrive at the Yana turn-off, and Alin gives me a wicked grin and says that the scenery I’ve just witnessed was ‘only a prelude’. For the past two days, he’s been regaling me with horror stories of snakes dropping down on him and Biren from above, during their previous trip here.

As we head in, we notice a villager ride past on what looks like a TVS 50, and its tires are chock full of muck. I start to feel the butterflies but then we soon experience the track for ourselves. The track reminds me of a videogame, in that the level of difficulty seems to increase the further you go in. A broken road with loose stones turns to a path filled with shallow muck that soon turns deeper with huge ruts all over the place. My comfort level increases with each stretch I cross successfully, and as I reach a tea-stall set in an old house about 15km in, I’ve metamorphosed from a nervous bumbling wreck into a seasoned off-roader…all in my own eyes, of course.

Alin is not about to relent easily, however, and shatters all my newfound confidence with a single statement “That was the easy part”.

I soon find out he isn’t joking, as we start chatting with a bus driver (the bus parked nearby explains the ruts) who flatly says that a bike cannot not make it to the top. He had tried taking his bus up but it couldn’t make it up the steep muck-filled inclines, and he had to drive back in reverse. The tea-stall owner proves a more open-minded person; he has great confidence in the abilities of an Enfield. For some reason though, he absolutely insists that we take one bike up and leave the other down. I don’t understand the logic and am not happy about the decision, but we finally decide to heed his advice and proceed up on Alin’s bike.

After a few twists and turns, I decide that Alin’s rear seat is a little too high for my comfort and that it would probably be safer (and less embarrassing) to fall off my own bike than the back of his, so I get off and take the long walk down to fetch my bike.

What follows is a stretch of good solid off-roading. The muck has been converted into a miniature mountain landscape by the bus driver’s frantic, fruitless efforts to navigate past it, and the track itself is one steep narrow incline after another. My own efforts to cross these inclines consist of the following:

1. Keep a safe distance from Alin, just in case he decides to fall backwards.
2. Align my wheels to the path of least resistance.
3. Say a prayer to the Lord
4. Put the bike in first gear.
5. Grip the handlebar tightly and rev the bike for all she’s worth
6. Close my eyes.
7. Let go the clutch.

I guess the bike knows she’s about to be sold off and seems determined to prove her mettle. It defies logic but she doesn’t give up on me and manages to keep going up the steepest inclines while maintaining her balance, and I ultimately reach the top in one piece.

There’s a set of stairs that lead to the top, and after much puffing and panting and cursing and the usual statements about improving one’s fitness level, we finally reach the monolithic rock formation we’ve come all this way to see.

The rock looks nice. All big and black and craggy and weather worn. Personally though, I am more interested in a small white plastic tap nearby that gives off a steady flow of cool water. Alin and I lament the lack of a wide-angle lens as it proves impossible to capture the rock at such a short distance. I satisfy myself with clicking a tree that’s growing precariously up its side. Soon the place starts to fill up with tourists and we decide to head back.

I feel queasy even thinking about the downhill ride, but it proves to be easier than the way up. We find an alternate path that eliminates some of the inclines, and except for one near-vertical downhill stretch that has me forgetting all my off-roading concepts and reverting to my usual ‘hold on tight to anything that’s available and close your eyes’ routine, and Alin yelling “clutch ko chod, clutch ko chod”, I make it to the tea stall feeling very proud of myself.

Alin and I discuss the plan for the rest of the day, and he feels it would be difficult to hunt around for a suitable beach in Honavar in the dark, and proposes we go to Gokarna instead, where he knows a villager called Kittu who has access to a very secluded, beautiful beach called Paradise beach. I am personally ok with any place that has lots of salt water and very less people, so we have our second COP of the trip.

Its about 5pm now and I want to get past the remainder of the stretch before it gets dark, so we say our good-byes to the bus driver (who, at this point, is busy convincing some tourists in a red Maruti Omni that they cannot make it to the top) and leave, past the “easy” stretch and out onto the main road.

On the way we stop to see the sun set, and I am acquainted with a strange new fact about NH-206 between Sirsi and Gokarna –the Earth somehow rotates faster at that point. There can be no other explanation for the way the sun moved. It is some way up in the sky when we stop for a photo session. I take the camera out, and the sun decides to beat a hasty retreat. Alin notices and yells out urgently “Change the lens, change the lens” and I rush to do it with fumbling fingers. By the time I raise the camera to my eye, the sun is halfway down and Alin is wearing a worried expression. I struggle with the AF and MF modes for a few seconds, and when I look through the camera again, there is no sun and Alin is now wearing a perplexed expression. He remarks sardonically “it was moving at 60kph” and we proceed to Gokarna.

Our destination is a village called Belekhan, which is where Kittu resides. We reach the village without any fuss; it consists of a single lane with maybe 10-12 houses on each side. Kittu’s house is towards the end. It is too dark to see anything but I hear the sound of waves nearby which I take as a good sign.

Alin enters the house and emerges a few seconds later with a beaming Kittu in tow. He speaks Hindi fluently and gives me a warm greeting, and agrees immediately to let us park our bikes in his backyard and store our luggage in his hut. I wasn’t expecting this level of friendliness, so I’m pleasantly surprised. Kittu then says we’re to attend a nearby puja and have dinner at his house, after which he’ll take us to the beach. Alin and I look at each other with raised eyebrows…we had not bargained for this. Neither of us is remotely interested in a puja, and all we want is to get to the beach, but he is our host, at least for the present, and we cannot refuse.

Kittu’s real intentions are soon evident, though. The shop where the puja is happening is the only shop in the village that sells liquour…by a strange coincidence it turns out to be Old Monk. Kittu wastes no time in getting half a bottle (which we pay for, obviously) and invites us to a drink.

As we agree, he drops a second bombshell. His ‘adda’ of choice is an old abandoned bus stop, complete with dirty floor and walls and a man lying on a bench in a drunken stupor. My heart plummets…I absolutely do not want to do this. We immediately start trying to convince Kittu that it would be much more pleasant to drink at the beach, but he wants none of it. His protests get louder after a while and we are forced to give in. I make sure he pours me the smallest possible peg and top it up to the brim with soda…I’ll never forgive myself if I get drunk at this place. Alin does likewise, but Kittu does not fuss about with preliminaries. One overly generous dose enters his glass followed by a slight bit of soda, one huge gulp and his glass is suddenly empty…and the next moment he’s piss-drunk.

And then he starts to talk and talk, and then talk some more. Since I’m technically a stranger, I get away with the cursory nods and polite questions, but Alin, whom Kittu refers to as “Leonne, my friend” bears the brunt of this verbal attack.

After what seems like ages, our gentle persuasions get through and Kittu makes ready to leave. He surrenders his last glass to another villager, whom he generally refers to as “my friend”, and heads off to his house. As I hurriedly gulp down the remainder of my drink, I notice ‘friend’ tilt his head back and down the entire glass in one go. He then looks at me glasy-eyed and says “Finished”, holding up his glass as if to prove it. Alin and I both hurry out before the effects of his finishing become evident.

Kittu then shows his warm-heartedness again by grabbing a bag full of mussels that he had collected earlier on in the day, and leads us to the beach.

It is again too dark to see where we’re going, but he leads us unerringly on a short trek through some woods and over a hill to the beach. From what I can make out, it is basically a rocky shore, but with a small stretch of sandy beach towards the entrance. There are a few shacks on the slopes of the hill and one or two on the beach. There is a small group of what looks to be students sitting around a bonfire singing songs. Further on, I see a bigger shack right next to the sea, which is where Kittu seems to be headed. We soon find out it’s a restaurant with two huge thatched cabins and a sandy floor, and its deserted except for a small group of Europeans clustered around the entrance. One of them is playing soothing, mellifluous music on a drum of some sort. It looks like a bit like a shield that you see in the Indian mythological movies, and he has two small sticks that he strikes the drum deftly with. It gives off a tinkling sort of music that sounds heavenly!

Kittu introduces us to the owner of the restaurant, Murli. They both have a brief chat, and Murli says we can spend the night there. There are a few mattresses lying around which we can use.
Kittu wants to have another drinking session before dinner, and we oblige. In the meantime, Murli cooks the mussels and serves it along with a rice thali. The mussels are delicious…spicy and tangy. I’ve never eaten mussels before and I relish every morsel.

We finally put an end to what’s been a very long day. As the night is warm, we both decide to put our mattresses outside where there’s a gentle breeze flowing, and the soothing sound of waves crashing onto the rocks a few feet ahead. I nod off thinking about a day on the beach tomorrow.

Nov 10th – Gokarna – Bhavra Island – Long Beach

There’s something about lying on an idyllic beach in a shack, staring at the sun’s rays sparkling off the water that puts you in a trance of sorts. I wake up feeling a sense of peace and calm, and I all I want to do is sit there and stare at the sea all day…which is precisely what we do. For a bit of exercise, we walk up and down the rocks and click a few photos. As the day gets warmer, we head off for a swim. The sea is perfectly calm and tranquil with only the hint of waves, just perfect to bathe in.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve swum in the sea, so I’m pleasantly surprised to re-discover the effects of the extra buoyancy offered by the seawater. After heading some way in, I find that I can just lie on my back in a Jesus Christ position, and I float with absolutely zero effort. The feeling is just amazing. I spend ages lying on my bed of water, eyes opened or closed alternately, watching the birds fly over me. I later convey this information to Alin, and although it proves a little more difficult in shallow water, he manages it and seems even more delighted with the end result than me.

Towards afternoon Kittu pays us a visit again. Last night we had been asking him about nearby places to visit, and he offers to take us around. We spend some time deciding whether we should hire a boat from the beach, or travel by ferry and subsequently by bus. We talk to a couple of boatmen who refuse to land us anywhere, so we decide on the latter option.

As we head towards the village, however, Kittu decides to drop in on a fisherman friend of his called Sunil, and he immediately agrees to ferry us around. I am witness to the ritual of putting a boat in the water using wooden logs topped with grease as rollers, and then we head out into the sea.

I have yet another thrill when I find that the sea around Barkha Island is quite popular with the local dolphin population. We see several dolphins in groups of 2 or 3 arching their backs and leaping across the water. Bhavra Island has a very picturesque beach, and it’s completely isolated as the only way in and out is by boat. A tent and two day’s worth of food and supplies would ensure the perfect camping experience. If I ever go back to Gokarna, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Long beach, located a little further away, is just that…an extremely long beach with white sand, again fairly secluded. By this time I’m eager for another swim, so Sunil drops us off at a place where is the sea isn’t too rough. I have a good swim, then we spend some time on the beach photographing a crab that brazenly comes out of it’s hole to stare angrily at these noisy intruders who have interrupted it’s afternoon nap. We finally head back around 3pm as it’s time for Sunil to go finishing. Again we see a few dolphins breaking the water on our way back.

Kittu then invites us to his house for lunch. He had already made us promise to go the previous night, so we have no choice but to accept. We are introduced to his son, who speaks very broken English and refers to both of us as ‘Friend’. His wife has prepared their annual Diwali speciality, idlis that are cooked inside jackfruit leaves. The idlis are humongous, and although I’m fairly hungry after my swim I can barely manage to eat one. Alin cannot finish more than half of his. The idlis are accompanied by potato gravy and a sweet coconut dish (which I refuse), followed by a glass of black tea. Although part of me is wondering how much Kittu will charge for all of this when we leave, I cannot help being touched by his hospitality. Meal over, Kittu sends his son to escort us to the restaurant, and we bid our goodbyes.

The rest of the day flows by with nothing much happening. Towards evening we take another swim, and prepare to photograph the sunset. By now we have wised up to any evasive tactics the sun may deploy, and find a vantage point and adjust camera settings 20 minutes before sunset. We click a few snaps, and although the sunset looks beautiful it isn’t exactly the spectacular scene I was hoping for.

I’ve been itching all day for a few beers, but we find that selling alcohol on the beach has been strictly prohibited. Tourists and hoteliers alike are unhappy about it, but they have no choice but to obey. Murli informs us that the rule has been passed as a result of hoteliers not paying enough ‘baksheesh’ to the local police, and talks are still going on to decide the amount to be paid annually. I suggest going down to Tadadi to fetch some, and Alin agrees. Murli gives us the location of the bar (strangely, it’s right opposite the temple) and we head off.

I don’t want to spend another evening listening to Kittu’s drunken monologues, so I ask Alin to turn off his torch as we enter Belekhan. We tiptoe through the village; two silent, mysterious figures in the darkness, not stopping to talk to anyone or even acknowledge each other. Kittu’s house is silent and my heart moves up a few notches…maybe he is already asleep! But then, just when I think the coast is clear and start to breathe easy, I hear the dreaded “Hello, my friends” call behind us, and there’s Kittu hurrying towards us. He says he almost missed us, but made us out by Alin’s bright, multicolored shorts (I imagine tearing those vile shorts into little pieces, burning them to ashes and scattering the ashes over the sea). Thankfully, he already appears drunk and in no mood to accompany us to the beach. He asks me for twenty bucks to get himself another peg, I part with the money and he happily heads into the shop.

Alin and I reach Tadadi and thankfully the bar has a stock of beer. We get a couple of bottles and head back, and just as we reach the end of Belekhan, we hear another call. This time it is Sunil and his assistant Ravinder, who have just returned from their fishing trip. They are removing the fish from their nets and beckon us to join them. We head down to view the activity and end up having a pleasant chat with them. Sunil agrees to let us join him for a fishing trip the next time we’re in Gokarna. As we both start examining the fish, Sunil insists we take some with us. We know that this is his livelihood and politely refuse, but he has none of it, and his helpers start loading our bag with fish. After they’ve put about 10-12 fish in, Alin forces them to stop, we say our goodbyes and promise to meet up the next time, and head back.

Dinner is a pleasant affair tonight, accompanied as it is with fish literally fresh out of the sea and cold beer.

Nov 11th – Gokarna – Honavar – Sagar – Shimoga – Bangalore

We wake up early and prepare for the ride back. Although I’ve only been here for a day, the beach already looks like a familiar haunt and I’m reluctant to leave. We do the trek for one last time, looking over our shoulders at the beach for a few moments before going down to Belekhan.
We have been debating how much we should give Kittu and have been unable to reach any conclusion. He looks rather morose as we pack up, but on the spur of the moment Alin gives him two hundred bucks and he perks up immediately. He rushes up to bid us goodbye and promises to show us some new places when we return.

We stop at Sunil’s hut briefly, and although we cannot find him, we find Ravinder and bid him goodbye, and then we are out of there.

The trip back is quite routine, as return journeys generally tend to be. The stretch of road from Honavar to Sagar is quite beautiful, with winding ghats and greenery on both sides of the road. We stop briefly at a viewpoint after Honavar to see the river Sharavati, but get out of there quickly as it is full of tourists who are crowded up on the watchtower.

I haven’t seen Jog Falls yet, so we make a brief detour to see it, but I am hugely disappointed. I realize it was naïve of me, but I had imagined a beautiful spot set amidst the wilderness, so I’m taken aback to see it is the main tourist hub of the region. There are big iron gates manned by guards, railings and staircases to get down to the falls, and the place is full of little kids and old grandmothers, peddlers, hawkers, beggars and Japanese tourists. I have exactly one snap left in the camera, so I hurriedly click a picture of the falls and we head to Sagar.

The hotel we stop at in Sagar is another testament to the country’s love affair with cricket. There is another India-Pakistan match going on, and again every human being in sight is hooked to a television set. This time it is more irritating than amusing, and we have to be a bit harsh with the staff to get some service. We ultimately have a good lunch though…a little too good, apparently, as both of us start feeling the effects as we head to Shimoga. Alin finally stops and we take a nap by the roadside, where I am entertained by Alin’s gentle snores. I am amused to see people worriedly glance out of their car windows as they pass us. One guy on a bike even stops a few feet ahead and stares at us for a few moments before continuing his journey.

It grows dark after we cross Shimoga, and from then on the journey is just plain boring. It gets really cold at night and the wind cuts through my jacket, we start to feel sleepy and the only thing on our minds is reaching Bangalore and going to bed. I’ve led for the most part after sundown, as my bike, in one last burst of energy, is throwing forth an intense bright light. In the year and a half since I’ve acquired it, I’ve never known it to perform this well on a ride. As we reach Tumkur though, I am nearly asleep on my feet so I ask Alin to take over. Following his tail-light proves much easier, and he puts on a burst of speed that enables us to reach Yeshwantpur in record time.

All in all, it’s been a great ride, fulfilling just about all the expectations I had, and then some. It feels good to have explored a part of Karnataka that I’ve never seen before, and to a lesser extent, to finally have one decent breakdown free ride under my belt! This is also my first real ride with Alin after the ‘inaugural’ Hampi ride, and he’s been good fun to ride with.

Alin says it all in his final words to me “Successful ride types!”